Flutterby™! : Hotel Pennsylvania

Most of the online guides I can find seem to give the Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan, New York City, a 3 star rating, but after a short time there Charlene and I decided that if stars were the standard we needed to be classifying the place with smaller celestial objects. Like asteroids.

The counter staff barely spoke English and went through their steps perfunctorily. There weren't enough of them. The bathrooms had two bars of soap and two small containers of shampoo/conditioner-in-one, none of the usual array of emery boards and hand lotion and the like that one might expect to find. The halls were grungy, although many rooms actually had signs, our room number was written on the door in marker. It took us a while to find the "Do Not Disturb" sign after being awakened at 9:00.00 (6:00.00 our time, and this after having been out late because, well, that's what you do in New York), and once we did it didn't hang on the doorknob well. We were woken up one morning by the sound of rushing water and falling hardware to see water flooding into the bathroom, which is okay, everyone has the occasional accident, but when I opened the door to see if others were having this problem I ran into our neighbors shaking a cockroach out of their bedspread.

And whatever you do, do not make a long distance call from your hotel room. More than $2 per minute.

If you're looking for a place to crash, there are cheaper options in Manhattan. If you're looking for a nice hotel, there are better options. Skip this one.