EVEN Hotel New York Times Square South by IHG

Great location with friendly and responsive service. My room had some workout bands for TRX type workout and yoga equipment. Nice shower and bathroom. Comfortable bed. Ideal place to stay in NYC for business or personal travel and the price is fantastic.

The good - location was awesome, the rooms were decent and had workout gear. Staff was helpful in our request to changing rooms for loud neighbors in a conjoined room, and upgraded us to a premium room when possible due to our plat elite status. The bad - some rooms (we got the normal king and the premium king over our 4 night stay), like room 2300, have weird bathroom designs where there are partially see-through shower rooms from outside. The staff were not trained well. The GM Chris was doing a decent job, but some staff members we encountered like Esther were lacking warmth and energy. We asked to store some food items during our room swap, and the front desk told us the fridge items will be kept in a room cold enough. Turns out it was just a normally air conditioned room, and our stored food was no longer fresh like it would've been in a fridge. I was in the elevator with two female cleaning staff and they were yawning and talking about how tired they were. I also overheard the front desk and another cleaning staff talking about how they were tired (it was the start of a morning shift). I am always tired at work too, but I don't announce yawn and my tiredness loudly.

This is not a 4 star hotel. If you want a reasonably priced hotel without any frills, you might like this place. The room was a decent size and the bed is comfortable. However, it doesn’t look well maintained, there is no in-room dining, and the “restaurant” in the bottom level is a total joke. I paid $18 for a “flatbread” that was basically a pile of lukewarm pita with a ball of melted cheese on top. I don’t need 5 star dining, but when I’m traveling for work it’s nice to have on-site food options that don’t taste like they’re microwaved.