Location: 8/10 Let's face it basically anywhere you stay in Manhattan is going to be in a decent location for attractions. You can pick up the subway at almost every street corner and there are taxis everywhere. This specific location is literally a five mini walk from Penn Plaza which is the home of Madison Square Garden. To put it mildly, it doesn't get much better then this, you are smack dab in the middle of the fashion district with Fashion Ave a block to the left. With this location comes some typical NYC cautions. After dark outside the street the hotel is on can be dark and uninviting from a security standpoint, however this is NYC. There are always people out walking around and there are tons of apartments in the area over looking the street, so it's not horrible. Take caution after concerts, games or entertainment functions occurring at the Garden, it can get very "festive" depending on the event being held.
The Hotel Itself: 6/10 I am always a tough person to please, mostly because I stay at so many hotels in a few weeks time. The hotel itself was built in late 2010 and opened in early 2011, so everything is relatively new. The hotel was built during the big hotel boom occurring in lower NYC, which includes a competitive and equally sized Hilton Garden Inn adjacent to the Fairfield. The entrance to the hotel is nice, small but functional. Towards the back is the breakfast area along with the Internet Cafe machines. See my review below for words on the breakfast, etc.
On to the room, I had the "City View" package which puts you in the front of the hotel for two weeks in a row. Killer view of the Empire State Building, the higher the room floor the better the view. No complaints with this, however it gets noisy. The front rooms have dual shades that includes a shade plus a noise canceling insulated shade on the outter side which does help substantially but not enough. If you need quiet ask for a room in the back of the hotel, if this doesn't work, bring some noise canceling headphones or even better stay in New Jersey.
The showers are full glass with fake marble printed tiles and nicely designed sink area, albeit on a small and tight scale, this is NYC which is to be expected. No more then 2 midsized people in the bathroom at a time. The shower is actually quite large, almost half the size of the bathroom itself which begs to question the design choice. The toliet is always in the way with a tiny sink and huge shower. Not sure what the designers were thinking on that one, again, I am being very particular about this!
I had two different rooms on each of my week stays at this hotel. The first hotel had a bathroom door that seemed to have been forgetton about during the assemble stage. You have be behind the toliet and angled in a certain position to close the door or it will whack you in the face, knees or legs. Better yet, we are talking about maybe an inch between the door closing and the toliet, make sure no one tries opening the door while you are doing your business or you going for a ride with a few choice words on the way down. A pocket door would have solved this completely, and there even seemed to be plenty of room for on in the wall. Be careful on the nightly runs to toliet too, it gets worse in the dark!
The second stay I was on the opposite side of the hotel with a slightly different layout with a much more functional door and bathroom layout, but still had a huge shower with a rain shower head, nice, but still odd design choice and questionable functionality.
The Staff/Checkin-Checkout Process: 5/10 The arkielles heal for this hotel is its front desk staff. It's not that they aren't helpful, they are too busy. At some points there was only one person working the counter for a hotel with 200 rooms in downtown Manhattan? Unacceptable. They need two people working at all times at the front desk, especially during the morning and afternoon hours when guests are checking in.
The checkout process was fine for me each time, basically handing my key card to the person and walking out. This included stepping in front of a line of four people checking in. The needs for a faster checkin/out process can't be stressed more. Another issue is the elevators are directly in front of the front desk. This makes it challenging when people are lined up at the front desk, getting it of the elevator with luggage and maneuvering around people with their own luggage is not fun. On the other side of the coin, placing the evelvator on the other side, exiting in the breakfast area poses another problem, a very narrow corridor to bring bags through to the front. So I guess this a typical design challenge when you have very little room to work with in NYC. You will always have an issue or problem somewhere design choices have to be made. It works, just not well!!
Breakfast/Coffee/Internet Access 4/10 Yes that's a four! I was very disappointed in the breakfast layout at this hotel. I have stayed in many Fairfield Hotels and they usually do a good job with the continental breakfast. The problem with this location was specifically the layout! Items are all over the place in the breakfast room with what looks to be last minute shelving installed and questionable placement of every single item. Zero flow in this area, when I am up at 6AM and want a nice NYC bagel it shouldn't take me 10 minutes to walk around the room to find a knife, then the cream cheese. If you want a coffee that's at another location in a small tiny corner, one person at a time in this area to get coffee, yes, I said one person. Wait until 8AM when ten people want coffee, failed design choice on this. The food was fine and typical Fairfield items served, nothing to knock your socks off and the coffee was drinkable "Cheap" Starbucks.
Internet- Blatent FAIL. I actually reported this directly to Marriott corporate. If you have a hotel in the busiest city in the world, with the utmost best location, the LAST thing you skip on is the Internet access. Speed tests were horrible, 1.5MB/1MB up in the morning with hardly cracking dial up speeds in the evening. Come on Marriott, this is NYC you HAVE NO EXCUSE not to have the best or at least a corporate connection for the location. If you have work to do take a walk down to Panera Bread a half block away, they have Fios 20/10 line that smokes.
Final Words: 6/10 I am going to admit, I was especially hard on this review. I am sure many other long term customers may not find my issues nearly as bad. This was straight from a weekly traveler that has had his fair share of noise dives in NYC. I think overall, even with a 6, this hotel is great. Why? It's location saves it from complete failure. No, not its location in terms of placement but because its IN NYC and many other hotels are just ten times worse unless you pay big bucks. With that said, the place is still new, and I really think with some corporate changes such as faster Internet, more personel at the front desk (STOP PUTTING ME ON HOLD!!!), a redesign on the breakfast layout and finally, please, for the love of all will someone at Marriott corporate get rid of the Starbucks coffee?! Have you ever heard of Green Mountain???
Bottom Line: Nice hotel, couple issues that can be resolved by management or corporate. RFID key cards which are super cool. Great beds and clean rooms. Noisy in the front, as expected. Will stay here again and see if they improve with (one) persons honest review. Oh and get better coffee. Safe travels all.
