Park Central, New York City

The Park Central Hotel New York is in a brilliant location on 56th and 7th right in the centre of everything. A 10 minute walk downtown brings you to Times Square, 2 blocks uptown takes you to Central Park, 5th Avenue shopping is just 1 or 2 blocks to the east and a subway station 20 seconds away to take you to wherever else you want to go. Carnegie Hall is directly opposite and the Rockefeller Centre is less than 10 minutes away. The hotel is surrounded by gift shops and cafes and there's a nice little Irish bar just opposite. The location really couldn't get any better.

When we first arrived it was difficult for us for find but that was only because we didn't have a map with us and because the grid system is so confusing at first. We were walking up and down for about 20 minutes until we eventually came across it at practically the same place where we started!

The 3.5* hotel looks great from the outside with its revolving doors and door men and the reception and lobby area inside is splashed out in marble and looks very classy. We felt a bit trampy arriving in our comfy trousers and trainers looking hot and exhausted from the 8 hour flight and from lugging our suitcases through the streets!

We were checked in quickly and shown where the elevators were up to our room. No one came to help us with our cases though which we were expecting.

Our room was nice and big which I hear is unusual for New York hotel rooms so we were pleased with that. We did have 2 double beds in the room which was strange as we only needed the one but that didn't bother us we just used one as a bed and one as a big sofa. The TV was absolutely huge! It's by far the biggest one I've ever had in a hotel. They had some great TV channels including news, sports, a lot of Spanish channels(?) and the best channel which showed comedy stuff like The King of Queens and Judge Judy. We also had a small table and a couple of chairs, a big desk, a phone and a digital alarm clock. The bathroom was very clean and they provided good bath products and lotions.

My husband used the gym a few times which he said was good.

I looked at all the hotel's in this area that had a good location and this was one of the cheapest ones. Although still, admittedly, very expensive, prices are good for a central New York hotel. We paid $1,400 for the week but this wasn't including breakfast (I wouldn't book breakfast here as it's pretty pricey at about £18 a day). At the time I booked it, in August 08, the exchange rate made it about £800. However, as you only reserve the room when you book and you actually pay at the end of your stay, with the new exchange rate in March 09, this worked out to be a lot more at just over £1,000. I wasn't very happy but what can you do that's not the hotel's fault!

We only had a couple of problems with the hotel which was that our toilet blocked twice and once it even overflowed which the maid had a fun job of clearing up. We didn't ask for it to be fixed as it happened late at night and by the morning it had cleared itself. Also, some of the staff were a bit miserable some of the time. Some of them were very helpful and friendly though and helped us out whenever we needed something. The concierge desk staff were also helpful in any advice we needed about the city and activities. One other thing that annoyed me was that after I made my reservation I emailed them 3 times with a couple of queries but no one ever got back to me so I eventually had to call them. But my queries were dealt with very well and quickly over the phone. The lifts were also a little slow as there were only 2 lifts for all the floors but they were working on improving these while we were there.

I would definitely recommend this hotel as it's one of the cheapest you'll find and it's very modern and the location is just perfect.