Arena Hotel — Hotel in New York

I wanted to chime in on my experience here since the reviews seem really mixed.

I stayed here for 2 nights, and say that I have an overall positive experience. The people at the front desk are friendly and helpful, the rooms are clean, comfortable, and relatively quiet- although consideration must be given to the fact that we stayed on the "C" level which is basically the basement level. On top of that, our room was towards the back of the hotel, so we couldn't hear the train, which was a concern of mine.

The hotel is in a rather sketchy part of town, and it's not an area I would feel comfortable letting my girlfriend walk around alone at night; however, during the day, it's fine. The nostrand A train is right across the street, and the nostrand C train is just a couple blocks away. It's about a 25-35 minute train ride into Manhattan (Times Square/Central Park.)

The reason it has 4 stars and not 5 is due to the area, but the fact that after our first night, the house cleaning didn't close our door all the way after cleaning the room. When I returned to the room, I noticed it was cracked opened slightly and I was able to open the door by just pushing on it. I'm sure it was an honest mistake, but it was a mistake that could've resulted in someone coming into our room and stealing our stuff, which wouldn't have been great since we had two macbook pro laptops, etc etc.

One thing that really impressed me was actually the security guard standing in the lobby. It was around 10:30pm our first night, and we didn't want to drive and give up our parking spot (the parking is limited... extremely limited... there's only about 8 parking spots or so in the back) to go out to grab some food, but we were starving, so I ordered delivery from some nearby soul food place (which was equally as sketchy looking, but was surprisingly amazing... will do a review on them shortly.) Anyhoo, so I ordered the food, and as the driver was getting near, he gave me a call to come up and meet him. I went up, but he seemed a bit lost, so I stood outside of the hotel to wait for him. While I was waiting, the security guard inside the lobby came outside to check on me and make sure everything was ok (make sure I wasn't getting mugged or raped.) He stood outside with me for the next several minutes until the delivery guy arrived and went back into the hotel. I thought this was incredibly thoughtful and really did make me feel safer about standing out there on my own. It was a seemingly small gesture, but was greatly appreciated.

Overall, I had a good experience at the hotel. I can't say I'd ever come back- not because of the service or quality of the hotel, but because of the area itself. Had the hotel been located in another area, I would without a...

The only things I will give this place credit for is the fact that they were able to fit me in last minute and the room was incredibly clean.... however....I was in town for summer slam last weekend and I had tons of plans all day on Saturday... The hotel had originally put me in one room with double beds and they were going to switch us over to a king size bed the following night ....since I was going to be running around all day on Saturday I called the front desk and asked can we just stay in the room with the double beds and the girl at the front desk told us that was fine ....fast forward a few hours later I start getting calls from hotel management asking me why I wasn't there to switch my room I explain to them that I had events I was going to go all day and I wasn't sure what time I was going to be back so I told them I would do the best I can even though to be honest I had no intentions of doing that because I had already asked to stay in the one room then fast forward a few hours later I get a call telling me because I didn't get back in time they were going to go into my room when I wasn't there and pack up all my belongings and move us to the other room I had tons of personal belongings that no one had any business in seeing just iPads ...phones... computer other stuff that people have no business getting near and it felt like a complete disrespect for my privacy....not to mention this building has next to zero parking for the amount of rooms it has.... If you're lucky hint hint wink wink I mean not lucky at all you get to park on the sidewalk right in front of the hotel at night time in that stellar neighborhood. Not to mention the final morning that we were supposed to check out I get a phone call at 7 AM telling me that my car was getting a ticket put on it because of where I was allowed to park the previous night before the people at this hotel are not very good at customer service....I urge you to not stay here because you...

WORST Experience of my whole life I waited for an hour and 40 minutes and the front desk representative started cursing at me. So firstly she could not find my confirmation even though she printed it out herself and put it on the side she said my name and my reservation was in there OK and then she just became hostile and behave aggressively and just was horrible and provided no assistance she didn’t even know how to look up my information even though I gave her all my information and my confirmation email to her while she was speaking to the customer service representative when she called them she hung up the phone in front of me and she said she was too busy to talk to customer service because it’s a busy night. Meanwhile I’m waiting for her she takes care of another customer on the phone and leaves me there like I am invisible. Her name is Rose I believe I don’t know because she didn’t have a name tag how wonderful and while she was helping of the other gentleman in front of me she smiled at him and then she says she put a fan in her face right away she was so fake I’ve never seen such an emotional and just very irresponsible human being in my life. She had no training whatsoever she had no idea what she’s doing and she made it seem like it’s my fault she’s not even checking the system properly and she’s going back-and-forth and back-and-forth and then another customer called and complained to her and she was like listen I’m trying to do the best I can but I can’t even deal with the other customers right now and she was referring to me how dare she.If the manager is reading this please call me or contact me via email Ok the reservation was made for tonight. Just in case I have I canceled my booking and I will never come back there but if you would still like to contact me Look for the canceled booking for tonight and you will find my information.People save your money...