Anyone stayed at the Best Western President on 48th St lately and can give me a feedback please? Have booked the Comfort Inn at 46th St but read bad lines about it. thanks so much.

Well - if you lookk at tripadvisor.com that Comfort Inn actually seems to et better reviews than the Best WEstern.

All complain about small rooms, things being "tired" and some specific heating problems or poor staff attitudes.

But - if you want to stay near Times Square (where hotels tned to be overpriced) and have a very low budget this is sort of the deal.

You can often get more for your money in other parts of the city. If you tell us dates ad what your budget is - people may be able to make other recos.

nytraveler, are you saying then that CI is in a better area to see the touristy sitesif you are only in NYC for a few days? I have read somewhere that you don't really want to believe everything you read on the tripadvisor reviews? What about POD Hotel on 51st St if we are just comparing area? thanks again.

Best Western and Comfort Inn are oly a coupleof blocks apart - no real difference in neighborhood or convenience. And no - I nmeant that the reviews for Comfort Inn seem better than the Best Western.

The Pod Hotel is an interesting idea - but you have to be careful what rooms you get - the basic rooms has bunk beds and shared bath. Only the better rooms have real beds and a private bath.

The area of the Pod Hotel is IMHO nicer than Midtown west (most New Yorkers hate Times Square - even though many tourists want to stay there for some reason). But no area in NYC is close to everything - since tourist sights are spread out over an area 8 miles long plus islands in the harbor.

But - in saying other areas I was thinking more of the upper west side or downtown areas - where you can sometimes get deals - esp on weekends.

I don't know when you're coming or what you'd be paying for these rooms, but you can sometimes find good deals in summer on travlezoo.com, esp. for a weekend stay. While the rooms at the Hotel Mela are painfully small, there's a special for up to 4 days for $169-199.

I think the CI Midtown is better than the BW President.

We just spent 6 nights at the Comfort Inn - Midtown, and we were very pleased. I stressed over our hotel decision and was a little worried about some of the reviews on tripadvisor.com, but fortunately I did all of that worrying for nothing.

The hotel is currently being renovated, so there may be some rooms that are still "tired" looking. While we were there, the 4th floor was being renovated. We stayed on the 7th floor (rooms 709 & 705 to be exact), and our rooms must have already been renovated b/c the bedding and carpet was newer looking than the pictures I had seen on tripadvisor.com. When I made the reservations, I requested rooms away from the street.

My husband and I were in room 709, and we had no complaints. The room was small, but we expected that because this was not our first trip to NYC. Although it was smaller than what you get in most cities, I found it to be adequate for NYC. We had enough room to get around the room and store our luggage. I thought our closet was pretty spacious by NYC standards. There was enough room to hang all of our clothes (btw - we brought some hangers from home), store two suitcases (one full-size and one carry-on), and place our shoes.

The bathroom was spacious by NYC standards, too w/ plenty of shelf space for toiletries. It was nicely tiled, too, which I assume was also part of the recent renovations. As far as space goes, there was some space around the sink, a little shelf above the sink/below the mirror, and a large,deep shelf (more like a windowsill) above the toilet. There were also shelves below the sink for the towels & washclothes. We had no problems with water pressure or temperature while we there.

Some rooms are set up differently. My in-laws were in room 705, and there bathroom only had a stand-up shower; whereas, our room had a tub w/ shower. They also said that their closet was smaller than ours, but I didn't check it out to see how much smaller.

My main concern before we arrived was the window A/C units in the rooms. We stayed at the Casablanca last year and that was my biggest complaint about the hotel b/c the unit in our room was very noisy and did not cool adequately. The window unit in our room at CI - Midtown worked fine. While it was still somewhat noisy, it was more of a constant noise that actually helped to drown out the street noise and noise in the hall. Most importantly, our room stayed a nice, cool constant temperature. There were actually times when we were too cold and had to adjust the temperature.

I don't know anything about the Best Western President, but I highly recommend the CI - Midtown.

Oh, btw - the renovations in the hotel did not really cause a major inconvenience for us. We were up early every morning, so the noise wasn't really a problem. We did take a few naps in the afternoon and could hear noise then, but nothing at night or in the morning. Also, there were a few times when we went back to our room in the middle of the afternoon and had long waits for the elevator b/c it was stopped on the 4th floor, so they could fill it up with trash or whatever and take it down to the basement to dispose of it. A couple times my husband and I just took the stairs b/c we got tired of waiting, but we are somewhat impatient. Again, this was only in the middle of the day when they were working. No problems with this in the morning or at night.

For a 2 night stay the Comfort Inn was great. Clean with modern bathroom although very small. Breakfast in the morning was a plus. Location was also a plus for me. I like being close to Times Square.

Two weeks ago I stayed at the Club Quarters just a block over and was impressed. Same size room,(small) but a little upgraded versus the Comfort Inn. Not much, but a little. I had looked to book the Comfort Inn first, but the price was $40 more a night.

Stay at Comfort Inn, the location can't be beat and the room is OK.

enjoy,
Duane

thank you everyone for SO much input....really love this forum!! will stick to the CI midtown as this is our first trip there and want to be close to all the touristy sites.

Sorry to disappoint you - but times Square is not near all th touristy sights. they're spread out all over Manhattan. And no matter where you stay you'll have to take the subway to get to most sights.

(Suggest you get a street map and a sbuway map before you go - to orient yourself and see how far things are from each other.)

Times Square is famous for being near lots of theaters - and for being loud, garish, mobbed with tourists and filled with tacky tee shirt shops and overpriced chain restaurants. but - actually it is a business district with tons of skyscrapers and not that near many sights except Rock Center.

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