EVEN Hotel Brooklyn by IHG — Hotel in New York

Flat sheets not affixed to the bed or the blanket & no fitted sheets or duvet cover. The sheet situation was kind of chaos and it was definitely disconcerting how frequently I came into direct contact with the mattress and blanket, despite trying to be careful all the time. The mattress pad was too small for the king bed, floated freely around, and got wrinkled up easily, creating lumps. The bed was a bit hard, both 145lb me and 240lb partner had our arms fall asleep at night. No squishable or softer pillows for stomach sleepers, decided to buy our own at Marshalls. Anytime we asked for more sheets or towels, they got them to us quickly. Elevator beeps constantly and loudly whenever it's in motion, kinda obnoxious. Chemical sensitivity alert: there appeared to be a cologne-like fragrance intentionally in the air, in most interior spaces. We'd get strangely isolated whiffs of it, even in our room. We stayed there for 5ish days, and it was the same fragrance every time, the same one we smelled in the lobby. It didn't bother me too much, but it would have when I was younger and more sensitive to cologne smells. Seating: If you will be spending any significant time in a small room, keep in mind that at least some rooms have only one chair and some stools, and nowhere to truly relax except the bed, which doesn't help with the sheet problem. The only outlet on my side of the room/bed was dead. There was a big drawer pull handle installed 5" from the floor, right in the spot where I had to sideways-walk against the mirror (8" from the bed) to get over to my side of the bed and the clothes-hanging closet nook area. There is no drawer there. The handle has no purpose except to crack your ankles on during this difficult maneuver. Bizzare. Found a blister pack of allergy pills on the floor while I was down there checking it out. Entertainment: the TV was too small to be that far away from the bed, but it did accept HDMI after we discovered the manual buttons directly on the TV. The hotel marketing videos when you turn on the TV; The files were hilariously corrupted, looked like an alien-movie glitching TV feed, hard to describe but really really funny, wow. Be careful of slippery floor in the shower, they might have mats, I didn't ask. The toilet ran loudly unless we jiggled the handle. The sliding door on the bathroom and the shower doors would grind & stick if you tried to open them all the way. There is always a crack to see past the door into the bathroom, minimal privacy. There was a surprisingly bright white LED in the smoke detector area that flashed every few seconds, in full view of the bed. I rolled over to avoid it, but it was reflected in the mirror adjacent the bed, no escape. Pretty weird that it flashed irregularly and often twice. One of the staff in the lounge area raised her voice at me for trying to get sugar from a basket, telling me loudly and forcefully to get it instead from the identical basket 5 feet away, ...she was /angry/. I was stunned by this, and I felt really bad and embarrassed. I took my sugar packet from the other basket and got the hell out of there. Overall, it was a bright & safe-feeling location, close to subway stops and tons of great food options, especially As You Are and Wonder across the street. But don't miss the fantastic trendy local-restaurant food court down the street next to Trader Joe's. Check that out after 11am-late, you won't be sorry. Just heard for TJ's down the escalator at City Point Delkab. If you can deal with some minor inconveniences, this is an ok choice to stay. Mostly because of the harder bed & the flat-sheets-only thing, I'll be looking...

EVEN, a boutique brand similar to Marriot’s ALOFT hotels, wants to be cute and hip. On the ceiling, above the bed, they printed “Sleep well. Dream BIG,” for example. ||However, I've rarely seen a hotel room so poorly designed. Let's count it off:||1) No closet. There's wardrobe unit that has hangers on one side but it's the side next to the head of the bed, not towards the rest of the room. That means if you have a wet jacket, you risk getting your bed wet, trying to get to a hanger. Makes no sense. ||2) Also, that wardrobe is only 10" from the edge of the bed, so it's hard to get to the head of the bed and there's a metal bracket on the frame that juts out by an inch so have fun trying not to bang into it when you're trying to slide your way along the edge in order to get into bed. ||3) The wardrobe has the only full-length mirror in the room but the bed cuts off the bottom two feet so the room has no full-length mirror (they could have installed one by the entrance but nope). ||4) There are no nightstands, only tiny shelves that barely hold much more than a wallet, phone, and some glasses. None of the space below is utilized for storage. There's no drawers anywhere. There are only two bread-box cabinets by the coffee machine but one of them had hinges that failed to keep the lid in the up position. ||5) The lighting units on each side of the bed have a power outlet on them (but there are none below) that's very close to the two light switches. I have a compact power adapter and plugging it in overlapped with the switches. These are small designs that make life less convenient. ||6) The only desk in the room is small, it folds up to save space (even though it's not clear what space you're actually saving), and worst: it's too high for the lone chair in the room! You can't comfortably type on the desk unless you stand. I called the front desk to ask if there were other chairs and they said those chairs were standard but I was "welcome to come down to the lobby and work." That's not a solution to make the room you’re paying for helpful for getting any work done. ||7) The shower has pump bottles for body gel, shampoo, etc. but they’re installed within a cage holder in with little room between the spout and the side of the cage. Makes it unnecessarily hard to use. ||8) Not a design issue, just "things not working right": The toilet flush handle stuck when used so you had to manually move it back up or else the toilet would keep running. The room phone's speed dial buttons didn't work to reach the front desk either. The light unit on my side of the bed wasn't properly secured so it'd easily tilt when plugging things in or even just turning a light on/off. ||In short, this was one of the least thoughtfully designed rooms I've ever stayed in. ||On the plus side, there’s a mini-fridge, room safe, and a Keurig coffee maker (the latter is wasteful but it still makes better coffee than the drip systems I’ve normally seen in Marriott hotels). The location is great: near multiple subway lines as well as a shopping center with a Target and...

EVEN, a boutique brand similar to Marriot’s ALOFT hotels, wants to be cute and hip. On the ceiling, above the bed, they printed “Sleep well. Dream BIG,” for example.

However, I've rarely seen a hotel room so poorly designed. Let's count it off:

1. No closet. There's wardrobe unit that has hangers on one side but it's the side next to the head of the bed, not towards the rest of the room. That means if you have a wet jacket, you risk getting your bed wet, trying to get to a hanger. Makes no sense.

2. Also, that wardrobe is only 10" from the edge of the bed, so it's hard to get to the head of the bed and there's a metal bracket on the frame that juts out by an inch so have fun trying not to bang into it when you're trying to slide your way along the edge in order to get into bed.

3. The wardrobe has the only full-length mirror in the room but the bed cuts off the bottom two feet so the room has no full-length mirror (they could have installed one by the entrance but nope).

4. There are no nightstands, only tiny shelves that barely hold much more than a wallet, phone, and some glasses. None of the space below is utilized for storage. There's no drawers anywhere. There are only two bread-box cabinets by the coffee machine but one of them had hinges that failed to keep the lid in the up position.

5. The lighting units on each side of the bed have a power outlet on them (but there are none below) that's very close to the two light switches. I have a compact power adapter and plugging it in overlapped with the switches. These are small designs that make life less convenient.

6. The only desk in the room is small, it folds up to save space (even though it's not clear what space you're actually saving), and worst: it's too high for the lone chair in the room! You can't comfortably type on the desk unless you stand. I called the front desk to ask if there were other chairs and they said those chairs were standard but I was "welcome to come down to the lobby and work." That's not a solution to make the room you’re paying for helpful for getting any work done.

7. The shower has pump bottles for body gel, shampoo, etc. but they’re installed within a cage holder in with little room between the spout and the side of the cage. Makes it unnecessarily hard to use.

8. Not a design issue, just "things not working right": The toilet flush handle stuck when used so you had to manually move it back up or else the toilet would keep running. The room phone's speed dial buttons didn't work to reach the front desk either. The light unit on my side of the bed wasn't properly secured so it'd easily tilt when plugging things in or even just turning a light on/off.

In short, this was one of the least thoughtfully designed rooms I've ever stayed in.

On the plus side, there’s a mini-fridge, room safe, and a Keurig coffee maker (the latter is wasteful but it still makes better coffee than the drip systems I’ve normally seen in Marriott hotels). The location is great: near multiple subway lines as well as a shopping center with a Target and...