DoubleTree by Hilton New York Midtown Fifth Ave — Hotel in New York

Should Not be Allowed a Hotel Operating License

This hotel property on W. 51st Street in New York was recently acquired by DoubleTree/Hilton, and, in my opinion, should not have been granted a certificate-of-occupancy during its renovation. In short, this hotel is not ready for prime time.

Staff and Housekeeping On the positive side, the staff members, housekeepers, and food servers were very friendly, professional, and attentive. Plus, the housekeeping staff cleaned the room on a daily basis, which was a pleasant surprise from our other recent hotel stays.

Ongoing Construction Many of the floors were still under construction, so there was a lot of noise and dust. Even the rooms that were supposedly finished and being sold as guest rooms were not fully completed.

Compounding the problems of ongoing construction while guests were occupying rooms on “finished” floors was that there was only one working elevator for the 26-floor hotel. The walls of that elevator car were covered with dusty, moving pads since the single elevators was shared among guests, hotel staff (along with their cleaning carts), and construction workers (along with raw materials, tools, and debris). Consequently, the wait for an elevator could take 10-20 minutes; even then, guests had to be careful not to brush up against the pads on the walls so as not to get dust on their clothes.

At check-in, I initially was a bit disappointed that we were assigned a room on the second floor for our seven-night stay. However, since the wait for the elevator was often quite long, it was easier to just walk up the stairways to our room. That said, the stairways would often have room trash and construction debris, which was not only unsightly, but also dangerous and probably in violation of New York’s Fire Code.

Rooms Like most New York hotels, the rooms in the DoubleTree are quite small. Due to the footprint of the building, the room sizes and shapes vary quite a bit. Do not rely on the hotel website photos since many rooms do not have the featured facilities, e.g., desks, bathroom shelves, or bedside tables.

The room had a sickeningly sweet smell, somewhat like the room fresheners used in gas-station restrooms. Only after several days did we discover a (thankfully, clean) cut-up piece of a scented urinal drain strainer deliberately inserted into the vents of the heating/air conditioning unit as an “air freshener,” we suppose. Disgusting!

Bathroom Additionally, our room was not fully complete with regard to basic requirements. There were no towel bars or hooks in the bathroom, so there was no place to hang a damp towel after use. There was not a trash bin in the bathroom. The shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel bottles, which had wall mounts attached to the containers, were not installed on the walls. Instead, they were left on the small shower shelf, leaving almost no room for personal items.

Despite New York’s having exceptional water quality, there was a slightly moldy smell to the water coming from the shower-head.

Sleeping/Working Area The bed itself was quite comfortable, but that didn’t offset the other problems with the room.

The rooms lights were motion-activated, so when we were reading in bed or working on the (tiny) table that served as a desk, the lights would turn off. Since the motion sensor was located next to the entry door, one of us would have to physically get up and walk to the entryway to get the lights to turn back on. Conversely, when one of us got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, the room lights would turn on, awakening the other person. We ended up having to hang a coat on the entry door hardware to cover the motion sensor when we were going to sleep.

There was only one night-table with storage space, with the other being a small, open table. There was no desk, only a tiny table with a small chair.

There was an inadequate number of electrical outlets, one of which didn’t work at all.

Conclusion I would NOT recommend staying...

I would not stay here if it was free. This hotel is not safe or clean. We are Diamond member that stays in Hiltons all over the world. The stay here was terrible. The manager should be fired. ||The basic requirements of a hotel are security and cleanliness. I attached a photo of the door frame. The door would not close all the way. The entire door lock striker plate was gone. You had to slam the door shut and the door would still not seat correctly. ||To exacerbate this issue, we were put on the 7th floor, the same floor as the restaurant. Throughout the day and night staff and customers would come through the hallway. We had a restaurant customer knock on our door looking for the restroom. At one point a contractor knocked on the door looking to repair the television, which we never requested. ||Another night I woke up after midnight having “cotton mouth”. This was due to the excessive marijuana that was being smoked on the floor. The next morning the adjacent room acknowledged that they had the same issue and said it was not them. A photo of the fire door that was directly outside of our room that was not secured, next to the elevator, where anyone from the street could just enter the floor. It was open and closed all the time making it impossible to sleep. Photo attached. ||The cleanliness was atrocious. We had a sleeper for our 12 year old daughter. We called down for two hours trying to get bedding. Finally, someone from the front desk came up with bedding but no pillows, as they were out. When we opened the hide-a-bed, it had old sheets, used towels and Kleenex on the mattress. At no point did housekeeping make any attempt to clean the sofa. We literally took all the used bedding and threw it in the hallway. ||On top of these two significant issues, here are some of the other issues we had. The last night it rained hard. I could hear water dripping and sure enough the ceiling in the closet /storage area had water coming down. I attached a photo. Fortunately, I heard this at 4:00 in the morning and was able to move the suitcase and clothing away before they were damaged. The toilet stopped up and maintenance had to come up. At least that was quick. ||Lastly the elevator situation is as every other review state, it is unnecessary slow. There is no freight or employee elevator. When employees need to go from one floor to another, they use the same elevator as the guest. After waiting 20 minutes for the elevator, it is always full, including workers and contractors. Multiple times the employees would go from one floor to just one floor above or below with nothing in their hands when they could simply take the stairs. We saw one guest fall up the stairs after they gave up waiting for the elevators. ||We had other issues but you get the point, the manager clearly is incompetent. They should not be in hotel management. It is only a matter of time before a guest is seriously hurt or ill...

I would not stay here if it was free. This hotel is not safe or clean. We are Diamond member that stays in Hiltons all over the world. The stay here was terrible. The manager should be fired. The basic requirements of a hotel are security and cleanliness. I attached a photo of the door frame. The door would not close all the way. The entire door lock striker plate was gone. You had to slam the door shut and the door would still not seat correctly. To exacerbate this issue, we were put on the 7th floor, the same floor as the restaurant. Throughout the day and night staff and customers would come through the hallway. We had a restaurant customer knock on our door looking for the restroom. At one point a contractor knocked on the door looking to repair the television, which we never requested. Another night I woke up after midnight having “cotton mouth”. This was due to the excessive marijuana that was being smoked on the floor. The next morning the adjacent room acknowledged that they had the same issue and said it was not them. A photo of the fire door that was directly outside of our room that was not secured, next to the elevator, where anyone from the street could just enter the floor. It was open and closed all the time making it impossible to sleep. Photo attached. The cleanliness was atrocious. We had a sleeper for our 12 year old daughter. We called down for two hours trying to get bedding. Finally, someone from the front desk came up with bedding but no pillows, as they were out. When we opened the hide-a-bed, it had old sheets, used towels and Kleenex on the mattress. At no point did housekeeping make any attempt to clean the sofa. We literally took all the used bedding and threw it in the hallway. On top of these two significant issues, here are some of the other issues we had. The last night it rained hard. I could hear water dripping and sure enough the ceiling in the closet /storage area had water coming down. I attached a photo. Fortunately, I heard this at 4:00 in the morning and was able to move the suitcase and clothing away before they were damaged. The toilet stopped up and maintenance had to come up. At least that was quick. Lastly the elevator situation is as every other review state, it is unnecessary slow. There is no freight or employee elevator. When employees need to go from one floor to another, they use the same elevator as the guest. After waiting 20 minutes for the elevator, it is always full, including workers and contractors. Multiple times the employees would go from one floor to just one floor above or below with nothing in their hands when they could simply take the stairs. We saw one guest fall up the stairs after they gave up waiting for the elevators. We had other issues but you get the point, the manager clearly is incompetent. They should not be in hotel management. It is only a matter of time before a guest is seriously hurt or ill...