Element New York Times Square West, A Marriott Hotel

“Nice”

I appreciated the ability to get the room way before check in time, definitely added a star for me! Breakfast was crowded but fine; hotel offered wine and cheese hour for all guests in the evenings. The room was small, of course. Climate control wasnt great, it was very stuffy in the room.

“Elevator Woes”

We stayed at the Element for three nights. For the price that we paid, it was an ok experience, but overall was a challenge for a number of reasons. Pros: price, location if you want to be near Times Square, Platinum recognition for early check in and late check out, and a kitchenette with fridge … more

We stayed at the Element for three nights. For the price that we paid, it was an ok experience, but overall was a challenge for a number of reasons. Pros: price, location if you want to be near Times Square, Platinum recognition for early check in and late check out, and a kitchenette with fridge and microwave. Cons: Elevator outages, overcrowding in elevators, overcrowding in breakfast and happy hour, and room configuration. Recommendation: if you’re going to stay here and are able to take the stairs - request a low level floor to be less reliant on inconsistent elevators. This location appears to popular with large groups which can make staying here feel chaotic - particularly during the complementary breakfast, happy hour and checkin/checkout. We were able to check in early and were upgraded to a “studio” room with the platinum status. The difference in room size listed for a standard room and a studio was around 50 square feet. A lot of that extra square footage was lost to a long hallway to enter the room. The first room we were given had a huge stain on the mattress that could be seen through the mattress cover so we asked to move after showing a picture to the front desk. We were given another room which was a little smaller but a better layout. We noticed with both rooms we were in that the bed was situated in a way that only one side of the bed had enough space to easily get in and out of. The other side of the bed was either pushed up against the wall or obstructed by the air conditioner. This made getting in and out of bed difficult if you’re sharing since you’d have to climb to the foot of the bed to get in or out. The shower didn’t drain properly because of the way the floor slopes. The water pooled at the back and wouldn’t drain since the drain was in the front of the shower. The phone in both rooms didn’t work - we really only needed to use the phone to call the front desk so we used our cell phones for that instead - which was a bit inconvenient since we had to go through the hotels menu to get to the front desk. Our room was also missing shampoo (it had two bottles of shower gel), dish soap, and a sponge. The main issue with the hotel was the elevator situation. Having read reviews on the issue we didn’t appreciate how difficult the elevator situation was. One elevator is completely unusable. Letters in the room indicated the hotel was “undergoing an elevator modernization project.”, however we never saw anyone working on the elevators. Because the hotel was down to two small elevators it was hard to get an elevator and the elevator was overcrowded. Frequently you’d stop at a number of floors where people may not be getting on or off because they pushed buttons to try to call the elevator or gave up waiting. At peak times they would turn the elevators to manual and have a staff person in the elevator to operate. This means one elevator was for guests staying on floors 2-21 and one was designated for the floors above 21. However this caused issues when trying to come down since the elevator either may skip your floor and not stop at all or the higher elevator would stop at lower level floors on the way down because the elevator wasn’t programmed for only high level floors but was based on restricting who got on the elevator. Breakfast and happy hour were also severely crowded so we did not participate in these options. As platinum members, we were granted a 4:00 on late check out, which was greatly appreciated.

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“No frills hotel”

A no frills hotel in a fairly grotty part of town. Staff were welcoming but only 2 lifts working, so extremely long waits to go up/down. This was a huge bug-bear of every guest we met. Had to use the stairs some mornings - not great 20 floors up, with a metal ankle! Surprised they chose Thanksgivi… more

A no frills hotel in a fairly grotty part of town. Staff were welcoming but only 2 lifts working, so extremely long waits to go up/down. This was a huge bug-bear of every guest we met. Had to use the stairs some mornings - not great 20 floors up, with a metal ankle! Surprised they chose Thanksgiving week to have one being serviced! Breakfast was very average …hot food was lukewarm at best & muffins one morning were only just defrosted! Room…air con & fridge noisy. Cramped with both bed pushed up against walls. window kept very little outdoor noise out & let in a fair amount of fresh air! To access the hotel you need to walk down a road with several vagrants -not pleasant for anyone but especially females & children. Close to Hudson Yards - 10 min walk - which is lovely!

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