The Dutch Hotel Long Island City, Sonder — Hotel in New York

Overall, we had a good stay at Sonder. First impressions of the room were not the best but we started to appreciate the facilities offered here as our stay went on. When we checked out, Travis asked for constructive feedback and was very keen to hear our comments which really changed the way I viewed my overall stay here. These are our overall thoughts:||+The view is even better than I thought it would be - clear views of the Empire State Building, Chrysler and Summit One.||+We booked room 706 which is the best room in the building with a huge outdoor space - you just don't get space like this in many places in New York without spending a lot of money.||+The neighbourhood was quiet and felt safe at night.||+The basement area is huge and offers a lot of space to relax, eat, change etc. plus there is free luggage storage meaning you don't miss out on time in New York (free of charge and big enough for a large suitcase).||+No waste of items as you can collect these from the basement (coffee pods, toiletries and toilet rolls).||+Just a 5 minute easy walk to the subway station and then it's only 10/15 minutes into Grand Central. It's just peaceful and a bit of a breath of fresh air from hectic Manhattan.||+Nice bars and restaurants within a 5 minute walk.||+No Resort Fee!||+Surprisingly, the reception was staffed whenever we walked by and we arrived at 4am. Very friendly.||+Great communication via the app. It made me a little nervous being so reliant upon this but I never had to wait more than a few minutes to get a response. Tiana was really quick at coming back to me about check-in, thank you!||+Nice toiletries in the room - shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body lotion and soap (although the soap could have been in a hand pump).||+The in-room facilities - microwave, safe (free), coffee machine, kettle, TV and hairdryer (although this was really dusty and I chose to clean this before using it as it seemed a bit of a health and safety risk!).||+Good overall value for New York.||-The room really needed a bit more of a clean. There was a lot of dust on certain surfaces although other parts of the room looked spotless. I don't think I have ever stayed in a room with as much dust. The balcony also had a really dirty table, which I had to clean, and a paper plate stuffed between our balcony and the next. The sealant on the balcony was black in places and half hanging off which didn't look great. There was also a missing cover on our smoke alarm.||-It seemed noisy when people were coming up to our floor and moving around the hallways. It was like the doors were paper thin but fortunately, other guests were quiet once in the room but I did need my earplugs.||-The communal outdoor spaces/roof terraces needed a bit of a clean and tidy but offer great views.||-We had the best room but it was still small. We could just about open our cases but then had one small clothes rail and the shallowest drawers you've seen - this is absolutely impractical and just having a desk with deeper drawers would have given this room a little more substance. The bathroom also suffered from a lack of storage with just one shelf for the hairdryer. It would have also been good to have a cup for our toothbrushes.||-The window in our room was draughty but the heavy curtains stopped this coming into the room but once open, there was a cool breeze. This really needs fixing for those staying in the cooler months.||Overall, we really did enjoy our stay and with a few small improvements and maintenance, this place...

Here go the Pros and Cons:

For reference, we stayed in an odd-numbered, third floor front-facing room. I also rate Sonder locations against Sonder The Queen, which is an immaculately run Philadelphia Sonder location. So this review may seem a bit tough against that high bar.

Pros: Courteous, attentive staff in lobby.

Excellent location within a few minutes of Queensboro Plaza subway station.

Automatic doors at main entrance during regular hours.

Wonderful terrace with excellent views of Manhattan cityscape on eighth floor.

Safe included in room.

Iron and ironing board also in room.

Cons: Bathroom had very little counter space and uncomfortable layout, toilet is less than ten inches from wall which is very strange, not even sure how that passed code.

Stairway is very steep and narrow. If for any reason you cannot use the elevator, I feel for anyone having to carry even small luggage up or down the stairs.

The shower had no door. Seemed like an intentional design choice, but it was odd, and not in a good way.

The shower having no door causes water to inevitably pool across the bathroom, eventually during the stay creating mud that is difficult not to track across the rest of the room.

The door to the room was very heavy and difficult to navigate for more than one person at a time.

Worst of all, the wood frame encircling the bed was dirty and soiled to sight and touch, I don't even want to guess what that sticky, shiny residue was on the wood frame alongside the mattress.

The Essentials - as Sonder calls them - were not stocked in the Essentials cabinet. We had to request towels, toilet paper and toiletries, instead of picking them up ourselves, as is the typical Sonder way.

The television in our room had no connectivity, and as such was not useable. Staff attempted a fix, but were unsuccessful. The last update was that they'd attempt a fix by contacting IT, but no further update was given.

There's a keypad to enter during late hours, but the keypad is not conspicuous, especially since the doors are automatic during regular hours. Sonder should add wayfinding signage for the keypad, as well as a notice in the app or in the room alerting guests of this fact. The keypad visibility is hampered by the faded buttons. The keypad also doesn't support contactless phone unlock, like other Sonder locations.

It didn't take me long to figure it out or find the keypad after returning from a late event, but others may not fare so well.

The good thing is most of these issues may be addressable, and while it may sound like the bad may outweigh the good, that's not the case, and I would still return to this location and recommend it, at least once more to see if they've ironed out...

This was my first time staying at a Sonder and I had a really great experience with Sonder the Dutch.

Pros: Friendly and helpful staff.

It is in a very accessible location which is close to the city and public transportation.

The train is a few blocks away, there’s many options by the train for food, etc. The rooms are decent sized (for NYC standards) and have everything you need.

Iron, ironing board, safe, coffee maker, microwave, & mini fridge are located within the room.

This is a new building and has multiple outdoor spaces on the 1st floor, 6th, & 8th. The views of the city is beautiful!

Underneath where the clothing rack is, you’ll find extra towels, toilet paper, the hairdryer.

I luckily was able to get early check-in, which I was really grateful for! I got the approval notification from my request pretty much when I arrived. (Requests for early check-in or late check-out are done on the app.)

The only cons I have are: I received conflicting information prior to my stay. I reached out via text and the Sonder app and I was told that unfortunately there was not luggage storage and no hair dryer and was given a third party app to potentially hold my things prior to check in. I reached out through Airbnb and I was told that in fact there is luggage storage on site. I booked through the third party recommendation just in case there really wasn’t luggage storage. Since I could not confirm until the day-of, the third party storage company doesn’t allow refunds for same-day. Because of miscommunication, I was out of the money that I put down for that in case I needed it. I would suggest to make sure that your information for this location is correct across all platforms.

this is a minor thing, but I ended up packing a hairdryer because I was told there was not one, when in fact the room did have a hairdryer.

At the time I’m writing this, there is currently construction nearby so during the weekdays you may hear the noise from it.

Also, there’s a church across the street so you’ll occasionally hear the church bells ringing.

Sound can travel from the outside and inside the halls and/or other rooms, but it’s not anything too crazy

Because of the shower design, I would recommend to bring shower slippers or something because water does spray out to the floor when you use the regular shower head

Not too many cons but just wanted to give a heads up :) I would totally stay again and definitely want to check out...