The Leon Hotel — Hotel in New York

What a Bizarre Experience at the Leon Hotel. ||||My wife and I decided to book this hotel for the weekend due to its great location (it really is situated perfectly). On arrival, we were very happy to be able to store our bags at the front desk prior to check-in, as we arrived in the city far before the check-in time. After check-in, we were happy to have a nice room with a good view. However, our first night at this hotel was honestly so bizarre and odd, and our subsequent encounters with hospital staff were so poor and gaslighting, that I cannot help but write a review about this experience in hopes that any future traveler won’t walk away from this hotel with such a ridiculous story. ||||My wife and I went to bed around 10pm on our first night. At roughly 1:15am, I awoke to the last ring of the hotel room phone, and before I could reach it, I heard my cell phone vibrating as well. When I checked my cell phone, I had three missed calls from Joseph, the front desk staff member, with three separate voicemail messages. My initial thought was something horrible must have happened, as that seemed to be the only rational reason to place so many calls so late at night. ||||I promptly called Joseph back, at which point I thought I must have still been sleeping when I heard his reason for the call. He told me that the woman who stayed in our room the previous night was in the hotel lobby stating that she had left a valuable item in the room’s safe and was needing to retrieve it (the safe must not have been checked and reset between guests). ||||Joseph had called the room phone, and my cell phone FOUR total times at 1am to…….wait for it….. inform me that a complete stranger (importantly, not management, but the woman herself) would need to enter our room where my wife was still sleeping at the time, to retrieve this mysterious valuable item at ONE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING. ||||After I made sure I wasn’t still dreaming after hearing that request, being a reasonable person, I stated that I understood the situation and would was happy to allow this previous guest to retrieve her item the following day, even first thing in the morning. However, being that I was paying in total over $300 a night to have a safe and private room, and being that my wife was still sleeping and that we had an early morning to prepare for, I was not comfortable allowing a complete stranger to enter our room in the middle of the night.||||It was clear from Joseph’s response that this was not going to be an appropriate resolution to the problem, as he stated again that she needed to enter the room at that time (I found out the following day that the New York City Police were involved at this point). Ultimately, in an attempt to preserve our façade of privacy, I located the safe and saw that it was not secured to any solid structure in the room, and told Joseph that I would take the safe to them. ||||So, still not sure if I was dreaming about carrying out a jewelry heist, or simply following the remarkably persistent and untimely requests of the hotel front desk, there I was at 1:30am, carrying a hotel safe across my chest with a mysterious valuable object inside, through the hallway and down the elevator into the lobby. I went back to Booking.com and looked at the terms and conditions of our stay, and for some reason, I just could not find any place where it mentioned either allowing random strangers into our room in the middle of the night, or carrying safes into the lobby. ||||The next morning, after very little sleep after the safe-heist, I approached the front desk to debrief on the evening’s events. I told the nice woman behind the counter that I was hoping to speak with Joseph in hopes of determining an appropriate compensatory discount to our stay for the significant disruption. She said that unfortunately Joseph was not working currently, but she told me not to worry, though, as they had already granted $20 off the previous night, and $50 off the following night for the inconvenience. Considering the absurdity of the event and resulting lack of sleep, I told her that $70, which equates to 11% off our 2-night stay, simply did not seem sufficient. She told me again that Joseph was not working but that I could stop by that evening and speak to him, which I agreed to. ||||Surprisingly, though, 30 minutes later my wife and I came down from the room and there was Joseph, working behind the counter! Apart from an apology, we were told that there was absolutely no further compensation that would be provided in light of our disruption. In fact, he seemed profoundly surprised that I was not happy with the original compensatory discount. It honestly made me reconsider the absurdity of the event (I reconsidered it and decided that yes, it was still absurd). ||||I told him that his unwillingness to make the situation right was surprising, as it was clear that they valued the prior customer’s experience so much that he was willing to compromise our personal peace and privacy in the middle of the night to allow her to retrieve her item! He didn’t seem to appreciate the irony like I did. ||||Ultimately, no further compensation was provided, and while we had no further issues the following night, we left the Leon Hotel with nothing more than this bizarre story and a desire to never receive 4 calls from the Leon Hotel front desk in middle of the night ever again. ||||While the hotel itself is nice and the location is great, I am sure you can find a place to stay that will accommodate you as well as the Leon hotel accommodated the guest from the night prior to ours, and not how they...

We wanted to visit NYC and while in February hotels are generally cheap, decent hotels are still over $100/night. I found this hotel originally on AirBNB, however only for one night. This is to my advantage because I was able to use my AirBNB credit towards the stay. I went to the hotel's website directly for the second night and found slightly lower price due to the non-refundable rate option. I called ahead about the separate reservations and they said they can link the two reservations together no problem.

From LGA Airport, you can take the Q70 city bus directly from the airport terminals to Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave station in Queen. From there, you can take the F or M train downtown to 34th St. Then change to either B or D train downtown to Grand St station. The hotel is about 5-7 minutes walk from the subway station. The front door of the hotel literally facing the roads to go across the Manhattan Bridge.

If you plan to stay at least a week in NYC, consider buying the Unlimited Pass for $34 bucks, which can be used on the trains and buses. At a cost of $2.75 per ride, if you ride the public transportation at least 13x, you will come ahead. We were only in the city for 2 1/2 days and rode the public transportations 16x per person without even trying. When we returned to the airport, we gave the pass to the next tourists and tell them they have 4 more days of unlimited rides and to pay it forward :)

Back to the hotel, we arrived at 11 am and was unable to check-in until 3 pm. We were allowed to leave our bags with the front desk. There were quite a lot of bags there and though they are stored in a small hallway by the restroom, they're adamant to see your luggage tags before you retrieve them. I guess I'd say they're pretty safe there though you can still grab a bag if you tried when the sole front desk clerk is tied up with another customer. We didn't return until close to midnight since we spent the day exploring the city and our luggage was the only ones left there.

The lobby is quite small with only two seats available. The front desk staff that we encountered were friendly and helpful. Especially the male staff that worked the overnight shift. Even the housekeeping lady and the Hispanic male that vacuums and clean the door windows were friendly. I watched at least three NYPD officers on different occasions stopped by to use their restroom. I'd say that help keeping the hotel safe. Police presence always a good thing to deter crimes. At no time did I feel unsafe walking around the area, even when walking from the Grand St station subway to the hotel close to midnight. There were few restaurants that open late and people were out and about. I even walked around Chinatown looking for CVS or Walgreen around midnight and felt safe. I came back because it was cold and after I looked them up on Google, they were quite far lol.

We booked the standard King size room, received room 401. Our first impression? Wow our room is big! I was expecting a small room due to the price and well, it is New York City after-all. We had a view of Lower East Side and partial view of the Manhattan Bridge. The room is well decorated, modern design and nice bathroom. Shower fan made vibrating noise when turned on (we left it off) and the sink faucet have a strong water pressure which made water splash all over the wall. But beside these small issues, we're very happy with our choice of hotel. The bed was comfortable that I slept for 8 hours straight. Perhaps I was also exhausted with all the walking around the city, because in Florida we drove everywhere lol. The room keys doubled as a luggage tag which can be used again when you travel. Really cool!

The main concerns I read on here are the odor from Popeye's Chicken next door. Our room 401 has no smell of Popeye's.

The room comes with 1 fruit snacks and crunch bar per stay and 2 bottled of Costco water daily. There's also a Keurig machine in the room.

We will...

What a Bizarre Experience at the Leon Hotel.

My wife and I decided to book this hotel due to its great location. We were happy to have a nice room with a good view. However, our first night at this hotel was honestly so bizarre and odd, and our subsequent encounters with hospital staff were so poor and gaslighting, that I cannot help but write a review about this experience in hopes that any future traveler won’t walk away from this hotel with such a ridiculous story.

At 1:15am, I awoke to the last ring of the hotel room phone, as well as the vibration of my cell phone. In total, I had four missed calls from Joseph, the front desk staff member, with three separate voicemail messages. My initial thought was something horrible must have happened, as that seemed to be the only rational reason to place so many calls so late at night.

I thought surely I must have still been sleeping when I heard his reason for the call. He told me that the woman who stayed in our room the previous night was in the hotel lobby stating that she had left a valuable item in the room’s safe and was needing to retrieve it (the safe must not have been checked and reset between guests).

Joseph had called the room phone, and my cell phone FOUR total times at 1am to inform me that a complete stranger needed to enter our room, where my wife was still sleeping at the time, to retrieve her mysterious valuable item at ONE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING.

After I made sure I wasn’t still dreaming after hearing that request, I stated that I understood the situation and would was happy to allow this previous guest to retrieve her item first thing in the morning. However, being that I was paying in total over $300 a night to have a safe and private room, and being that my wife was still sleeping and that we had an early morning to prepare for, I was not comfortable allowing a complete stranger to enter our room in the middle of the night.

Joseph’s response indicated this was not a possible solution, as he stated again that she needed to enter the room at that time (I found out the following day that the Police were involved at this point). Ultimately, in an attempt to preserve our façade of privacy, I located the safe and saw that it was not secured to any solid structure in the room, and told Joseph that I would take the safe to them.

So, still not sure if I was dreaming about carrying out a jewelry heist, or simply following the remarkably persistent and untimely requests of the hotel front desk, there I was at 1:30am, carrying a hotel safe across my chest with a mysterious valuable object inside, through the hallway and down the elevator into the lobby.

The next morning, after very little sleep, in light of the safe-heist, I talked to Joseph in hopes of determining an appropriate compensatory discount to our stay for the significant disruption. He informed me that he took what ended up being roughly 10% off our 2-night stay for the inconvenience. Considering the absurdity of the event and resulting lack of sleep, I told him that this simply did not seem sufficient. Ultimately, he seemed profoundly surprised that I was not happy with the original compensatory discount and stated again nothing further would be considered. It honestly made me reconsider the absurdity of the event (I reconsidered it and decided that yes, it was still absurd).

I told him that his unwillingness to make the situation right was surprising, as it was clear that they valued the prior customer’s experience so much that he was willing to compromise our personal peace and privacy in the middle of the night to allow her to retrieve her item! He didn’t seem to appreciate the irony like I did.

While the hotel itself is nice and the location is great, I am sure you can find a place to stay that will accommodate you as well as the Leon hotel accommodated the guest from the night prior to ours, and not how they...