Travel: The Pod Hotel
The Pod Hotel
I head to NYC quite often and I’ve stayed in well over 50 different hotels there over the years.
Along the way I more or less settled on The Park Central Hotel as a good, central base for most of my recent trips. It’s mid-town, West Side, has a decent gym – and is close to the Stage Deli, where I have to get a sandwich during every trip, and I would still recommend it for a more traditional, full-service hotel.
I’ve also stayed at nightmare that is the Marriott Marquis Times Square (despite your thinking that it would be fun, don’t ever stay there unless you want to feel like you are the tourist/sleeping equivalent of Grand Central Station) and I have rescued out-of-town friends from staying on-the-cheap at The Carlton Arms who were at risk of freezing to death from the poor heating and/or just freaking out from the weird vibe there (though it may have changed since their last visit, not that I would give it a shot again…)
But thanks to my dear friend Joan, I finally got to stay at The Pod Hotel, a place I heard about, wanted to visit, but somehow never did.
All I can say is I think I have found a new home in NYC. “The Pod” is simple, clean, inexpensive, the people that stay there are of course, tourists, but I didn’t see any with an “I Love NY” t-shirt or 15 suitcases (but I did hear many languages, some I couldn’t recognize). The staff is friendly enough and the location central enough (although it took me a bit to get used to being on the East Side as I am a generally a West Side guy).
But what sets it apart is the rooms – they are indeed small, but who spends much time in their room in NYC anyway? What they lack in square footage though is more than made up for by the creative way each space is designed. From truly unique bunk bed rooms, to typical Queen sized bedrooms, back to small singles with shared baths, The Pod designers got it right – just enough space, well done, at a fair price.
And if you don’t think you could deal with a shared bath situation, you might want rethink that as they even got that right – there are lights in every room that tell you which of the four shared bathrooms (all marble, with great showers) are free so there is generally never a problem in finding a free bathroom whenever you need one.
Highly recommended…
Travel: The Pod Hotel