Trip to NYC - November/December 2007
Review of Quality Inn in Long Island City


 

When we started looking for hotels in NYC we discovered that the prices had gone up a lot since we were there last time. In 2004 we stayed at Hotel Thirty Thirty in Midtown for 150$. This time most hotels on Manhattan were above 300$! Due to this we started looking for alternatives and in the end we decided to stay at Quality Inn in Long Island City and the average price per night was 160$ including all taxes, breakfast and internet and we booked the room on the hotel homepage.

We landed at JFK in the evening of November 28th and the yellow cab to the hotel cost us about 40$. The hotel reception and the hotel is quite small and there were no other guests when we arrived so check in was extremely fast. We got room 207 which has a view towards 40th Avenue.

The hotel is pretty new so the room was nice with light walls and a blue carpet. The room itself was pretty standard: A queen size bed which was comfortable to sleep in but only one big bed spread (I like to have separate bed spreads). Apart from that there was a work desk with a big chair, a small wardrobe with a few hangers, an iron and an ironing board, a coffee maker, a big flat screen TV on the wall and a large mirror on one of the walls. There was no mini bar in the room but there was a vending machine on the first floor with water, Coke etc so it was not a big problem. A Coke in the vending machine was 1$. There was no safe in the room so we had to get the reception to store our passports. By the window there was a large air-con unit where we could adjust the temperature by plotting in the desired temperature. It was quite cold when we were there so it was good to have this option for heating even if it was a bit noisy.

The hotels offers free broadband Internet (wireless and cable) and it was not a problem getting this to work. According to the hotel homepage they have “Business center with Internet access”. I think this is stretching the facts a bit. There is a PC in the reception where you have access to the Internet but that is about it.

The bathroom in our room was small but it did contain a bathtub with the option of taking a shower. The detail of a curved shower curtain rod was nice as it prevented the curtain to stick to the back while taking a shower. The bathroom was tiled but there was no heating in the floor so it was freezing in there most of the time. The ventilation fan did not seem to work that great as the room became extremely steamy when we took a hot shower. The small amenities in the bathroom included shampoo, conditioner and lotion. As usual there was also a hair dryer...not that I have much use of that with my short hair :-)

Breakfast was included in the price but to be honest it was a joke compared to proper hotel breakfasts. At this Quality Inn there is a coffee machine, two kinds on juice (the type that you buy in a gallon bottle), bread and bagels and a toasting machine, butter and limited options of spread (jam and cream cheese), three kinds of cereal (frosties and corn flakes) and to round it all of: a nice selection of real American donuts :-) But it was nice to see that they also had bananas to offer the customers. The breakfast is served on the ground floor in the lobby and as there were only 5-6 tables there were not enough room for the guests to sit down for breakfast. Best option is to have breakfast early.

As the hotel is located outside Manhattan we were a bit worried how this would effect our stay and how easy/difficult it would be to get around. But this was not a problem at all. The hotel is about 5 minutes from the subway station 39th Avenue and from there it is only 2 stops to Manhattan on the N line. This N line makes stops on 5th avenue, on Times Square, Macy’s etc and you get to these places in 10-20 minutes. The area around the hotel is not very nice with parking lots, the elevated subway tracks etc. But it seemed to be very quiet and on the first night we walked a bit around to find a bit of food and it seemed very deserted. You can see the location on this interactive NYC Google map that I have made. The hotel is marked with a yellow marker.

Conclusion
I see that the hotel has gotten great reviews before and that is part of the reason why we chose the hotel. But I will rate it as pretty average and here are some of the down sides of the hotel:

• the elevated subway line is quite close to the hotel. We had a direct view to this and it was quite noisy. Luckily it didn’t seem like there were that many trains at night (if any at all).
• as mentioned already the breakfast and the breakfast area is a bit of a joke but I guess it is better than nothing
• the area is deserted so you will have to take the train into Manhattan (or to other areas) to eat at night - it seems like the cleaning can be improved. The bathroom seemed to be in need of a bit of a scrub when we were there.

We stayed at the hotel from November 28th until December 4th 2007. I would not mind staying at this hotel again in the future as the location is not that bad. But if I do choose to stay here again it will not be because it is an amazing hotel but rather that it provides a cheaper alternative to staying on Manhattan itself.