Ramada Plaza New Yorker Hotel

481 8th Avenue, 34th St. & 8th Ave, New York City, NY 10001

I booked my trip on Hotwire (of all places) and said I was looking for a 4 star hotel with double beds. I used Hotwire because I did not want to spend $300+ on a room. Every other website seemed to want to make me pay through the nose for a long weekend (but I digress).

I chose the area I wanted (midtown Manhattan) and the price I wanted with the amenities I thought best – after paying my hotel was revealed: THE NEW YORKER HOTEL

Fancy fancy! With taxes, we paid $155 per night in NYC in December! I thought it was a great deal for the hotel and the location in comparison to the other options we had.

We arrived about 1 pm and I was prepared to have to wait until check-in at 3pm. Fortunately, our room was already available. Check-in was a breeze. We headed up the elevator to the 20th floor to our room. I like that they have elevators specifically for the 20-40 floors. For us, it was as if every elevator was express. Lobby to 20th with no stops in between.

The room was cute but super small. If you have ever travelled to London, the room size was on par with what you find there for midgrade hotels. Since we did not go to NYC to stay in the room, I was fine with me. It was very difficult to get a good picture of the entire room. Plus the lighting was not conducive to taking pictures. So using the one good picture I was able to take of the one of the beds and your imagination, you can figure out what the room looked like. There were 2 double beds that completely filled most of the room (I stood in the bathroom to get the picture of the one bed). The bathroom was small as well (about as big as an office cubicle). There was a little glass shelf above the sink but below the mirror on which the lotion, soap, and shampoo was placed but there was not much room for anything else. The sink was a pedestal sink with Kohler fixtures. LOVE!

The television was a flat screen on the wall so that took up minimal space. There was a small desk in the room that we could have done without. We spent most of our time walking around it. If the closet had been bigger, we probably would have put the desk in there.

The only drawback to the hotel room was that there was not a lot of power outlets. Given the age of the hotel, I understand but it was still an inconvenience. We all had cell phones, laptops, iPads, and camera batteries that needed to be charged each night. I thought about buying one of those 99 cent power strips but decided against it since I did not want to burn down my room from a power surge. Electrical fire in a confined space on the 20th floor? Yea, I’ll pass. I ended up charging my phone in the bathroom while we used the rest of the outlets for laptops.

Overall, I was happy to be situated in the middle of everything. The A train was at the corner. Penn Station was across the street. Times Square was a few blocks away. There were plenty of restaurant options for every time of day. Duane Reed was across the street for those essential items that we forgot to bring. Even though the room was small, it was comfortable and fit what we needed for the long weekend. I would definitely stay at the Ramada Plaza New Yorker Hotel again.