Royalton New York — Hotel in New York

DISGUSTING DISGUSTING DISGUSTING!!!||||DO NOT STAY HERE IF YOU WANT A NICE EXPERIENCE!||||DISGUST - 'a feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive'.... And that is what I experienced.||||||This hotel is a disgrace! The staff are a disgrace! It was a truly unpleasant and offensive experience.||||Rude disrespectful staff who are obviously not required to wear uniform or behave in a professional manner it seems. Cannot be bothered to even look at you while dealing with you in a rude, disrespectful and unprofessional way.||||This hotel used to be a nice place when I visited 6 years ago. It had a busy Bar and restaurant that was full all day and all night with a nice mix of business men and women and tourist. with a busy upbeat atmosphere.||||Today is another story....||||Do not be fooled by the marketing and photos that are clearly from 6 or more years ago. The hotel is no longer the same! ||||It is like they are purposely trying to kill the hotel off.||Now there is no bar and no restaurant. Nowhere to get food or a drink. In fact when you arrive it feels like you are walking into a derelict hotel from the Walking Dead Series. not a soul around. No one! (and this is a big hotel) ||Upon arrival I was rudely approached by a security guard who put his hand in my face as if to order me to stop! he then demanded "What are you doing here".... Well I am here to check in was my was my reply. he just grunted at me as if he couldn't be bothered with me and sloped off to slump into a nearby chair. As if dealing with me was beyond his capacity for his job. Other than him, no there was no one. Which is super strange in a hotel of this size.||||I found my way to reception (Which unlike other hotels is in the middle of a very long lobby) where there was one person sitting on their phone and not in uniform but casual clothes. Like they had kidnapped the receptionist and taken their place. After they had rudely dealt with me like they could not be bothered and that it was a hinderance that I had booked to stay in the hotel I made my way to the elevator.||||I did not see another person. I arrived at my room that was in bad repair with a slight odour that was reminiscent of an old peoples home and a very noisy Air con that sounded that it wasn't long for this world. But was hanging in there as it didn't wouldn't turn off. This I dealt with all night because my call to the reception regarding it was of no use.||The room was also in need of a good clean and items needing repairing like a rail behind the bend that was hanging down and touching the head board of the bed.||||Then on to the bed... I stay in a lot of hotels. When I say a lot... I mean a LOT! (I travel twice a week on business to put it in perspective). I have never experienced bed linen like this... It was so old and been washed so many times it was now dirty yellow grey, pealing and bobbly all over. Which is quit some going when you talk about cotton poplin as it doesn't really bobble. You really have to hammer it. To paint you a picture if you took it to a charity shop they would turn it away and tell you they would not accept it and it should be binned. But here I am after spending $500 dollars a night having to sleep under it. On top of this there was the door to the room that would not shut properly to the point I had to put a chair in front of the door to feel safe.||||If I am honest it is the first time I have ever felt unsafe in a hotel. This may have been because of the environment or the fact that it felt like the hotel had been taken hostage and potentially the receptionist was not the receptionist after all and all of the other guest could have been offed and hidden away somewhere.||||A hotel is meant to be a refuge and should not make you feel like you are in imminent danger.||||The next morning I made my way to the abandoned lobby to inform the reception of the issues with the room and the bed sheets. I was forced to deal with what can only be described as a disgrace. Again not in uniform and no idea about customer service. She approached me like she'd rather fight me than talk to me. An attitude problem the size of the hotel and a chip on her shoulder to match. She approached me like she was sizing me up for a fight or she just lost one and was planning to take it out on me.||||You've heard the saying the customer is always right... well not for this person she seemed angry that there were even customers. Tutting and giving attitude from the get go. When I told her about the state of the room and the sheets she called me a liar... I was so shocked I couldn't do anything but laugh... It was so extreme I must be being filmed I thought... maybe being Punk'd.||||It was like the animals had taken over the Zoo. It reminded me of a film I watched once called New Jack City where Gansters take over hotels and apartment blocks and turned them into Drug Factories and I'd walked in on it. Like the hotel was a front and they don't care about it or the guests.||||I know people say being in New York is like being on a Film set, and it is, but this was taking it too far.||||For me that was enough. I went upstairs and collected the bed sheets and returned to the lobby with them where I placed them on the reception desk for Gangster No.1 to see. The fact that she could now see that I wasn't lying did not make her happy one bit. She proceeded to flip out giving me a mouthful of attitude before storming off on me. Her Colleague found this fairly amusing and interjected by saying she's a real piece of work right. You should report her... To who I thought. there was no one to report her to and my request to speak to the manager fell on deaf ears. ||||They also charged me £280 late check out fee following my checkout because I was dealing with their Pantomime. This fee they charged twice and I am still waiting for the refund.||||All in all the weirdest hotel experience I have ever had.||||||To be clear this is the first review I have ever made on anything, hotel, product, anything. The reason I wrote it is because I was compelled to do so.||I have had bad hotel experiences before but this was extreme. Not just because it cost $500 dollars a night to be treated like sh!t but the customer service was so beyond terrible I almost could not believe it was happening...

I wish I could give the Royalton a better review but after a two night stay I can't. On the surface the Royalton looks like a best kept secret of NYC. The downstairs lobby, bar and restaurant area are beautiful. Every evening the area was full of people enjoying themselves with drinks food and conversation. That's the surface I speak of. Now once you scratch the surface you learn that the hotel is lacking when it comes to staying overnight. The hallway and room decor are boring at best compared to the downstairs lobby area. The walls are grey with no art work in the hallways or suits. The finish work in the room we stayed in was poor. It looked like someone went to Home Depot and grabbed basic hardware, tools and paint to take care of the fine details that good hotels take pride in. I don't want to see the door frame pressed up against the wall. I got an idea how about putting some finish work up. Frame that doorway buddy! Another issue I had was the floor. I like to walk around on even floors. This goes back to the letting your friends close buddy do the work at your house because he can do the job for the quarter of the price. Level the floor put some sub flooring down. Theses are only the fine details that stand out when you stand in the room for more than 10 minutes. Now moving onto the bathroom. The Royalton is know for the bathroom with the cool bathtub. The problem is no one told us they put a awesome round bathtub in a phone booth. This was a huge selling point and it was under whelming. No wow factor here. It was more of a what the "F" man. A cool moment was being able have a fire in the room. No complaints there. But I do have a complaint about the smell of smoke in the room for the next day. This smell did not come from the fire we had the night before. No this smell came from the other rooms in the hotel. I did some sniffing around the room and i foind that the smell came from the heating vents. This was the nail in the coffin for my wife and I. This smell did not go away. We opened windows hoping to get the smell out. We had to call downstairs twice for them to try and fix the problem. Their solution was to come spray the room with some type of spray that was suppose to get rid of the smell. It did not work. After a show we returned to the room to the same smell and again we went downstairs to complain about the smell. While we went back out to take in sights they had people come in to try fix the smell again. What they did was come in and double the amount of perfume they had used before. This got us through the night kinda. When we woke the next morning the smell was back. Lucky for us it was our check out day. Instead of hanging around because we had a 12pm check out. We left at 830am. The last part of this long two days is at checkout I went to explain to the front desk about the smell in the room. He apologized for the smell but followed it up with yeah we have that problem when several rooms want a fire. Really man. How about you tell us this stuff the day before. The end result of this conversation was them offering us a free breakfast or a free room upgrade for our next stay at the Royalton. No we did not get a offer to have the cost of the stay reduced. The reason being we used a third party site to book the room. This is hard to believe. I was so disgusted with them I took the card and walked away. This hotel was only concerned with collecting money and not the consumers experience during a stay. Guess who will never boom this hotel again. Also gues who will tell everyone this story over and over again. ...

We have stayed at the Royalton-New York on 44th several times over the years. I must be perfectly clear on this point: This is NOT the Royalton. It's merely a faint shadow, a distant memory of what this fine hotel once was. Don't waste your money. It appears to have been purchased while in distress, and the new owners have no interest in running a hotel, just holding the property and bleeding guests of their money. Having just returned from a three-night stay at the Royalton, I agree with all the negative ratings; I even agree with some of the 5/5 ratings but only regarding the friendly staff (however, that does not include the entire staff). If the hotel cared about their reputation or believed that the negative comments were inaccurate, then someone would respond to the negative ratings. Take note: management are silent on the criticisms.

If you can get a great price, then the rooms are clean, and the hotel is well located. I have seen special rates of $138 per night, which in my opinion is the extent of value you will receive at this hotel.

The home page of their website says "eat, drink, and be merry,” but the lobby is dead. Everything is closed. I was told that the restaurant and bar(s) have been closed for two and a half years. They have had that long to update the home page. So, they are either intentionally misleading us, or they are just lazy. Either may be true since they put no effort into the hotel’s guest services. COVID is no longer an excuse since the bars and restaurants are all open at hotels just across the street.

The ultimate insult is that the hotel charges a $35 per night “Facility Fee.” “Facilities” = “Amenities.” To say amenities are limited here would scarcely address the disappointment you will find at this depressing hotel. It's like a deserted, rural roadside motel.

We booked a suite. There was no bellman to be found when we arrived. The rooms have been stripped. There are no glasses, no ice bucket, nothing on the mini bar, no artwork, only one robe, no coffee machine in the room, and no way to order coffee from room service (there is no room service, period, unless you only want ice). We requested ice and glasses and received not an ice bucket (which you would expect to be a classic double-walled vessel), but rather a sweating, messy buffet container of ice and not glasses, but paper cups.

Most of the staff are making an effort with the very limited tools that the owners have provided. The housekeeper was extremely pleasant and brought us a second robe. After two days and a chat with a very friendly manager we did finally get glasses for our room. Another manager called up to our room to ask if we received the ice that we requested. So, for the most part, the Royalton has a good staff with a few who have no care for hospitality. If only the new proprietors would bring the hotel up to the advertising. Again, they are very misleading.

When I checked out, the young woman at the front desk asked me how our stay was. So, I was honest and gave her my feedback. Her response: "Well, I guess everyone has their own expectations.” Indeed!! Do not expect anything of the Royalton but a bed and bathroom and be certain to only pay an appropriate rate for what you will get.

The bottom line is that this is a one-star, maybe a two-star hotel and should be priced accordingly. Until services at the Royalton resume, we will not return, and we will discourage anyone from...