Pod Times Square — Hotel in New York

Wow where should I start. Let me say this hotel was very much a good location to Time Square and Hell’s Kitchen. The view of our room was amazing but the room and service…..ughhh! So upon check in you are told that room service is not automatically given, you have to request it the day before. This is also noted on a colorful board in the lobby area. Went to the room and immediately started sneezing only to look up at the vents and see blankets of dust clouding the vent and also hanging over from the bed. The towels given were old and torn up, the shower had visible mould growing on the glass. The sheets were old and torn, the side closest to the windows was never vacuumed. When I advised the front desk manager of this his name was Shawn, I was rebutted by an aggressive tone, to ask when did I notice all these things. I advised him I’m a paying guest here and that should not be his first response but to be more apologetic and come see for himself. Told him I have pictures and he asked me to email him. I was shocked. Anyhow, they moved us to another room and that was also a nightmare with heavily dusted vents, shower having mould and I got really sick as I am highly allergic to dust. I didn’t want my head eaten off again so I went to see if I could find housekeeping and I did. I borrowed a duster and had to wet a rag to clean the blinds and other areas that were filthy. The manager actually caught me cleaning the room and said he would have someone come and do it. I said I don’t like to complain and I’ve already spent my money so I was trying to make myself comfortable. Long story short, I had lost my 14k gold earring as it had itched in my blouse as I had just washed my hair and had a towel over my head. Reported it and they said it couldn’t have been lost there and if it turns up they will call me with in 24hrs and nobody ever did. This was a horror story staying here and I will never go back here! The management seems very snappy and unprofessional. Overhead another guest complaining of the room too. This place needs a whole revamping as what is photographed is nothing to what you get. Not even the duvet that’s pictured there. I’m not sure why housekeeping came that day when we had just checked in and didn’t request for service and to add fuel to fire, the sheets were torn and they didn’t care to change them. I would have found my earring if they didn’t come to do whatever cleaning they did in less than 24 hrs of us being there. However a loss I have sadly endured. I booked for 4 nights and trust me had it not been the holiday weekend I would have switched and they have a policy that if you leave before the time booked they are going to charge you a night for their inconvenience. Take what you...

If you are traveling alone, such as I did, and only need the bare necessities, then this is your place.

I stayed during an extreme heat wave in NYC and the rooms were kept very cool throughout the whole stay, adjustable through a thermostat in each room. While the room is indeed small, the bed is pretty large (at least a queen size) and there is enough room in the bathroom to shelve a large collection of bathroom items. The room was cleaned and towels restocked daily.

Some minor gripes I have with the location is that because it is in Times Square, you will hear A LOT of honking and traffic noises throughout the day and night (I was on the tenth floor). If you are a light sleeper, bring earplugs. The shower curtain is not long enough to completely block the water, so your bathroom floor will get wet with every shower. The sink size is extremely small, so washing your face in the morning also gives you a pretty wet bathroom floor. I requested an iron and it was probably the worst iron I've ever used. It barely got wrinkles out of my shirt. If you are staying at this location and need an iron, I would just bring your own.

My biggest complaint is that the Pod hotels have a "facility fee" that you are REQUIRED to pay. It is $22.95 per night, per room, and everyone is required to pay this. While the Pod website may include this fee in its listed pricing (unconfirmed, but it does say "Including all fees"), some websites may not. I booked through Priceline and while "taxes and fees" were included in the final price, I was still required to pay the "facility fee" at check-in so I am guessing that this price is not included in the Priceline website, perhaps to make their prices look more competitive. I stayed four nights so I had to pay almost $100 extra at check-in, which is a nasty surprise considering my trip budget. The "facility fee" covers services such as early check-in, wifi, walking tours, and printing. Honestly, I don't really need any of those and with the Times Square location, they are so busy that I doubt early check-in is ever available. I would much rather not pay for any of these services and enjoy the price listed on the website I used. It would be wise to contact the website you use for booking and see if this "facility fee" is included in the pricing listed.

The front desk is also not the most friendly bunch at this location. They'll acknowledge you, but sometimes I was just left standing, unsure as to whether they were ready to serve me or if I needed to wait further. If this is the 3-star treatment, then I have nothing to say to that, but they could certainly do...

This is such a conveniently located hotel and for the price, it has good value for money. Check-in was smooth, the kind attendant asked if we wanted a high floor and gave us free rain ponchos. She situated us with a clear view of the Empire State Building, which was very cool.

My friend and I stayed in a bunk room and it was well suited for us. There were wall hooks beside the mirror, and 4 clothing hangers. I also brought extra jean hooks to put on the rail so that we could take all our clothes out and not have to open our suitcases to take clothes in/out. There is no where to store clothing otherwise unless you want to give up precious desktop space.

You cannot store anything under the bed, just to be clear. It’s solid under there, and frankly very dusty, so you wouldn’t want to put anything under there anyways. There was a niche at the end of the bunkbeds that could fit one of our larger suitcases for stowing. Our other carry on size suitcase fit under the desk on the shelf.

The bathroom had pretty good counter top storage albeit skinny. I thought they were a bit chintzy with the towels. They only gave two body towels, two hand towels and one face towel for a room occupancy of two. I also thought the shower products smelled mildew-y, so did not use them.

The cleanliness left something to be desired. The room was very dusty. The little bedside light nooks were coated in a layer of dust, around the bed/tvs- more dust. The sliding door on the bathroom and in between the glass panel wall had a thick layer of dust trapped. If you have an allergy to dust, I may say to consider staying somewhere else. There was black mildew in the shower, that had also unfortunately stained the lower shower head. It’s not intolerably dirty, but it is definitely not the cleanest hotel.

The only other issue we had was at check out. We had planned to grab our bags from the room about 30 minutes before checkout. We went out for breakfast and when we returned at around 11:30am, our key card had lost access to our room. We then had to go back downstairs, wait in line and get it reactivated. The staff was friendly, and reactivated the card. I just don’t think that should have happened at all. If I have the room until 12:00pm, I should have access to it until then.

I felt that the hotel really excelled at creating rooms that had many solutions for how small the space is. Overall, for the price I think it would be hard to find...