Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel

The location is still great, but returning to this hotel with our children a few weeks ago was a letdown. We stayed here 20 years ago on our first New York visit, and remembered it as stylish, luxurious, and high end. This time it wasn’t anything like that first experience. Our room was tiny, with two smallish double beds that weren’t the usual US twin-room standard for four people. Everything felt tired and dated. The bathroom appeared clean, but had cracked tiles, peeling paint, and white gloss surfaces that had turned yellow-beige. The lifts were a nightmare for four days. They seemed fine in the first few, when the hotel was quiet, but one morning we waited over an hour. The system has you enter your floor on a screen, which assigns a lift. You can’t just use another one, because it won’t stop at your floor. That morning, it kept sending us to the same lift, which was full, until we finally got an empty one after 1 hour 5 minutes. The same thing happened most nights when we returned. This would be awful if you had a plane to catch or somewhere booked. Our room keys also kept failing whenever we returned at the end of the day. We then had another long wait for the lifts to go down to reception and get the cards fixed. Our passports were in the room safe, so we couldn’t get ID either. There was no apology, courtesy credit, or other gesture to make up for it. At checkout, we noticed a charge for someone else’s evening bar spend. We hadn’t used the bar, only had breakfast at the Starbucks, so knew it wasn’t ours. It was a small amount, and my husband couldn’t be bothered to wait and sort it out, so he paid. We’d already spent 59 minutes waiting for the lift again. It’s a shame because the location is so good, but everything else let the hotel down. We won’t recommend it. There are plenty of similarly priced New York hotels in good locations that are more up to date and have better facilities.

Michelle at the front desk was wonderful. She moved us to a second room after the first rooms were well below par, and later moved us away from all the chaos and broken-down rooms. She understood how disappointed we were, apologized, waived our fees for each night, and gave us vouchers for the restaurant. She stayed professional and took care of us. Sheridan should be grateful for her, and should do better about cleaning and the hotel’s issues. The room, number 2008, was awful: the bathroom wall was coming apart, there was a bubble in the bedroom wall, the sheets and sham were dirty, and the tub had black spots and mold around it. There was no mini fridge or microwave. Rude, unsupervised students were running through the halls, banging on walls, and making a racket. We arrived early in the morning, but check-in wasn’t until 4pm and we couldn’t get in early. The first gentleman who helped us wasn’t kind or professional, and didn’t ask for our number so he could call when a room was ready. I checked twice, then asked another woman at 131 if we could check in. She said yes, she had a room available. That’s when we ran into all the noise from the kids and the horrible, gross room. Thank goodness for Michelle’s understanding and help. Please do better, Sheridan.

The location is the big plus: it’s in midtown, near Times Square, shopping, and Central Park, with the train station right around the corner. The hotel itself feels very dated. The rooms were old, and the carpet smelled like my grandma’s house. Lines at the front desk were always very long, likely because the location is so popular. There’s one shared microwave per floor by the elevators. The elevators broke down many times while I was there, and I was on the 22nd floor. Floors below 21 use a different set of elevators, so I had to take the lower-level ones and climb two flights of stairs, or do the reverse going down. After I’d been up all night, engineering knocked on my door between 10:30am and noon on another day to replace an outlet socket or a vent. There were also fire drills around lunchtime on other days. It was just insane. I had Amazon packages sent there, and was charged $4 for each one to get the box, even though they weren’t heavy. One was a 3.5-ounce cream, the maximum allowed when flying, and the other was a box of hair scrunchies. The hotel has an onsite Starbucks that closes early, a gift shop, a breakfast spot, and a bar called “The lobby.” My room had a blood stain; when I went downstairs to change rooms, they put me in a smaller one that felt claustrophobic. I had bleach wipes with me and said they could put me back in the dirty room, since I’d clean it myself. Front desk staff had that NY kind of attitude, where they can sound rude but that’s just how they are. The mailroom ladies were rude in general, especially a young woman who worked there. The housekeeper was the nicest person of all. I loved her. I also saw expos and meetings going on there all week.

The $35 nightly dining charge plus a 15% service fee felt hard to accept when the food was poor, and one meal even tasted stale. The rates don't line up with what you get here, and the location alone shouldn't account for the ratings. Elevators often took 5 to 10 minutes to arrive. The rooms are tiny, which I can understand for this area, but there was no proper glassware, cutlery, slippers, or dental kit, and housekeeping didn't replenish the tea. This was one of the weakest Marriott stays I've had.