After having a nightmare of a time with a third-party booking at the Gansevoort, I decided to book at the Mondrian at the last minute. I booked directly through their site (they had the cheapest option available) and got a king one-bedroom suite at $330/night. I immediately called the hotel to add my friend's name to the booking, as she would be checking in before me.

When my friend arrived at the hotel, she was told that she couldn't check in, as her name wasn't on the booking. After she pleaded, cajoled and showed my email to her saying that our booking was confirmed, she still wasn't allowed to check in. She asked to use the restroom since she had been travelling all day and, when she came back to the desk, she found another staff member who allowed her to check in.

We were given a room on the 3rd level, the lowest level, since the hotel was completely booked for the half marathon that weekend. We were on the city side, which meant that we didn't have a balcony or any sort of view. I could hear electronica playing in my bedroom from the street below. The room was spacious and pretty, but was furnished with cheap (IKEAesque) furniture. The couch had a tear in it.

The bathroom sink didn't have much space for toiletries and a small shelving unit was provided on the adjacent wall for this reason. The shower head was hidden in a chandelier, which was really pretty, but which sprayed water directly from the ceiling of the shower into both the shower and all over the surrounding floor. We had a minor flood in the bathroom after each shower that we took and we constantly had sopping wet towels on the floor to soak up the spray. Even the little shelving unit with all of our toiletries on it got wet. Also, the shower floor never seemed to dry - when we checked in there was a little puddle in it and there was a puddle for the duration of our stay. (If you see mold in photos from other reviews, it's for this reason.)

The room temperature was a very cool 71 degrees F and we could not adjust the temperature, nor could we open the windows. We resorted to turning the heating/cooling off entirely for the duration of our stay.

The bed was comfortable and the sheets were a nice quality. If you have problems with overly stuffed pillows, I'd suggest that you bring your own. There was one TINY closet (you could hang maybe 10 things in it) and two very small shelving units like the one in the bathroom for clothing storage. No dressers, etc.

There was a television in both the bedroom and the living area, which was great since OnDemand didn't work on my living room set so I had the bedroom set as my backup.

The kitchenette was great, as we saved a lot on not having to eat out for every meal and Whole Foods is a short 3-4 blocks away.

The cleaning staff did a great job each day making the room look pretty again (they removed the sopping towels and cleaned the floor after our showers, gave us clean cutlery, etc.). The front desk staff was very nice and they did give us a recommendation for a place to go dancing Saturday night, although they didn't seem to know much about the nightlife in the area (couldn't come up with more than one option for us on a Saturday night).

The hotel itself is also really pretty, but it appears to be constructed economically (i.e. with cheap materials that only look nice from far away). The halls smell like a combination of stale cigarette smoke and tanning lotion (this is the sickening scent that some other reviewers mention). The scent, although not what I would have chosen, does not appear to cause allergic reactions.

The only things we ate were the hamburger and fresh guacamole poolside - both were average.

The hotel is located on the bay side, which means that you're a 20-30 minute walk away from the ocean. If you want to walk to the ocean, however, you can walk along Lincoln Road Mall, which is an open-air mall. There are all sorts of shops/places to eat and it's a really pretty walk.

The highlight of the hotel was the pool - and, since it's on the bay side, the pool got great afternoon sun. The Mondrian supposedly has a great pool party every Sunday, when the pool is open to the public, but it rained the Sunday we were there so we missed out. We didn't go into the water, but the hotel had ample chaises and the outdoor area was really spectacular, with private cabana-like hedge things and flowing draperies.