The Greenwich Hotel — Hotel in New York

Since late 2022, I have stayed at the Greenwich Hotel five times. Those visits represent a total of 35 nights, and altogether they cost more than $50,000. So I think I’m in a pretty good position to review this hotel.||||In the beginning, I thought this hotel was heaven. I still feel it has some wonderful qualities. However, after recent hiccups with security, noise, and service, I’m not sure I will be back.||||First, I want to note the things that were more or less positive throughout all of my stays:||||* The hotel is beautiful. I love the vibe of the whole building: everything from the whimsical objects decorating the guest rooms to the bronze swans that rest on the floor near reception. I’ve stayed at the hotel twice during Christmas, and the lobby is especially stunning during this time. The rooms, though small and quirky, are unique and usually inviting. I like taking baths, so I always reserve the Superior King Soaking Tub room. (Note, however, that not all rooms of this class are as large and appealing as what the website shows; during one recent stay, we got a substantially smaller and more depressing room.) Usually, a soothing and distinct scent pervades the guest rooms. During the time I was happy with the hotel, this scent had the effect of instantly relaxing me.||||* The spa and gym are perfection. I’ve used the gym frequently, and I appreciate both the workout space and the careful way it’s maintained. The staff pop in regularly to make sure the space is orderly and that it’s stocked with apples, protein bars, and cold water. The spa is also wonderful. During my last visit, I had acupuncture and bodywork, and I really appreciate that they offer these services. Afterward, my husband and I swam in the spa’s indoor pool, which was incredibly relaxing. The atmosphere is so nice that, the next day, we decided to escape the relentless July heat by relaxing at the pool with our books. Also, unlike a lot of hotel pools, this one has an attendant on hand at all times, which I appreciate. The hotel also posts rules about when children can use the pool; I wish more hotels did that.||||* The hotel’s location in Tribeca is perfect for us. This tranquil neighborhood has several good breakfast spots. Also, if you need a bigger gym or pool, Asphalt Green Battery Park City is a short walk away, and they offer day passes for a reasonable price.||||* Whether it’s because the neighborhood is quiet or because the windows are soundproofed, we’ve never had any issues with street noise.||||And now for the bad:||||* Security problem #1: During our last visit, we came back from a day out and put our key in the lock. The little light did not turn green, and we didn’t hear a click indicating that the key had unlocked the door – and yet we were able to open the door. I wondered, had the door actually been locked? But I was tired and decided not to overthink it.||||The next night, the exact same thing happened.||||The following night, my husband got his key out, and I said, “Wait, let’s try something.” We did not put the key in the lock; we just pushed on the door, and… it swung open easily. It hadn’t been latched or locked. We went down to the front desk and told them. They said that they would ask housekeeping to make sure they are shutting the door properly.||||We came back up and experimented with the door, and we concluded that something was wrong with it. That is, we tried pulling the door shut and thought we’d done it successfully, only to test it and find that it wasn’t latched. We went back down and explained this, because we wanted to make sure they knew that this wasn’t solely a case of user error; there might actually be something wrong with the door. The desk clerk said that they would have an engineer look at the door the next morning. Unfortunately, with this new plan, they seemed to forget about talking to housekeeping – or at least that was my impression. As I thought about it later that night, this concerned me, because the problem seemed like it was multifaceted. (Because if one knows about the issue, it can be avoided by closing the door more firmly and then testing it to make sure it is in fact locked.) But I didn't want to go back down a third time, so I decided to trust that they would know how to handle it.||||The next day, I wondered when we would hear back about the engineering work. No one called us, so we called them. A desk clerk told us that engineering had fixed the door, but he was pretty vague about the details. We still felt uneasy, so we asked the desk clerk to please also remind housekeeping to pull the door shut firmly whenever they leave our room. After a bit of back and forth, the desk clerk agreed.||||The next day, everything was fine. But the following night, we got back, tapped on the door – and again it swung open without us putting our key in the lock. We went back downstairs and explained the situation to yet another desk clerk. (During all of this, no one had introduced themselves to us or volunteered to be our point of contact on the problem – so whenever we talked to someone, we had to start from scratch explaining it.)||||The clerk seemed unsure how to handle it but told us he would speak with the director of housekeeping for our floor. Then someone else jumped in and assured us emphatically that no one has access to our room except other guests on our floor (which, honestly, was not that reassuring). He also said he would discuss the problem with – dramatic pause – the director of all housekeeping. I was a little underwhelmed, as I’d been hoping for “manager of the hotel.” That said, we never found the door unlocked again, so this approach must have worked.||||On the downside, our trip was almost over at this point, so this problem had been ongoing during most of our eight-night stay, and I worried about it until we left. Maybe others are better at compartmentalizing but, for me, problems like this can taint an entire trip. For example, at a performance of “Just In Time,” I suddenly found myself worrying about the door to our hotel room when I should have been focusing on Jonathan Groff. In my eyes, the problem wasn’t just that our room was repeatedly left unsecured; it was also that the hotel didn’t seem to take the problem very seriously, or at least not seriously enough. To put in context what I mean: As I've recently learned, the Greenwich Hotel apparently hosts a lot of celebrities. I can’t help thinking that if someone like Jennifer Lawrence had reported this type of problem, it simply would have been fixed.||||When we checked out, yet another hotel employee who didn’t introduce himself apologized for the problem and removed two of our laundry charges, a total of about $250, from the bill. To put this in context, the full cost of our stay ended up being $11,500, so this reduction was not the most dramatic gesture. (In fact, it wasn’t even all of our laundry charges.)||||However, the issue here is not money. When I choose to stay someplace like the Greenwich Hotel, I want to feel like I’m indulging myself. When the hotel can’t even provide me with a door that locks properly, that is the opposite of indulgence.||||* Security problem #2: On the second night of our most recent stay (before we discovered that our door was getting left unlocked), my husband lost his key. We stopped by the front desk to ask if the room could be rekeyed. The desk clerk said, “Sure – what room?” We told him, and he gave us new keys. As we rode up in the elevator, I found myself feeling unsettled that the clerk hadn't asked for our names, and he'd obviously had no idea what room we were in, yet he gave us keys to the room that we'd specified. What if we had been scammers? Perhaps the desk clerk had recognized our faces from us having been in and out during that first day, but the behavior still seemed sloppy, since we could have been hotel guests trying to get into someone else’s room. (If you ever listen to podcasts about scamming, then you know that things like this happen; it's called social engineering.) You might wonder if the staff know us because we’ve stayed at the hotel so often. However, there was a large gap between some of our visits. We don’t know anyone who works there, and I've never had the impression that any of them knows us.||||* Noise: During all of our visits, we've had more noise from other guests than I would have liked. With our last two visits, there was a noticeable uptick in this noise, but – surprisingly – the biggest problem during these last two visits was early-morning noise from hotel staff.||||I repeatedly was awakened by the sounds of hotel staff moving about and doing things early in the morning. For example, one time I was deep in a dream when the roar of a vacuum cleaner jolted me awake. I looked at my watch and was dismayed to see that it was about 8 a.m. (It was a very thorough cleaning, too. I actually was able to go back to sleep and was awakened again when the vacuum cleaning restarted.) ||||Another time, I was awakened around 9 a.m. by a staff member right outside our door barking into and listening to a screeching walking talkie.||||On several other mornings, I was awakened by the sounds of staff knocking on doors and yelling “IN-ROOM DINING!!!" and "HOUSEKEEPING!!!”, sometimes followed by the sounds of slamming doors. Of course, I understand that housekeepers have to announce themselves. What I criticize is that housekeeping service has to start so early. During our last visit, weekday service typically seemed to be in full swing by 9:30 a.m. Also, if they absolutely have to start that early, it would be nice if they could try to be quieter and/or avoid rooms that display a Do Not Disturb ribbon (for example, they could come back and clean the rooms in those areas later). ||||The staff seems to show more respect for quiet during the evenings and during weekends. That is, during the weekends, housekeeping seems to start much later in the morning or perhaps even early afternoon. Meanwhile, at night, I notice that the staff takes care to be as silent as possible when they’re in the hallways or if they have to deliver something, like in-room dining. In those cases, they knock softly and speak softly. But during weekday mornings, all of these safeguards fly out the window. I can only assume that they think that everyone should be getting up early Monday through Friday, even though at least some of us are on vacation.||||Staff are not the only disturbance. Unfortunately, the walls at the Greenwich Hotel are thin, the floors are creaky, and this relatively small hotel is quite compact – a perfect storm for hearing others. For example, during our most recent visit, I was trying to fall back asleep around 7:30 a.m. when I heard someone speaking emphatically about ROI and quarterly results. I laid there a while hoping it would stop. It didn’t. Finally I put on a robe and stepped into the hall, where the sound was louder. So I did something I have never done at a hotel; I knocked on my neighbor's doctor, apologized for bothering him, and asked if he could please speak more quietly. I suppose I could have called the front desk instead, but given the way things were going with our door lock, I had little confidence that they would fix the problem. Anyway, the other guest kindly agreed to lower his voice, and, after that, I didn't hear him. The incident left me thinking somewhat longingly back to recent stays at two different Four Seasons. The Four Seasons is able to create tranquility by using soundproofing between rooms. (Granted, they are more expensive, though.)||||I travel a lot, so I have to add that, in my experience, the Greenwich Hotel seems to attract families with unruly children who do things like bang on other guests’ doors late at night. Of course, unfortunate guests like this can show up at any hotel. Still, I can't help but draw a contrast between how the hotel manages its spa compared with the corridors of regular guest rooms. The spa is set up with rules and an attendant to ensure that children don't terrorize other guests or disrupt the space. It would be nice if they could do something similar for the areas where quiet is arguably more important – where people sleep. Perhaps it would help to publish a code of conduct or have an attendant check in on each floor every now and then, especially on floors where children are staying, to make sure that nothing too disruptive is happening. I'm sure it wouldn't solve every problem, but it couldn't hurt.||||Unfortunately, I am a light sleeper, so even if everything else had been perfect, the noise problems alone are probably reason enough for me not to come back. By the end of our most recent stay, I was exhausted and felt a great sense of relief when I got on the plane to come home.||||* Staff friendliness: One of the things I used to love about the Greenwich Hotel was the five-star service, which seemed both effective and friendly. Obviously, the problems I've already described include situations where the service wasn't really very effective (the door lock) or considerate (staff making a lot of noise at 8 a.m.). Unfortunately, recently we've also had a few incidents of staff being unfriendly. Here are two examples:||||After one of our recent check-ins, as we looked for our room, the person helping us with our bags trailed after us in a manner that seemed petulant. When I approached the wrong room, he got irritated, asked to see my key, and then chastised me for going the wrong way. It seemed unprofessional, and I wondered why he hadn't just led the way in the first place.||||During that same visit, my husband and I went down to the courtyard and asked the attendant if it would be possible to have breakfast there. By this point, we'd stayed in the hotel many times, but we usually went out for breakfast or had in-room dining, so we weren't sure how it worked. The attendant gave us a withering look and informed us icily that the courtyard was for hotel guests only. We clarified that we were guests, and he said that, yes, in that case, we could. But notably, he did not become friendlier or apologize for clearly having mistaken us for… tourists, I guess? It left me wondering why we looked like we didn’t belong. It also made me want to leave the beautiful courtyard and not return.|||| * Laundry: This is probably the least important problem, but we’ve noticed a decline in the quality of the laundry service. As just one example, I sent a shirt out for pressing. This shirt had never been worn and was 100% pristine. It came back with an ugly mark on the shoulder in a very visible place. I worked on the spot with a damp cloth and got most of it out, but the process made the shirt wrinkled (thereby defeating the point of having had it pressed). Another time, they “corrected” my count of the laundry but did so in a way that was actually incorrect (and a little more costly). In fact, they made several odd adjustments to our tally of the clothes we'd sent out. For example, would you think that a bikini is the equivalent of one ladies' bathing suit? Or is it more than one? The Greenwich Hotel apparently thinks that it's more, so they crossed out where I'd written "1" and wrote something like "1.5," with the helpful explanation, "two piece." Yes, I'm being a little picky, but to be nickel-and-dimed while paying four figures a night and dealing with other issues – it left a bad taste in my mouth. I probably should have said something, at least about the stain on my shirt, but at the time, I wanted them to focus on our door lock, and I didn't want to get labeled as a difficult guest. (Obviously, at this point, I don't care anymore.)||||I want to add that many hotels send a post-visit survey asking for feedback. I’ve never gotten one from the Greenwich Hotel. In the past, that didn't bother me. Now, however, it reinforces my impression that they don’t particularly value me as a client. And why would they, if, as other reviews here indicate, the hotel is also catering to A-list celebrities like Bradley Cooper and Ted Danson? Next to clients like these, I'm guessing that me and my $50,000 are nothing.||||It’s hard to overstate how much I used to love the Greenwich Hotel. It was actually a reason to go to New York – as in, “Hey, if we were to get tickets to Sweeney Todd, we’d get to stay in the Greenwich Hotel again!” Now I’m having the exact opposite problem – as in, “It would be great to see Chess in October, but now we don’t have a go-to hotel, so should we bother?” I guess maybe it’s finally time to check out San Diego, Yosemite, or the...

Let me start by saying the front desk, house keeping and spa staff were phenomenal and the rooms were pristine. However, the bar and restaurant staff and food were subpar. We waited one time for over 12 minutes in the drawing room before anyone came over to see if we wanted a drink. We left shortly after. At breakfast, we had an extremely disappointing server interaction at LV, the restaurant attached. It took almost 10 minutes for someone to come to the table and there weren’t a lot of people there. I had to get up to ask the host if we had a server or not. The host (who was nice) was embarrassed and went to find our server. I saw the interaction between them and the server seemed agitated and his body language said that he was pissed off about something. After a few more minutes of arguing with the host, our server came walking our way. He did not say hello. He just looked at me and my wife and said “yep?”. We ordered coffee and juice and he walked away without saying anything else. Throughout the meal, he never came over to ask for a bring the coffee or to see how the food was. They forgot our toast so we had to again flag down someone else to ask for toast….. And the food was again, extremely disappointing (see pic below of my egg white omelette). It was one of the worst omelettes I ever had. I did not finish it.

I am not trying to be a whiny google reviewer. I really loved the hotel, staff and amenities… but please someone read this and take it as a criticism of your restaurant food and staff. See below another pic of my “granola yogurt”. It was white flavoured yogurt with bran flakes and hard fruit. My last comment about food and service at LV is that someone should take a serious look at this place and revamp it. It was hilarious to us to see how bad the food was. The croissant was so dense that I would guess it weighed about a pound and was so chewy with no crisp to the shell. Not worth it. Oh and the juices they have are pre made behind the bar and dumped into a glass with no ice. They are not fresh and they are not good. It’s the restaurant trying to brand “fresh juice” but it’s like a bucket of premade juice that you’d get at an all inclusive in Cancún. I wouldn’t go off so much on this topic but I believe it’s important. Again- the hotel AMAZING. The restaurant… AVOID!

The hotel spa was beautiful and calming. The lobby was quiet and calm… a good place to hang out. And the front desk (Nate, Romy, William) were amazing. Thank you for all the great attention to detail. If you are reading this review and wondering if to book or not, I would say do it…. But definitely eat somewhere else. The food was absolutely sub par for what you can get around the corner in NYC ….

5/5 hotel 5/5 hotel staff 5/5 amenities 2/5 food and...

It was around 12am and Locanda has already stopped serving food. So We popped into the Greenwich Hotel on Saturday night to grab a drink in the lobby while deciding where to grab dinner at nearby.

I have been here well over 10 times to have drinks and dinner/apps. I also have stayed as a guest at the hotel numerous times on staycations-Jay was always amazing at the front (he was not there last night as I’m sure my experience would’ve been completely difference!). Up until moving further away uptown earlier this year, Kayla, in the spa, was my go-to for my waxing needs for 2 years. EVERY TIME had been in this beautiful place, my experience was more than great. However after last night, I will never be back. I was mortified and embarrassed at how your staff treated us as we walked in, sat in the lobby, and refused us beverages by never coming to take out order.

As we walked through the front door i smiled at the men at the front desk, “are you still serving drinks?” 1 mans reply: “drinks? Uh yes”. Me internally: That was strange! “Ok great! We’ll grab a seat and some drinks!” 7 MINUTES LATER the same rude man came by and gave us three drink menus (there were 4 of us) and no waters. Again, very strange. All of us being in hospitality eye balled each other after he hurried away with out a greeting or dropping waters at the table. He NEVER CAME BACK. Another 10 mins went by and we asked the front desk for a server as we were ready to order drinks. Front desk assured us, he’ll be right over. 6 more mins went by and nothing. We debated, perhaps we should give him more times. No. 23 mins of sitting with no water and no server is embarrassing and rude. It was a clear way of the server saying we were not welcome. We packed up and left - mind you the same front desk gentleman saw us come in and then saw leave without even acknowledging the fact we weren’t served upon.

I brought three new friends to your hotel because I loved the warmth of the service and the quality of the food and beverages, in the past. We love hotels, not just for their food and drinks, but for their ambiance, mood, service and art. I had talked to highly of The Greenwich Hotel & have always brought back friends as they visited or suggested they stay with you all if I couldn’t host them at my place.

I will...