Does anybody know why some major hotels aren't listed in the reviews on this web site? For instance, one of the worst hotels of all time, the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC, is not on Fodors.com. What if people want to go there but can't find a review?

They do it the same way thousands have done it: They go there.

It's only us favored few that access this board that know what other intrepid travelers, and reviewers, think of some of the nation's great sleeping places.

Fodors only seems to give suggestions, not good/bad reviews. They don't seem to include the names of places to avoid, just places they found to be nice.

Can you imagine how many people it would take to visit EVERY hotel in NYC, and write a review (not to mention keeping it up to date!)? No guidebook, or web Site, can include everything.

Actually I was reffereing to the Review section where travellers get to rate hotels. You can only rate the ones they have listed - which are a lot of hotels, but seem to have some conspicuously missing. (I'd swear they used to list both the Hotel Pennsylvania, which is a huge hotel across the street from Madison Square Garden, and the New York Helmsley at 42nd and 3rd.) I'm just wondering if they get really bad reviews do they simply drop them from the lineup? That would be fine but it seems more helpful to continue to show them as a warning.

I think the hotels and restaurants listed in the rant and rave section are the same that are mentioned in fodor's travel guides, so it would stand to reason they wouldn't include anyplace they considered really bad. I do think, though, that there are a lot of very good places not included.

Cindy makes a good point.Not all popular hotels and restaurants are listed.I wonder if Fodors chooses not to list some hotels for other reasons?

Don't know about Fodors hotel reviews but there is a website at www.tripadvisor.com that lists hotel reviews, both good and bad.

I haven't compared them exactly, but I think Susan is right. The places listed are only those they list in their guidebooks. This site is meant to be an adjunct to their guidebooks, mainly, not a comprehensive hotel rating comments section. In order to list a place, they first have Fodors comments on it, as I recall, that are taken from the guidebooks. As with all guidebooks, they make editorial decisions about a very limited number of hotels they want to include that are in the range of acceptability (some more expensive, some modest) for their particular market. They do change what's in their guidebooks when they are updated. I don't know why they would not include a very major well-known one, though, perhaps because they don't recommend it. As far as I know, they don't include anything in their guidebooks that they absolutely don't recommend at all.

Thanks everybody! I'm going to check out the tripadvisor web site.

Tripadvisor is probably a good place to check and citysearch.com also has user reviews although all that I've checked seem to have wild variations for any given property. I agree that it would be nice if they opened up a section of rant'n raves where people could add new hotels even if they are ones Fodors has not listed. It would benefit the froum greatly as there are so many questions (e.g. how is the Hotel Pennsylvania) that people could easily answer by just checking there first.