Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Your staying in a historic Art Deco landmark ! |
| Disadvantages: |
Service could be better . . . . |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
I had a very lucky trip to NYC Summer 2005. Lucky, because I went thru Priceline, and cheekily asked for a 5 star hotel, in August, for 5 nights, in downtown NYC for £75 a night! I ended up in the Waldorf Astoria!!!
I've stayed in NYC for business before, and I knew to expect small rooms and spend a lot of money. Here, I was staying in the most historic hotel in the US, oozing Art Deco chic from every corner.
Your first impression of the
hotel is it's impressive Park Avenue frontage, seen many times in movies. The entrance and reception area is stunning . The clock in the reception hall, a stunning timepiece, shows you that this is no ordinary hotel.
Reception was quick and pain free, and we were in our room in minutes. And a lovely room it was. A massive king size bed, with the requested cot bed from my daughter. There was a walk in closet, that was huge! The bathroom looked very art deco, and I was a little worried the plumbing might not be up to standard, but there wasn't a problem. I've stayed at the Hyatt Regency 5 star in NYC in the past, and it was a box in style and size compared to the Waldorf.
We had a fax machine in our room, which I had to use due to a mixup with our car rental company. It didn't work, and it took 2 days for the service guys to get it working for me. I was really getting annoyed by this. And it's probably the only complaint I had about the hotel.
The lobby is a great people watching place. While we were there, we watched the spectacular entrance of a Jewish wedding party being held in the hotel. Richard Gere was filming a movie, The Hoax, for two days. And we had tennis stars being whisked off to matches at Flushing Meadows for the US Open.
We didn't eat at the hotel, as we had so much things we wanted to do outside. It was really somewhere to rest and sleep. I'd love to go back there, and would highly recommend it!
