The Benjamin Royal Sonesta New York

Avoid at any cost! It is a mystery to me how this hotel is in business. Even greater is the mystery how this hotel is classified as a 5-star hotel. Pretty much everything is wrong here. Staying here for 3 nights and I have sworn to myself to never return. The corner rooms (I was in room 1412 on the first of the three nights) overlook 50th and Lex. Because of that location they are incredibly noisy and be sure that you will unlikely get much sleep due to the sounds from the street. A small investment in double glazing the windows could have made these rooms liveable but they simply aren’t. The noise from the street outside is only marginally less than the noise from the aircon units inside the room. Industrial grade aircons have lower decibels than these. These are deafeningly loud. I have a sound level app on my phone and it showed a 85 decibels reading around the aircon! This level of noise is medically known to be unhealthy for your hearing over an extended time. Of course, you could switch the aircons off but then you sweat all night. So the noise inside and outside the room and/or the heat without the aircon guarantees that you will not sleep a wink. Which completely defeats the purpose of a hotel room. Then there was the water issue. Even after 20 minutes of letting the water run, there was no hot water in the shower or the sink. So I showered with cold water. Maybe they figured that if the aircons are going to be switched off, then a cold shower is probably a better option for the guests to stay cool. A very helpful lady at the reception changed my room the next day. The new room (2302) still had the noise from Lex Ave downstairs but it was slightly better than the previous room. The aircons were still the same noisy sort so I had to switch them off in this room too. It’s been two consecutive nights since I have gotten any sleep in this hotel. Then there was the debacle with the laundry. Same day laundry was supposed to be returned by 8pm but it was delivered at 9pm and that too after several calls to the reception asking about it. They brought it up to the room only for me to find that half my laundry was missing. I called the receptionist again, who was not only not apologetic, she was just outright curt and rude. She called back in a bit to say they found my laundry and that I needed to come down to the reception to collect it (how is this a 5-star hotel?). At this point I was frustrated and told her to send it up. Half an hour later, and after yet another call to the reception, they brought a box of laundry up to the room and it was someone else’s stuff. I write this review on the third night of my stay here. I fly out early tomorrow morning and I still don’t know if I will have my laundry returned by then or not. This is a comical situation at some level and not entirely the hotel’s fault. But the combination of the delays and the missing laundry and the rudeness of the lady on the phone and the crazy noisy rooms and the ridiculously loud aircons…are all too much and the sum total of my experience at this hotel is extremely disappointing. Poor product and poor service is hardly a winning strategy in any industry, least of all in hospitality. But here we have a case study of a business that remains in business, the how and why of it is unclear to me. I would highly recommend others to find alternative accommodation if possible. This one is highly avoidable!

We like this hotel and have stayed there before. The staff is great. We had a terrace Suite. We requested a king bed and when we first checked in, they put us in a room with a queen bed. I called downstairs and said don’t you have a king bed version of this room and they said oh yes, of course we’ll move you. So then poor Elias from downstairs had to come all the way back up and lug our stuff to a different room, which was much bigger and better. I wish they just would’ve given me that room in the first place. Anyway, the hotel is nice. We had a great time. I will stay here again. The price was right for a nice suite I thought it was reasonable. We ate at Parliament restaurant several times and while good, the breakfast was just OK because the coffee was actually quite bad and we had to go to Starbucks to get our coffee. The blinds in the bedroom of our suite did not go down all the way and they were shredded on the sides with holes in the middle so that was a little disappointing. We had to use pillows to cover up the gap. There were no hooks on doors or anywhere in the bathroom for bathrobes, towels or toiletry kits so we called maintenance and they came up and put one hook on the bathroom door and we bought some over door hooks from Amazon. The TVs didn’t work at first but maintenance came up and got them both working so that was fine. We still had a good time and I would still stay here again, but some of these things should be thought about such as hooks in the bathroom, blinds in the bedroom that go all the way down and also someone else commented on how high the makeup mirror was in the bathroom and I have to agree with that you had to look straight up to use it and I’m 5’6” not exactly that short. Anyway, shout out to Elias the bellman and Diana with housekeeping and Sandra and Joshua in the restaurant.

I’ve already written a review, but I can’t seem to locate it, but it was on a different site. The worst place I ever stayed at everything that could go wrong. Did go wrong from beginning to end. The mattress was awful. Never received a wake up. Call the phone in the room didn’t work. The door wasn’t closing the front door. It was noisy and a high floor. It’s like I was on the second floor. It was crazy crazy crazy came home needed a rest the worst multimillion dollar thing that they said they did filthy dirty bathroom the tiles in the shower. The radiator was all scraped and not painted. You couldn’t even see the mirror. It was so high I’m only 5feet 3 inches I needed to be about 5feet 8 inches or taller probably to see the mirror closet. Space was good never walked barefoot. The rug was dirty The kitchen sink backed up with water the first day and I was there for four weeks cost me $12,000. They gave me three free nights. It was bigger than I met with the big senior manager of the hotel. He was a joke, didn’t seem to care. He was always into his phone with his face. They did send me up a birthday basket of different cookies and things that was decent. It was very surprised well, maybe that was my greeting gift actually yeah it was like muffins and things I gave them out to some of the concierge they were. Some of them were very nice. It’s a good thing. I didn’t sleep too heavily because like I said, I would’ve missed my plane no wake up call the phone didn’t work. I’d like to post this. I hope people read it.

The staff is extremely friendly and professional, made it very personal providing hidden gems and great places to eat. They all took incredible care during my stay. Milagros, Emmanulle and Kayla were incredible. Location is perfect, one block away from the 51st subway for easy transportation accessibility. Would definitely recommend 10/10 to stay for others and will be back!

Got a great 4 night deal via Virgin Holidays. The hotel is easy to get to from JFK with it being a short walk from Grand Central Station. The rooms and facilities are of a good size, and have a small kitchenette and offers everything you need. The bed was huge and very comfortable. Location wise it is a five minute walk to the Rockefeller Centre or there is subway access just around corner if you are wanting to head downtown. Compared with staying closer to Times Square the area is very quiet with less road/traffic noise. The bar serves a good burger and the Espresso Martini’s made by Carlos are a must.