The Westin New York at Times Square — Hotel in New York

What a disappointment. I actually very rarely write online reviews, but if I can save just one person from wasting their money on this hotel, then my work on this planet is done.||We travelled to New York City to get married, thus this was a once in a lifetime trip. Unfortunately, we had several issues with the Westin. ||Lack of basic courtesy:|- We booked our room and then wondered if the Westin could do anything to make our stay a bit more memorable, so we emailed 10 days ahead of our arrival to ask for an upgrade. We received no response. Whilst I was not expecting for our request to be fulfilled – we were travelling during a long weekend, and so it is likely the hotel was full – I do at least expect a reply; this is just basic courtesy.||Poor value destination fee and rude staff:|- We fully expected to pay the destination fee, as is standard in North America. However, this was very poorly explained to us. When we asked for clarification, we were spoken to in a most rude and patronising fashion. Generally, quite a few of the staff to be abrupt and barely hospitable. |And with regards to the destination fee, you get very little for your money. It encompasses $35 per day of food from the hotel. However, the prices are so high, and very poor value - $22 for sausage, bacon and eggs that tasted like Playdough. But what is worse are the hidden extra fees - $9 delivery fee! $9 for the hotel staff to pick up the food, and make the 5-minute trip in the lift to our room. When you add this to the cost of the poor-quality food, and the taxes, you are way over the $35 allowance, which means you cannot even get one meal for this. All these fees meant we could not tip the staff as much as we would have liked to. I’d suggest to the Westin that they scrap the delivery fee, and let us tip your staff!!||Now, if you order food and then go down to collect it, there is still a service charge!!|And many items are not even made by the Westin – we ordered a fruit smoothie, thinking it would be freshly made, only to have one of those bottled Naked Smoothies delivered to us – for $11!! Plus a delivery fee!||Nonsensical fridge policy with undisclosed charge|- There is also a bizarre policy over the use of the fridge, including charges we were not told about. |My sister, who was staying in a separate room, did have a fridge on her arrival. The next day, the staff had taken it! My sister rang down and asked where it had gone. The receptionist told her that since the pandemic, they were no longer allowed to provide a minibar service. My sister explained that she didn’t want any alcohol, just the fridge, and that it had been removed with no explanation. The receptionist then told her there was a $22 charge for it!!||Restaurant staff are rude and clueless|- My sister was staying with her 4-year-old son. When we arrived for breakfast on our first day, we were told that children under 5 would get breakfast for free. However, the next morning, we were charged $17 for it. We explained that were told under-5s eat for free, and the staff argued with us saying, “yes, but sometimes we charge the full price.” This makes no sense! Do the staff just randomly decide when to charge and when not to?? Eventually, the staff agreed that they would not charge for my nephew.||Good things: the rooms are clean and nice. We had a good view of the Empire State Building. You can’t beat the location – yes Times Square is a commercial cesspool, but it still has a certain magic. And of course, its easy to get to the other hotspots of Manhattan from there. The destination fee is not just for food; it allows you access to some tours, but there is not really much choice over this; and we were so disheartened with the service that we did not want to explore these further. |We still had a great trip and wonderful wedding. But the Westin Times Square is more like a 2-star hotel, rather than the 4 star one it advertises itself to be. Definitely not worth the hundreds of dollars per night we spent on our stay there. I feel like this hotel takes advantage of the thousands of tourists that come to Times Square and ratchets its prices as high as possible whilst doing away with basics like courtesy, manners and value for money. Unless you really need to be in the heart of Times Square, I suggest finding a hotel...

On the last night of our stay at around 11 PM three persons knocked on our room door. I asked who was it and a woman responded saying I had to open the door since they were from the front desk. I was hesitant to open immediately since it was an unusual hour and two days before we saw a maintenance person outside our room saying "someone" has said it was their room but he/she could not access and he was there to open the door, so we told him we had not reported anything and he just left, but we were left wondering why that has happened.||In view of this, I asked them if there was any problem, and they just responded there was an issue with our balance and I had to open the door. I again asked what the problem was and by elevating their voices responded I HAD to open IMMEDIATELY. In the room I was with my wife and my twin 5 years old girls, so I was concerned what was this about as I was not even sure if there were really from the hotel or what was going on and making sure my family was safe is always my priority. ||Since I noticed they were elevating their voices and by peeking through the door I noticed one of them appeared to be a security person of considerable height I decided to open but they again just told me I had to go with them at that instant to the front desk, without explaining what the issue was. I asked for a few minutes to change my clothes (it was already 11 PM!). They agreed but they all three waited outside my room as if I was some kind of criminal... I finally went down with the three of them “escorting” me to the front desk and they told me the security deposit I left on my credit card had been rejected, which is strange as it was accepted when I checked-in and I could see the retention on my credit card App.||Nonetheless I asked what was the outstanding balance since I had no issue in covering everything at that instant to avoid being mistreated like that and mentioning I was clearly angered at how this was being handled. If there was any issue, I could have been given up an explanation on a different manner and not with three persons, including one from security, at 11 PM outside my room and being escorted to the front-desk at that instant.||Ultimately the pending balance was around US$450.00, which I do not believe it is a huge amount and that I covered at that moment.||Upon explaining my discomfort, one of the persons that came to my room who said was named Tiffanny and said to be the front desk manager just said it was the hotel's "policy" to manage a situation in this manner. I mentioned it was clearly not the way to treat guests and there were other ways to communicate this, but without showing any kind of interest just repeated constantly it was the "policy" and left while a different person from the front-desk finalized processing the payment.||I was severely disappointed on this kind of service and I would never come back to a The Westin hotel or recommend it to anyone, if this is the way you treat your guests over a possible misunderstanding on your system. Again, the security deposit was clearly retained in my credit card, and assuming there was some issue with it, we were definitely not planning on going away before settling our account.||I had never been treated so poorly in a hotel that is supposed to meet some standards. The front desk manager said to be named Tiffanny, she came up to my room with another person from the front desk named Brian and a third person who was from the security team who did not provide his name.||I assume you can recognize that knocking at the door of a guest demanding to come out at 11 PM without providing additional information and me having my wife and little kids inside the room in a city like New York is not a very pleasant experience and, if a proper explanation had been given, I would have definitely work with you to resolve any situation, but having such a bad attitude from your team and, even worse, having such disinterest from the front-desk manager when explaining that is not the way to treat guests was far from what we expected...

We stayed Saturday, November 9-12 2024. Not at all how I expected a Westin Hotel room in 2024 to look in any location. Very dated looking like 1970, right down to chipped old wood furniture and chipped dated wood window sills and floating shelves. The closet doors were the only mirror in the room, despite the online pics. Our cell phone chargers had to plug into an extension cords on the ground which the lamps are plugged into. The TV power cord was taut so it can reach the outlet across the room. The bathroom sink was so tiny that nothing stayed on the sink ledge; not even a cup or soap. There was a strange large black locked box in the closet under safe rendering it useless for storage. Upon entering the room, the old dirty horrible musty smelling rug had change on the floor showing me that the wait for the room to be cleaned did not actually happen. This was a special occasion so I purchased flowers from a local market along with some gifts. I asked the front desk person Christina to hold the flowers and gifts until I had the opportunity to pick them up and surprise my daughter. She then told me to wait and took another customer, while I was standing there with a dozen roses and a bag of gifts. This was in the evening and there was nobody except the one gentleman waiting and 1 other front desk person without clients on her phone. When Christina was ready for me again, I was told to wait for the manager to come over to assist me. The female front desk manager was talking to a male customer and they clearly were talking and laughing about non business related items for a solid 15 minutes, which made me happy there was someone personable that worked there. When she walked over she changed her happy demeanor and curtly asked how she could help me. Happily i asked if she could please store the flowers and bag for me in the back room and cutting me off she said “room number?” I told her and asked if it were possible to get a glass for the flowers “No” I asked if the restaurant behind us could lend one “No” I thanked her for her help and left. I walked 100 feet to the restaurant who were happy to give me a large tumbler glass. Kudos to the Foundry Restaurant - thank you! The bellman were also terrific. Thank you !! David Weishar, Director of Operations contacted me via email placating me that he’s sorry I didn’t enjoy my stay and will share these notes with the appropriate individuals for future modernization plans for our hotel. Westin Hotel Times Square have deceived us with their lovely online photos. This was a special occasion and for $1700 for 3 nights for this is really devastating to me. I did pay extra for hot breakfast which was nice. The male waiter who walked around miserable for our 3 day stay, instead of filling up empty coffee cups he was interrogating the other server about how many 20s were left on the table and basically accusing them of taking a $20. Be aware: Christina and the front desk staff are clearly trained to say your room is not ready but we can “upgrade you to a higher floor for no extra charge” then preceded to tell me how much I’m saving by this free upgrade that I didn’t ask for. Upon entering the room and the condition described above I was literally on the verge of tears and went back to ask for the room I booked and she said that room was already given away which was very confusing because 10 minutes earlier it wasn’t ready, but she said “don’t worry, that room is more outdated than the one you’re in.” What? While sitting in the lobby trying to pull my emotions together before heading back up for a quality birthday week with my daughter, I heard a husband come back from the desk to tell his wife “our room isn’t ready but they said they’d upgrade us to a higher floor without paying” Horrible experience from the time the timeshare employee, John initiated conversation with me to get me to join a 1.5 hour seminar when i respectively declined he had a major attitude. Pros: the bellman downstairs, the location for sure, and the nice people in the Foundry Restaurant who...