The one thing that New York is not well known for is good value Hotels. In general, Hotels are expensive and service and quality questionnable. In my attempted search for a good value Hotel for the travelling executive I ended up booking this time at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers because it was cheaper than the other Hotels by almost 100 dollars.

The website paints a nice picture and the images donot strike you as a Hotel that is infact 3 stars. The price I got was between 360-380 USD which is expensive but was cheap for New York standards. The address at 811 7th Avenue on 53rd Street, New York City, NY 10019, was very central and is within walking distance to most needs and especially if you travel for business it’s a great location.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Hotel itself. While the photos looked nice, the actual Hotel is old, the carpets fairly dirty and the window has no curtains but wooden blinds that can’t block our any light, in addition they were very dusty. The bed is reasonably comfortable, albeit a bit too soft, but the service was just downright terrible. The Hotel itself was also catering towards a low-market clientelle which was very surprising given what I thought was an expensive price tag. The business center was expensive and out-dated, the staff slow and unresponsive and when I called for the operator I had to wait around 5 minutes on the call. Other user reviews seem to echo the same experience.

All in all, this one is one to stay away from, look at the Westinn’s if you’re going to pick Starwood Hotels. Using the Trip Advisor ratings, I’d rate this one a 3.0.

As someone who travels a lot for business reasons ranging from 2 hour flights and several days stay to 18 hour flights for sometimes only 1 or 2 meetings I have found very few resources that address the kind of business travel that I do, for the kind of budgets that I travel with so I’ve put this blog up to help people like myself who need to travel well, comfortably, so that their work continues to be productive despite a harrowing work schedule!