Loved this hotel!!

This hotel was great!! Wonderful location!! Right in the middle of everything and everything was within walking distance. Clean rooms and great service! I would definitely go there again! I am planning my next trip to NY in the Spring and I am definitely planning to stay at this hotel again!

Great location, good service

Location is ideal for anyone interested in staying near Central Park (2 minute walk) and Times Square (10 minute walk), and 5th Avenue. Also close to Subway. Good bar in hotel, rooms were well serviced, clean, roomy, shower took a few minutes to warm up, but not an issue. Breakfast in the hotel restaurant is a little expensive, and with so many great places to eat in NY go out and try one of the hundreds of cafes/delis.

No complaints about the service in the hotel, staff were friendly and helpful at all times. Definitely recommend this hotel to anyone and would stay there again.

A Great Hotel

We stayed here for three nights mid-January 2006. We arrived a couple of hours early, but our room was ready which was great. We were on the 18th floor, with a view of the next door office building and New York rooftops - it was fine. We woke to light snow on our second day in New York, which was fun, coming from Australia - even though it was very cold out. The hotel is well located, near two subway stations, and within walking distance of lots of attractions. We caught the subway when it was two far to walk. Hotel staff were great, very friendly, and helped with directions and recommendations for dinner; there are lots of places to eat in the street, and in the nearby streets. Continental breakfast was included, and it was very good. As other reviewers have indicated, the hotel lobby and rooms are small, but that didn't really seem to matter. Nice feeling to the place, and we'd definitely stay there again.

Very nice hotel, small rooms but great overall!

Ok - I stayed at the semi-new HIEX on 5th avenue and 45th street in NYC. Overall my stay was very pleasant and I will be returning next month.

Price per night - $150 plus taxes ($125 for my stay in feb!)

Check-in was smooth - the people at the front desk were all very friendly but not super knowledgable about NYC in general.

Rooms are very small, my room was a king bed room and the room is basically about 4-5 feet wider than the bed. Bathroom is tiny, stall shower only which is longer than it is wide. Awesome cable lineup with somewhere around 200 channels including ondemand channels.

Free breakfast (same as other HIEXs) and free internet! (the internet was $16 per day at the westin in chicago).

They tried to upgrade me to one of their 3 suites each day but were unsuccessful.

This is a very nice place and when you take the price into account, the room does not seem so small. I would recommend this to anyone who travels alone or with a partner. The room might be small for 2 people plus kids.

Believe the Reviews

Great location, new rooms - with fancy LG flat screen tvs, and all at great rates (especially with AAA). We got the 1BR suite, which I would recommend for a little more space. There was very little storage space and the bathrooms were efficient, but the friendly staff, continental breakfast and new decor added up to a good experience.

Great Hotel

I had a great stay at the Holiday Inn. The location is very central. The staff was pleasant and even let us check in early. They had a guest computer that was very helpful when mapping out locations and finding events. Modern and very clean rooms.

Great Value and Location!

My husband and I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, New York Midtown on 15 Dec 2005. We were in NYC just for the night as we had tickets to a Broadway show. I had originally made a reservation at another hotel, but read an article in The New York Times about the opening of this hotel, so cancelled our old reservation and booked here.

We paid a rate of $208.00 (not including taxes) for a room on the 15th floor with a king sized bed. This was a government rate (very hard to get at most hotels in Manhattan) and we were not asked to show id (my husband is in the military). The cost of hotel rooms in Manhattan just keeps going up, and with a high occupancy rate, it's really hard to get a decent hotel room for under $300.00. I thought this Holiday Inn Express was a great bargain.

The room was small, but had a king sized bed, nightstands, desk, sitting chair, and armoire with a flat screen tv. The bathroom was also small, but very clean with a large walk in shower (no tub). The wall mounted hair dryer in the bathroom is powerful and works well; no need to bring your own. The bed was quite comfortable and double sheeted with a polyester stuffed comforter.

The hotel is in a great location; an easy walk to Times Square, Broadway shows and even not too far from Penn Station.

I was very pleased with this great find and will definately stay here again if I can get a good rate.

Great Location

This was my our first trip to NYC and we loved every minute of it. The hotel was in a very central location...two blocks from Times Square, Radio City, Rockefeller, and about 4 from the Empire State Building. They let us check in early (11am) so we were stuck in a room below the lobby but it was actually very quiet, plus it was where the computer was that no one really used but us. They also held our bags at checkout so we could go sightsee more because our plane didn't leave until late in the day. The staff was very nice, even giving us a wake up call at 3am to see the first snow fall. (I've never seen snow before this). There was a good chinese and pizza place across the street. Breakfast bar was good, check out was a little hectic and slow, but nothing terrible. The lobby itself is tiny, but what isn't in NY. The rooms were small, but again, it's NY. Beds were very comfortable but you can only fit a roll away bed in the king bed room (and then you have to climb over the bed to get to it....it was definitely something we will never forget!) The only complaint I had was the two elevators were slow to accommodate 27 floors. And watch your room charge because they double billed me but fixed it as soon as I called them. Overall, we would definitely stay there again for the price compared to other hotels.

Wrongly priced

There's lots going for this hotel, besides its great midtown location. The rooms are clean, modern and fresh. The bed was remarkably comfortable. The high speed Internet connection was very fast. The bathroom was a little lacking in flat surfaces, but well appointed and the walk-in shower was great. With just six rooms per floor, and more than 20 stories, the two elevators are insufficient. Just don't plan to get out from a high floor in a hurry...

The cruch, for me is the price. Typical rates are $299. You can get full service hotels (including "higher grade" Holiday Inns) with lobbies big enough to swing a cat (unlike here!), a concierge and so on for a similar price. Somehow the price-performance here is not quite right. At $179-$229 depending on season, this would be a slam dunk winner. At the current price, I'd shop around before returning.

A good place to stay in Midtown NYC

I stayed at the recently opened Holiday Inn Express over the New York City Marathon weekend (early Nov). The hotel had only been open a few weeks and everything was new (including most of the staff). While far from prefect, there are many things going for this hotel.

Pros:

-It was very clean. While that was to be expected in a new hotel, the cleaning staff looked like they were trying to keep it that way.

- The location was great for anyone who wants access to midtown and all it has to offer (shopping, theater, Times Square, business etc). The hotel is surrounded by restaurants that cater to the business and tourist crowds.

- Breakfast is included. While it is the same selection every morning, it has what you need - there is cereal, juices, coffee, bagels, fruit and my favorite -- hot cinnamon rolls (which are very addictive).

- Beds were very comfortable (not hard like many cheap hotel beds) and the washroom have good showers (Holiday Inn is really promoting their shower heads and they do live up to the hype).

- Staff were friendly and tried to help were they could (with info on restaurants and shops).

- Free local calls (very important in NYC, were it pays to make reservations). Also free Internet access (if you bring your own computer).

Cons:

- Rooms were small. I understand this is a common NYC thing so the rooms may not have been different then any other comparable hotel. It is virtually impossible to sleep an extra person in a cot or the floor in the standard sized rooms. Bathroom also really small (don't try to get ready at the same time as your partner).

- The hotel is physically tiny. It looks like the hotel was put in as in-fill between two buildings. The lobby is tiny (but who cares unless you plan on spending your entire trip in the lobby) and hallways on the floors are narrow.

- Floors were so small that we could smell of smoke in the halls/our room if someone on the floor lit up. It was supposedly a non-smoking floor, but clearly the hotel doesn't enforce this policy.

- Not many frills - no room service, concierge, pool etc (but again it is a mid level priced hotel in NYC so what did I expect)

- Staff are still working out some of the wrinkles. For example, we got woken up on our last morning by a staff members who knocked before putting the bill under the door (why she/he needed to knock at 7 am is beyond me). Staff were sorry and said it was not supposed to happen but it is clear that things are still working themselves out. In addition, we didn't always get the correct answer. They gave us incorrect price estimate on taxi to the airport (it was supposedly a $33 flat fee, but then when the taxi arrived it was $36 plus $4 highway toll). They also gave us crappy directions for subway, to shops, etc.

Overall I would recommend the hotel. It is nothing fancy but is a clean and convenient place to put your head down at night in NYC. For what you get in New York in its price range it is good value (which is to say that its would be overpriced by any other city's standards). The only downside of staying there is that you will probably spend too much money shopping and pricey restaurants in the area. This can be solved by hopping on the subway to the Village or China Town, just don't ask the staff for directions.