Christmas in New York 2011

National September 11 Memorial and Museum

Attraction | "A wonderful memorial"

Quote:

Even on my first visit to New York in 2010 I couldn't bring myself to go near the area of the old World Trade Center site. I have always waited for the memorial to open. In December 2011 I went to visit the memorial to pay my respects, and it was a moving afternoon.We'd spent the morning on a food tour in the East Village. We walked down to the memorial from there. On the way we passed a few fire stations and noticed various memorials and names, which were rather moving in themselves. Eventually working our way down to the memorial, I was pleased to see it was clearly sign posted where you enter the memorial as this is a busy area of New York. After passing through security and lots ...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on April 7, 2025

National September 11 Memorial and Museum
NW Corner of Albany and Greenwich Streets
New York, New York

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John's Pizzeria

Restaurant | "Tasty pizza"

Quote:

Myself and my partner were staying in Times Square on our 2nd visit to NY. This time we wanted to sample a pizza restaurant in Manhattan as on our previous visit we had only been to Grimaldi's at Brooklyn.When we came here the place was very busy. We were given a number and sat waiting for it to come on the screen. Surprisingly we didn't wait long at all. The restaurant is very nice, it's dark in the evening and quite atmospheric. It doesn't look very large from the outside, but once inside it really opens up.We ordered chicken wings to share as a starter. In hindsight this wasn't a good idea as there were lots of wings and we could barely finish the pizza we had as our main. ...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on April 7, 2025

John's Pizzeria
278 Bleecker St.
New York, New York 10014
(212) 243-1680

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Evergreen Diner

Restaurant | "Best place for Breakfast near Times Square"

Quote:

Times Square is full of tourists and with that comes expensive tourist restaurants. It is hard to find somewhere tasty, and relatively cheap in this area.Tucked away down 47th Street, Evergreen Diner is a secret gem! Our hotel (the Doubletree) was right near by and this diner was mentioned in a couple of online reviews. We ended up eating here every morning of our stay and we loved it. The diner itself is very American in style. The staff are extremely friendly, you are seated and provided with a huge mug of coffee in no time at all, and after ordering food it arrives very promptly. There's tons of breakfast options, anything you can think of and they'll do it, and the food is always tast...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 7, 2025

Evergreen Diner
145 West 47th Street
New York, New York
(212) 921-7676

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Doubletree Guest Suites Times Square-New York City

Hotel | "Guest Suites on Times Square"

Quote:

Situated right in the heart of Times Square, the Hilton Doubletree Guest Suites would probably never have been my first choice of hotel for Manhattan. I went to New York in December 2011, not the most particularly cheapest time for hotels here unless you're rather flexible with dates. Personally, I was happy with any hotel in Manhattan in a decent area, located near a subway station, clean and reasonably priced. I was originally all set to book in at the Holiday Inn on 5th Ave. however I noticed the Doubletree on Expedia for only a small amount extra. For this small amount I would not be getting just the usual hotel room, I would in fact be booking into a mini guest suite with separate living room, be...Read More

Situated right in the heart of Times Square, the Hilton Doubletree Guest Suites would probably never have been my first choice of hotel for Manhattan. I went to New York in December 2011, not the most particularly cheapest time for hotels here unless you're rather flexible with dates. Personally, I was happy with any hotel in Manhattan in a decent area, located near a subway station, clean and reasonably priced. I was originally all set to book in at the Holiday Inn on 5th Ave. however I noticed the Doubletree on Expedia for only a small amount extra. For this small amount I would not be getting just the usual hotel room, I would in fact be booking into a mini guest suite with separate living room, bedroom and bathroom. Being located in the hustle and bustle of Times Square did put me off slightly, but the price was appealing and the idea of a mini style suite seemed like a good idea.

The Hilton Doubletree is located in a tall building directly opposite the TKTS booth (those famous red stairs in Times Square) and all of the hotel's rooms are small suites. You can pay extra for a Times Square view room, however as I personally don't spend much time in my hotel room in New York, never mind looking out of the window, I wasn't bothered about upgrading. I also knew from reading reviews on TripAdvisor that you pay extra for a Times Square view room, and they are actually smaller suites as they are situated in the corner of the building.
The hotel is right on top of the 49 St subway station for the N, Q and R trains, and it's only a short walk away to the Times Sq station which has connections to a lot more trains. From the airport we took the Air Train and then Subway to the hotel, and after fighting our way through the crowds outside with our suitcases it was a relief to step into the hotel lobby, except it wasn't the lobby. When you step inside it's a small room with some bellmen who direct you to 3 elevators. You only wait a few seconds before one whisks you up to the actual lobby, and it was a nice surprise. Large, spacious and quiet with a big reception desk that was well manned. We arrived at 2pm and as check in wasn't until 3pm I did expect to wait but we were checked in immediately, given our keycards and some warm chocolate chip cookies. I was hoping for a high up room, and we were on floor 15, but there are 43 floors. There are 6 elevators for the hotel and you never waited for long for a lift to come at all whether going up or down.

First impressions of the room were excellent, it was large, spacious and clean. The view from the windows in the living room and bedroom was an even nicer surprise, as it did over look part of Times Square and some office buildings. It would have been a waste of money paying to upgrade as the view was excellent enough from a standard room. At night time it was even better as all the lights came on in all the office buildings. The glow from Times Square lit up the rooms on an evening but black out curtains keep out all the light. The windows open to the loud noise of sirens and car horns, and they do keep out a good amount of noise. When closed you can hear the odd siren and car horn but it's not very loud at all, we need peace and quiet to sleep and had no problems sleeping!
The living room had a large LCD TV, and there was another one in the bedroom. There is a wet bar area with a coffee machine, sink, ice bucket and glasses. There is a fridge and microwave for your own use and the safe. Underneath the TV is the mini bar but as expected it was expensive and we never used it. The bathroom was a good size for New York, although the door from the bedroom is hard to use as it opens right next to the toilet. There in a shower over the bath and the hot water was plentiful. The bed was huge, comfortable and extremely soft. If you're the type that needs a hard bed you will not like this one. A daily newspaper is left outside your room each morning, and if you're having a lie in I do recommend putting the do not disturb sign out as our cleaner came in at 9am one morning just as we were preparing to leave for the day.

For the first few days I assumed the soundproofing in the rooms was excellent as we never heard anything, however on our final morning we were woken at around 6:30am when our neighbours took a shower. The sound of the water is so loud it sounded as if the shower in our bathroom was running.
There is no free wi-fi in the rooms, which was annoying as this is a 4* hotel. I had stayed in a 3* hotel the previous year which provided free wi-fi (of a slower speed) in the rooms. Instead to use the free wi-fi you had to go to the lobby. This was spacious as it's also a bar area, although during check in/out times you will not get a seat at all. The lobby consists of people on laptops and mobiles and ruins the atmosphere of the space really. There is a Business Center with PC's and printers on a different floor, however I was surprised to find you need to pay to use the PC's in here, yet again in a previous 3* star hotel there was no charge for this. Instead I asked the reception desk to print off my boarding passes, but they only do this during certain times because of check in times, and because I was asking during this time they wouldn't do it but pointed me in the direction of the concierge desk. They were extremely polite and printed off my passes for me straight away.
On our final day we were approached a couple of times by someone attempting to sell a time share for the new Hilton opening up elsewhere in New York, which got annoying, as I don't want a sales talk when I'm coming or going from the hotel.

I didn't use the restaurant named Gingers for breakfast or other meals, as I imagine it's expensive being a hotel restaurant, but instead I took a tip from another review and went to a place named Evergreen Diner. This was located right on 47th street, go out of the hotel doors, turn right and go down that street. For somewhere so close to Times Square it was very cheap, under $10pp for a huge breakfast. It was a typical American diner, complete with seats at the bar for solo diners and New York Rangers flags on the wall. The staff were extremely friendly, and got to know us by our final morning, I can't recommend it enough. For dinner, I wouldn't recommend the Times Square tourist restaurants as they're over priced and busy. We did try Bubba Gump's one evening which was fun, but it was extremely expensive compared to other nicer restaurants in Manhattan. The bar in the lobby is nice and peaceful and not too expensive. We used it one evening but he didn't have a drinks menu, I wasn't sure what to ask for so he made me something 'tropical' which was very nice! The barman also chatted to us about what we had been up to that day and helped us answer a question we had about a building we'd saw that day that looked strange!
I would go back to this hotel if it was a good price again. It was great having a suite to use, and whatever you do don't book a room with a view as they're smaller, and lots of the standard rooms have great views anyway as ours did. Read Less

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 7, 2025

Doubletree Guest Suites Times Square-New York City
1568 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
(212) 719-1600

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Sheraton Skyline Hotel

Hotel | "Oasis of Calm opposite a Heathrow runway"

Quote:

When it comes to airport hotels, I'm not fussy at all. It's somewhere I'm spending the night, before I go off on holiday and the excitement of said holiday generally unconcern's me regarding our choice of hotel! I was looking for something cheap, but still relatively nice, on the Holiday Extra's website. I noticed they had a range of 'mystery hotels' and after a slight bit of investigation work, I realised one of these hotels was the Sheraton Skyline (after all, there aren't too many Heathrow Hotels with a pool) and so I booked it for a considerably cheap price compared to the price offered further up the page, where the name of the hotel was certain. I booked a standard double non-smoking...Read More

When it comes to airport hotels, I'm not fussy at all. It's somewhere I'm spending the night, before I go off on holiday and the excitement of said holiday generally unconcern's me regarding our choice of hotel! I was looking for something cheap, but still relatively nice, on the Holiday Extra's website. I noticed they had a range of 'mystery hotels' and after a slight bit of investigation work, I realised one of these hotels was the Sheraton Skyline (after all, there aren't too many Heathrow Hotels with a pool) and so I booked it for a considerably cheap price compared to the price offered further up the page, where the name of the hotel was certain.

I booked a standard double non-smoking room; I didn't need parking though if you do, I highly recommend booking a hotel + parking package as paying for the parking at this hotel will be expensive. We took the Hoppa Bus from Terminal 5 to this hotel, which I can safely say was the last time I'll ever use this service after fearing for my life with a crazed driver (who swore loudly when he missed someone's hotel out completely, and upon arrival at our hotel slammed on the brakes on the main road as he over shot the entrance, nearly sending us out through the wind screen!) and so I was extremely happy to arrive in the safety of the lobby, which was warm and cosy and decorated for Christmas. The check in process didn't go too smoothly as they had a trouble registering our key card, a member of staff offered to take us to our room and they would bring us the keycard once the machine was working. Just as we started moving though, the machine jumped into life and we were left to our own devices to find our room. We were also offered access to the club room for a price, however I declined as we would have left before breakfast was served anyway. You need to use the key card in the lift, and the lack of instructions left us standing on the ground floor for some time trying to get moving, before we opened the door and beckoned a member of staff to help us on our way.

Our room was a good size and very pleasant with all the usual amenities expected in such a hotel room. The bathroom was actually rather spacious and had a bath tub. There were plenty of complimentary toiletries and it was very clean and modern. There are tea/coffee facilities and of course the overpriced mini bar, one of those automatic ones so don't lift anything out. Our room faced the inner courtyard, which is where the indoor pool is, done out with trees and foliage and in the evening when it's lit up it's actually rather nice. There were a couple of people using the pool, but as some of the bars/restaurant face out onto it then shy people will be deterred. One of the best features of this hotel for us was the Starbucks in the lobby, so we were straight back down to the lobby for a Starbucks coffee. There were some comfortable chairs in the lobby and a large TV playing the news so it's a nice area to relax in.
We generally tend to avoid expensive hotel restaurants, and I knew of a good pub nearby from reading previous reviews, however there is also a McDonalds a couple of minutes walk down the road and so we opted for the cheap and quick option!

Back in the room, the large flat screen TV had a good choice of TV channels to keep us entertained, and when it was time to sleep I found the bed was extremely comfortable. Despite being opposite one of the Heathrow runways, the sound from the planes was distant and unnoticeable. When you are just outside the hotel's main entrance the roar of the planes is deafening!

Due to the previous day's terrible experience of the hoppa bus, we asked for concierge to arrange a taxi for us, which arrived promptly and was a flat rate of £15 to terminal 5, it costs more than the hoppa but I was pleased to arrive at the airport in a comfortable car and not fearing for my life.

I wouldn't hesitate to stay at the Sheraton Skyline again. The members of staff we encountered were very pleasant, the rooms are comfortable, modern and clean and the Starbucks is an added bonus. If you're staying for more than one night, or are about to jet off somewhere nice and hot, then the indoor pool looks very nice. Big tip: book through a site such as holiday extras and search through their 'mystery hotels' - it's not hard to work out which one the Skyline is, especially as the pool will be listed as a facility. Read Less

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 7, 2025

Sheraton Skyline Hotel
Heathrow Airport
London, England UB3 5BP
+44 (208) 7592535

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