Element New York Times Square West — Hotel in New York

I think the question most hotels want the answer to after you have stayed with them is, Would you recommend us and would you come back?|If the answer to either of these questions is NO then the hotel has a problem or they don't cause they don't care as they already have your money.||I will say that in terms of location this hotel is ideally placed, it wasn't overly expensive compared to other hotels in the area, it had free wifi a small kitchenette in the room (brilliant) and a buffett breakfast included which was great however..............||The Elevator's|The Roof Bar|The Laundrette |The downstairs toilets|The mad scramble for seats at breakfast time,|The attitude of the recepetion staff.......||Let me expand, |||Soon after we booked we started reading reviews about the lifts and how slow they were (we booked in May 24), we stayed for 5 nights at the beginning of April 2025.||On the day we checked out we waited 30 mins for a lift that could fit us in to take us to the ground floor from the 28th floor, 1 lift was closed for maintenece (at a time when the hotel had posters us saying that between 0700-1000 was the busiest time for the lifts. (So why would you close one at the buisest time?)|They were painfully slow, and even when you were in them and I would say the max people that you could have in there was 9 maybe 10 people, they would stop at every floor either going up or down just to be met by dejected people who were unable to get in.||Some days they had a member of staff in there who was of no use whatsoever as they were just taking up space, they achived nothing in there other than pressing buttons.|30 mins was the longest we waited but the average wait time was between 5-10 mins every day, every time. This can severley impact on your day, especially as you maybe after breakfast want to go to the toilet and you have to run the lift gauntelet as the toilets located in the basement were out of order for our entire stay, (apparently they are closed on a regular basis.....make up your own mind as to why)||Whilist in the basement part of the reason we chose the hotel was because they had an on site laundry, which you guessed it was closed for the entirity of our stay........||As was the roof bar, on the times we tried to go up there the door was locked, when we queired this with the ever so polite reception staff (NOT) we were met with, well we weren't told it was closed, almost trying to aportion blame to someone else and not trying to deal with the problem or trying to open it......||Prior to booking I had an email conversation with a staff member in relation to requesting a low floor as one of our children is disabled and it is not an option if you are on a higher floor to walk down the many flights of stairs, whilist we weren't promised the indication I was left with as this conversation was had numerous weeks in advance was that it could be accomadated......It was wasn't and we were on the 28th of 40 floors..................JOY||Every morning we ate at the hotel the food was ok, however trying to find a seat was a nightmare, it was a free for all, familes racing to a table and hovering in the hope that someone might finish and you could take their table from them. The staff in there were nice but when it comes to tables you were on your own........That definatley could have been managed better, on the first morning when i questioned this with reception staff i was told "yeah it's a free for all"|||So all in all, would we stay there again NO, would I recomend the hotel NO, but that's purely based on the lift situation.....||Hope some people find this useful as it was only 2 weeks ago today that we checked in so is very up...

We arrived on Saturday. Location wise, it was very accessible to times square and the subway. Not the best street though. More so than other nearby streets, there were always people sleeping or sitting in unused entrance thresholds 50 ft from the hotel entrance on our side of the 39th street sidewalk, one of whom was using a hypodermic needle drawing a liquid from a shallow cap. I didn't think it was insulin but who knows. We did not personally have any problems with any of these homeless people. In general, we felt pretty safe. For security reasons we did need to scan our room card to get in the hotel's main lobby door. The place was very clean, the staff were friendly and helpful, and the continental breakfast was nice. There were some menacing maintenance issues with the hotel that impacted our stay. Our first room's kitchen sink faucet leaked badly around the base. The cold water in the shower and bathroom sink in our room were as scalding hot as the hot water so I couldn't take a shower. We reported both issues. They could not fix the bathroom hot water issue so we had them move us to a different room that did not share the same plumbing stack. We had moved from the center of the 20th floor to the corner of the 22nd floor. A week later, the next Saturday, some new guests asked us how our shower was. They had just arrived and were having the same problem on the other side of the wall in that same plumbing stack as our first room but on floor 22. The problem was not solved all week. Somewhere, hot water is leaking into the cold water pipes, probably via a faulty shower mixing valve somewhere in the stack. Seems like a priority. The hotel does something with the TV in the room to welcome you when you first arrive. It says Hi, and your name. There are some things to click on for information but not a lot of content. Still a nice touch if they expand it a bit. On our second to last day, the TV welcomed someone else to our room. I was concerned that with the switch of rooms, they might have double booked our room. When I sought to use the room phone to call the front desk, I realized that unlike our first room, this room had no room phone so I called with my mobile phone. They assured me the room was not double booked but I got no answers regarding the message on the TV. Many of the door lock faceplates on all the floors were missing, exposing the innards of the electronics. This made the hallways look in disrepair. I found a faceplate on the floor and slid it on a lock but they come off very easily. The hotel has 3 elevators servicing the 42 floors of the hotel. On each floor, you can see a display of where each of the elevators are and which direction they are going. This is very helpful as the wait can be long. But sometimes an elevator would skip us. Maybe it knew it was too full but based on the rest of our experiences with these elevators, I don't think so. Also, there were no other elevators approaching our floor at the time. One of the elevators was often being held for extended periods of time on a floor so there was often no room on the other two elevators when coming down. We sometimes had to get on when an elevator was going the wrong way and make the round trip just so we could get on. Many people complained to each other. These are all things that adequate preventative maintenance attention could rectify. Management needs to ensure the maintenance process is working. Collect, share, act on, and follow up on information. These maintenance issues aside, the hotel is a nice...

I am never one to write a negative review but had no choice here. I’m writing this the exact day I came back from the city. Good location. If you want to be near a lot of the action from Times Square, Columbus Circle, Central Park, Rockefeller Center etc then it’s a very good central location for most part. To the hotel… we arrived on Monday. Called weeks in advance for an early check in. I was told no problem. Get their check in time at 3 pm and my particular room still wasn’t ready and had no interest in waiting a couple hours as it could’ve been that long which is what I was told. Was told they have a room on another floor similar to one I requested.

Got to that room and it was a full size bed… not a king that was in my original room. I paid a king price for a full. They told me it was a king. They need their eyes checked. It was 100% a full size bed. The bathroom shower was disgusting. Cleaning crew needs a lesson in cleaning, bed was very uncomfortable, 2 of the lamps in the room were broken and wouldn’t work at all. Some employees were nice and some very rude with attitudes that we didn’t need. Elevators are a nightmare. Only 3 at a 40 story hotel. They were small and if they start at 40 by the time they get to you at 15 they are packed to capacity. Capacity in my opinion is squeezing 8 people. Yes, 8! If people have luggage then probably 5-6 depending upon the amounts of luggage. At one point we waited 25 mins for an elevator due to them being full when it got to our floor. Their answer is the stairs. People should walk up and down 15 flights of stairs or more? That’s insane and not an answer. Elevator then goes all the way back to the top to practically stop at every floor on the way down. After waiting for close to 20 mins… we squeezed in as a 9th and 10th person stopping at every floor from 15 down. Lastly, they wanted to sway me to their car service to La Guardia airport for 70 dollars. A taxi ride to La Guardia is 40-50. Taxi took us for 45 as a set rate. Hotel wouldn’t call us a taxi. Had to do it on my own. Concierge said that I can walk down the street with my luggage and flag one down. I guess the money we pay isn’t enough considering they need to mislead customers for a kick back on the car service they work with. That was a sedan for 2 people and 70 was cheapest. It ranged from 70-120 I didn’t want anything for free or ask for anything for free. Voiced my displeasure. Was told a manager would call me and never did. No customer service, no professional courtesy, no communication. They act like they are doing you a favor. New York City is expensive enough and next time I go I’ll pay double or even triple to stay at a nicer hotel with better everything. My wife and I were very disappointed and would never stay there again. I wouldn’t recommend. I don’t go out of my way to write a negative review but I had to in this case. Not what you would expect from any...