Wow, I’m really falling behind here. I’ll try to update you on all my meals during my hotel stay. That’s right I’m back in my home! Now that I’ve returned, I can reveal my hotel location. The brand new-ish aloft Harlem. I heart Starwood Hotels so finding one somewhat close to home was great. There is nothing great about living in a hotel, but the aloft staff certainly did try to make it home for me.
When I arrived on a Tuesday morning, they allowed me to check into my room. I was impressed with the wireless key entry.
When I entered the room, I was a little taken aback by the compactness of it all. The sink is only a couple of feet from the door and it shares a side wall/door with the bathroom.
The oversized shower was stocked with Bliss products so I was thrilled because that meant I got to leave most of my toiletries at home.
The closet faces the sink and it barely fits anything. Certainly not my stuff, I mean I was there for 2 weeks!
The closet is actually just the backside of the headboard to the monster size bed that dominates the room.
The mattress wasn’t as comfortable as other Starwood beds I’ve slept on, but I get it aloft is like a baby W Hotel so it’s not quite as fancy. The views were also very disappointing.
The room had a giant television but the room was so small that the TV definitely dominated and not in a good way.
My first night there I went downstairs to get something to eat.
The hotel lobby includes the xyz lounge. It is lively at night, but since the hotel was my home – I was not digging the liveliness. The food there was nothing short of awful. The menu was severely limited to make it worse they didn’t have several of the items on there. I got the sense that the items came straight from the Costco frozen food section. I finally settled on Chicken Fingers. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw behind the door and noticed that my chicken fingers were being popped into a toaster oven. Sigh.
They tasted just as I expected, bland and uninteresting. I was truly disappointed but I should have known better. That was the last night I ate anything from there. Once I realized that my apartment wouldn’t be ready anytime soon, I decided to switch rooms. I moved to a higher floor with a slightly different lay out and a street view.
Always nice to have a bit of a hallway. TV on the wall was also a benefit, but unfortunately I could hear noise from the TV next door and a few channels stopped working during my stay. Tsk tsk. The gym was wonderful, but I forgot to take pictures. I had plenty of pent up aggression because of my housing situation so I worked up quite the sweat. The machines allow you to hook in your iPod and it even sends the statistics back so you can keep track of your progress. The outdoor area was also pretty nice.
On the nicer evenings, I sat out there pondering why I was still living in a hotel.
Overall my stay at the aloft Harlem was as good as it can be considering the reason I was there. I would have preferred being there under different circumstances and definitely would have liked a shorter stay. The staff was friendly and I obviously loved the Bliss products. Now if only I could get my reimbursement from the people who put me in this situation in the first place and agreed to reimburse me…
Hungry yet?
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