Royalton Park Avenue

“Highly recommend”

We had a wonderful experience at The Royalton. The rooms were large and spacious. Having access to a pool on the deck was refreshing and enjoyable. Having tea up there in the morning was a great start to the day. We had one issue which management promptly took care of. We felt very cared for ... more

We had a wonderful experience at The Royalton. The rooms were large and spacious. Having access to a pool on the deck was refreshing and enjoyable. Having tea up there in the morning was a great start to the day. We had one issue which management promptly took care of. We felt very cared for and would return.

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“% stars for The Royalton”

The Royalton Park Hotel is an ammazing find for sanyone needing a great palce to stay in mid-Manhatten. The rooms are spacious, the staff is friendly, professional, and always responds to your needs immediately. The rooftop pool deck is beautiful place to relax and have a drink. Their restaurant ... more

The Royalton Park Hotel is an ammazing find for sanyone needing a great palce to stay in mid-Manhatten. The rooms are spacious, the staff is friendly, professional, and always responds to your needs immediately. The rooftop pool deck is beautiful place to relax and have a drink. Their restaurant has the most amazing food with friendly staff waiting on you. Breakfast is available in room or in the restaurant or take-out. So many options. I advise anyone who needs a beautiful place to stay to book a room at The Royalton Park Hotel Manhatten.

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“Choices Were Made”

I really wanted to like this hotel more than I did. It has a lot of things going for it but also has a few detrimental policy choices that were frustrating and took away from the enjoyment of staying there. I would not stay again unless these were addressed. THE GOOD LOCATION - The location is ... more

I really wanted to like this hotel more than I did. It has a lot of things going for it but also has a few detrimental policy choices that were frustrating and took away from the enjoyment of staying there. I would not stay again unless these were addressed. THE GOOD LOCATION - The location is terrific. At the corner of Park Avenue and 29th St, in the middle of a bustling Manhattan neighborhood close to Madison Square Park, the Empire State Building and Koreatown. Also nearby are tons of restaurants, delis, bakeries, coffee shops, banks, and lots of other retail. The subway stop for the 4 and 6 lines is less than 1 block away which is INCREDIBLY convenient. You are a 6 minute walk to a stop with the N-Q-R-W lines, and about a 12-minute walk to a stop with the 1-2-3 lines, so between those three stations you can get pretty much anywhere in the city on public transit. POOL - The pool itself is beautiful, heated, and offers amazing views of the city. It is on the smaller side which is typical for New York as few hotels even offer pools and most are small. The policies surrounding the pool are not great, as you will see below. ROOMS - The rooms are fine; ours seemed relatively clean and comfortable, and even from the 6th floor (I think it's like 20 floors overall) we had a decent view of the area. The bathrooms had some nice decor touches including a relaxing shower and a heavy wooden bathroom door with a frosted glass window. The rooms were a decent size, not large but plenty comfortable for 3 people in a 2-queen bed room. There is some street noise that made it to the room but honestly that's going to be just about everywhere in Manhattan because it is such a densely packed city with activity at all hours. It's certainly quieter than staying in Times Square. STAFF - The staff were all generally friendly and helpful and we had no big issues with staff. When the hotel charged us for a minibar purchase that we didn't make, they reversed it right away. THE 'MEH' BEDS - The beds were marginally comfortable but made a LOT of noise. I'm not referring to noise made if you participate in adult activities on the bed. The simple acts of sitting on the bed, turning over in bed, or getting up out of bed made a loud creaking noise, loud enough to wake up others in the room. I don't know if the box springs they use are faulty, but I don't think I have ever heard a louder bed in my life, and in reading other reviews it seems like this is a common problem of which management is surely aware. I can imagine it costs a lot of money to replace beds or boxsprings in each room but this is badly needed. THE VERY BAD POOL USE POLICY - We booked the hotel specifically thinking that we would be able to take our 12 year-old son swimming each night after spending a long hot day in the city. We didn't notice until well after we booked that guests under 21 years old are not allowed to use the pool area after 6pm each day. I thought that maybe this was an old policy listed on their website but was told when I called that staff are very strict on this issue and that those under 21 would not be allowed to use the pool after 6. The reason given was that the hotel sees the pool and surrounding deck area as a late-night adult-only destination. In any service business such as a hotel or restaurant, management has to find a balance between profit and guest enjoyment, and at some point, management thought it best to exclude underage guests from the pool in favor of an adult experience. They made this choice in order to maximize profit because they figured that there would be a demand for a child-free after hours experience. I could understand restricting the area after 9 or 10pm, however 6pm is certainly not after hours, particularly in a 24-hour city like New York (the pool closes at 9pm anyway). This greatly diminished the enjoyment of our hotel and from the looks of it, it is not paying off for them in increased sales either because when I went up to swim at 8pm there were maybe 3 other guests on the pool deck with me and only a handful in the adjacent pool restaurant. So from my view it seems to be a lose-lose policy, decreased guest enjoyment and no increase in profit. We would have likely ordered dinner poolside at least once if our son was allowed to join us, but as it was we went to dinner elsewhere. Additionally, there is a large rooftop deck in multiple levels, most of which seemed to go unused at least during weekday daytime hours (there is an additional restaurant/night club that may utilize it late night). On our first morning there, we got breakfast sandwiches from a local bodega and tried to eat them while seated at our lounge seats in the pool area. We were told in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed to bring outside food to the pool area as the pool area is served by the pool restaurant/bar. I have certainly stayed at many resorts with pools and have never been restricted in this way. We picked up our sandwiches and moved to the roof deck on the opposite side of the building, and learned that we were also restricted from eating outside food there (and at 10am there were no other customers outside and maybe 20 empty places to sit). I can understand needing to protect the restaurant's business, but this was ridiculous because nobody was eating there and I find it hard to believe that the 20th floor restaurant does any significant breakfast business at all, much less from those who aren't hotel guests. It's unclear whether the hotel would even allow you to sit up there and take in the view if you weren't ordering anything. We took our sandwiches and ate them in our room, which greatly diminished the enjoyment of our hotel. If one of the amenities that you are paying for in the $45 daily resort fee is the rooftop deck, it would seem that you should be able to enjoy the deck without a staff member getting snippy with you about eating there (the only staff member that gave us attitude in the hotel). Overall it is a very nice property but with some deliberate choices made by management that lessen the experience.

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