Paramount, New York City

...with the staff at the Paramount, as we did not eat there and only spoke to them upon checking in and out! But from those two experiences I would they say they were perfectly helpful, nothing for me to complain about!

Overall I would recommend a stay here and I think this is the perfect hotel for sightseeing and shopping (more of the latter in my case!) as you don’t have to travel far from the hotel to be by all the main shops and restaurants ...
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Thanks for reading!

Booking (I have added this in as requested from a Ciao user)

I flew with Virgin Atlantic, and went through last minute.com. I think (the trip was a birthday present) it cost aorund £1000. But that included tickets to Broadway. Hope that helps!  ... more

I stayed at The Paramount Hotel in early December 2006 with my partner for a 3 night break.

This was the first time I had been to America, and I can easily say that I loved every minute of it!

The Hotel:

The paramount is a large hotel right in the middle of a West 46th Street (right off Time Square!), at first we didn’t notice it, all the buildings are so tall it can be difficult trying to work our where they are signposted, but our taxi driver knew the way and we got there fairly easily. I must take this opportunity to add that as it was the ‘Holiday Season’ with Christmas fast approaching NY had taken and embraced this and it was spectacular to look at! Everything was lit up, sparkling and it was never dark! So yes, go in December!!
But back to the hotel, first impressions were good, the lobby was like none I had ever seen before, chequered black and white carpet with a large sweeping staircase up to the restaurant and bar and some of the most obscure chairs I had ever seen! But check in was fairly easy, and we were pointed in the direction of the lifts to take us to our rooms. The lifts came up onto our floor, and as you step out of the lifts directly opposite you there is a odd mirror that tells you what the weather is going to be like for that day, another of Paramount’s quirky features, We also noticed that all the carpets in the hallways were water stained but this was not that noticeable and didn’t not reflect the state of the rooms so no worry there for us. There is also a bar and returant in the hotel, both were popular although I didnt use them.

The Room:

If you look at the pictures of the rooms this may give you an idea of what I mean when I go into detail about this.
Firstly, the rooms were quite small, even for me and I’m not that fussy, but this is New York and every centimetre is worth a lot of money so I think this would have been the case wherever we stayed!
The rooms had the same chequered carpet, and as you walked through our door there was an adequate wardrobe on our right, with the bathroom door on our left, through that part of the bedroom we came to a table and chair placed at the end of our bed. The bed was quite hard with two pretty flimsy pillows, but after a day in NY nothing will stop you having good nights sleep! And in case you haven’t seen the pictures of the bedrooms above every bed there is a HUGE portrait of a person as your headboard…I’m not too sure what words could describe this better than that!! It also had a window to the left of the bed and a cabinet with the TV and mini-bar next to that. So overall fine for 3 nights and exactly what you would expect for a three star! On the bad side, the heating in our rooms was a bit dodgy, with my partner being electrocuted a few times from the switch trying to turn it on/up etc. But eventually it seemed to work! The view out of our window was really good, I think whatever you can see it would be impressive, although we weren’t facing a street, just seeing all the high rise buildings and the odd ‘lift’ style car parks hidden away is interesting to watch. The noise from the thousands of taxis beeping wasn’t annoying, I quite liked it, it seemed to remind me of where I was!!

The Bathroom:

The bathroom was very modern with a funny ‘triangular’ sink, it was quite compact with the signature chequered black and white tiles on the floor. The shower wasn’t the best I have ever had, the curtain was a little worse for wear, and the showerhead had a small lime scale problem and would leak over the floor when you showered, but if you can oversee those problems and the issue of limited space then you are on to a winner!

Location:

Now the location of Paramount was it biggest asset! It was a 30 second walk from the centre of Time Square - you couldn’t get closer, so it really was perfect!! As you walk down the street towards Time Square there are ways of cutting through all the streets, and the street down from ours (through what I could describe as an alleyway, except it was probably twice the size of my road with hotels, restaurants and a theatre!) you can cut straight through to Broadway so this is perfect for seeing any shows. Next door to the hotel was a tiny, typically American pizzeria, just for takeaways and made very good pizzas and garlic dough balls –a must have! Next door to that was a scientology church, which was interesting as it seemed to play some rather entertaining ‘brainwashing’ DVDs all day, much to our amusement! Also attached to the hotel through a side entrance along with the main entrance off the street was a delicatessen called ‘Dean and Deluca’. I think that this is quite a well renowned place to eat, the food was certainly pricey and I personally wouldn’t recommend it!

The Staff:

I’m afraid that I had minimal interaction with the staff at the Paramount, as we did not eat there and only spoke to them upon checking in and out! But from those two experiences I would they say they were perfectly helpful, nothing for me to complain about!

Overall I would recommend a stay here and I think this is the perfect hotel for sightseeing and shopping (more of the latter in my case!) as you don’t have to travel far from the hotel to be by all the main shops and restaurants which is brilliant! Please ask if you would like to know more!

Thanks for reading!

Booking (I have added this in as requested from a Ciao user)

I flew with Virgin Atlantic, and went through last minute.com. I think (the trip was a birthday present) it cost aorund £1000. But that included tickets to Broadway. Hope that helps! 

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