Best Western Plus Soho Hotel — Hotel in New York

Best Western Plus Soho is a hotel located in Chinatown. Maybe they should call it Soho Adjacent.

The Good

The location is fine; around the corner from the Canal St station (NQRJ6WZ trains). So for a tourist, this is an easy ride to the theater district, museums, central park, etc.

It's nearby a 7-11 (however, many homeless hang out in front). Chinatown restaurants, a Popeyes, and a Chinese bakery are a block or two away. Au Cheval, a restaurant with an alley entrance off Walker that has been voted to have the best bar burger in NYC is nearby. It was 30 bucks, and it was fine but overrated.

The hotel was new and clean, so everything was working. Even though it is not on the website, the hotel does have a small gym. . Good water pressure

Coffee in the Lobby 24/7

The front desk staff throughout the day and night were nice.

The main door requires a keycard after 10 pm. There is a lobby security person at night.

The Meh

I found that the breakfast was stocked and clean at the start of breakfast. However, there were no muffins, bagels, or any pastries throughout my six days here. Only on two days was white bread available. When I came to the breakfast later in the morning, almost everything had not been restocked, and plenty was gone.

The maids seemed put out that I wasn't leaving the room in the morning. Multiple early knocks on the door. Also, they kept turning off or resetting the heat when they came through to clean.

$50 per day deposit. This seems excessive. Note my entire stay was paid for, and I doubt anyone ever buys the 21 items available in their mini-store, especially when there is a 24/7 7-11 around the corner.

Bad

The heating and A/C thermostat were set too low for the winter; the room was never warm but cold. I suspect in the summer; it is set too high.

No soundproofing of the rooms with the street. While Walker Street isn't necessarily busy, there were some loud vehicles throughout the night.

There is no closet but hooks to hang up stuff on. There is only one small drawer to put your stuff in. The room is the size of an interior stateroom on a cruise ship. There is no storage underneath the bed.

The light switch to turn off the lights above the bed can't be reached from the bed. It forces you to get out of...

My two stars are only because the staff is so nice and accommodating. That's where the good stops. The most glaring of all the bad things about this room, 1) YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE OF YOUR ROOM. There is a locked box covering the temperature controls, never in my life, even at the worst hotels in NYC have I seen a lock box over the temp control 2) Our window is broken off it's tracks so it feels very unsafe and it feels unsafe to open because you could litterally fall out of the window. 3) the toilet is barely connected to the floor, and the toilet seat is installed about 2 inches off center which makes for a very uncomfortable experience using it. 4) the pipes are rusted which results in orange water coming out of the faucets for the first couple of seconds of the water running. 5) the TV hardly works, and the TV remote is nearly completely broken. 6) the wifi is really bad. 7) the doors SLAM shut so incredibly loudly, so you can hear people loudly leaving their rooms at all hours of the day and night. 8)walls are paper thin, could hear neighbors all hours of day and night. 9) your "view" is a brick wall, you actually have to strain to see the sky. 10)water heater needs adjustment, I've nearly burned the skin off my hands several times just trying to use warm water to wash my hands. 11) the cleaning staff shouts to each other in the hallways, and with how thin the walls are it is very frustrating. Most people staying here are on a different time zone than people living in NYC, so whenever I choose to sleep I should be able to sleep. 3x I've been woken up by cleaning staff yelling outside my door. 12) I think they also need to revise the protocol for opening up the door when they do come in for house keeping. They'll quickly knock twice and then IMMEDIATELY open the door. What if I'm brushing my teeth naked? Having sex? Having a shower? They'll just walk right in. They need to have a protocol of waiting at least a few seconds so that people can shout back that they need a second so no one gets...

Pros: Staff is extremely kind and courteous. We didn't need much from them but all interactions we had were good. We arrived a little early and our room was unavailable. They held onto our bags while we went out and about until our room was ready. The hotel is very clean. We enjoyed the buffet breakfast. We stay at Best Westerns all the time when we travel and this breakfast was similar to all the other ones. We appreciate that it comes with the price of our room.

Cons: The price for what you get is quite the mismatch. I know this is probably technically in SoHo but it's also right next to Canal St and Chinatown which is super sketchy. This was a con for us but probably a pro for others: they allow pets and unfortunately we had a dog in our hallway who barked much of the night. The beds are very tiny. My husband went down to the front desk to double-check that our bed was an actual queen. It felt more like a fullsize bed. It was also extremely hard. The bedding itself was nice and soft, but the mattress was too firm (I'm a firm mattress lover for context). The rooms are very oddly designed and small but manageable for two people who don't have a lot of stuff. The bathroom is small but again, manageable. We lived in a busy part of Boston for many years and are used to noises outside (public transportation, people, cars honking, etc.) but nothing could prepare us for the amount of people yelling, literally yelling, outside at all hours of the night and the sound of trucks backing up on the street. Obviously this isn't the hotel's fault and there's nothing they can do about it, but it's just a heads up for others. If you're a light or normal sleeper, you'll be up all night.

We will stay at Best Western moving forward because their staff is always friendly and their hotels are always clean. However, we wouldn't stay here mainly because of the price, location, and discomfort with the...