Stayed here for one night to celebrate an early Valentine's Day with my husband. I got a deal for roughly $150 for one night through TravelZoo, which is a great price for a weekend stay in a hotel in Manhattan. We were fortunate enough to get a room on the 38th floor, so it was one of the newly renovated rooms. There was nothing super fancy about the room - it was clean, comfortable, and had a modern look. Despite the renovations, the tile in the bathroom still looked dated, and the room didn't have the "plush" look or feel. For instance, the room lacked a coffee maker, which I found strange, and there were only poly-fill pillows available, no down options. There was a mini-fridge, which would have been useful had we stayed for more than one night, and bathrobes and basic toiletries were provided. The room was a decent size, and the location was great for walking to lots of great restaurants, Central Park, Museums, etc. I would stay here again if I got a similar deal. Even though we were on one of the highest floors, we could still hear traffic noises in our room (not enough that we lost sleep, but it was one of the indicators that the building is older and lacked more modern insulation and/or windows).

We stayed at the Helmsley for a girls' weekend. We had two rooms with two queen beds. The rooms were very expensive (about $500 per night) but it's in a great location. We were lucky that we could use points for one of the nights so that it wasn't so costly. Unfortunately, the hotel is very dated and we weren't in one of the renovated rooms.

The big problem for our room was the ac/heating unit. We arrived, dumped our bags and headed out for the evening. When we returned, we heard a clanging noise from the heating/ac unit. We didn't think much of it and went to sleep. Unfortunately, none of us in that room got any sleep. The unit made these erratic and loud clanking noises. There was the pattern to it so every couple of hours, it would wake us up. It was a horrible night's sleep.

The next morning, I called at around 730 am and asked them to fix the heating/ac unit. We returned back to the room around 1030 pm. The first thing we heard when we entered the room was the clanging noise. I couldn't believe that they didn't fix the problem when we were out of the room. I immediately called again because we all needed to get some sleep and we knew we couldn't with that noise in the room. Maintenance did come up and tried to fix it but couldn't. By this time, it was well after midnight and maintenance couldn't do anything and the manager couldn't give us a new room. So we were faced with the choice of either listening to the noise, or sleeping with no air moving in the room. We decided to try the latter.

Again, none of us really slept because the room got extremely hot with the unit off. The next day, we talked with the manager again. The most he could do was to give $100 off the room or points back. I thought that this was unacceptable since the room was very expensive and we didn't sleep for the two nights we stayed at the hotel. Given the price of the hotel and that points cost this hotel nothing, this was extremely poor customer service.

The only reason why I gave the hotel two stars is because it is in a great location. Maybe it will be better post renovation, but customer service and the room condition leaves something to be desired.

Wonderful stay, squeaky clean, good service, not overly friendly or bubbling with enthusiasm, no room service avai till 6pm, hotel restaurant expendive, room very warm and needed better lightening. Difficult to read

As others have mentioned, this hotel is in the process of a major remodeling. As a consequence, I intentionally booked a more expensive room to be sure of receiving a newly remodeled room, and to also be on a higher floor. The room was a comfortable, corner room and the view was of downtown and to the East river. There were three of us, and when putting in a roll away, we found we had little space to move. Fortunately, housekeeping was able to set it up later in the evening and so the impact was minimal. The public areas seemed attractive, although to be honest we were only passing through, and did not really spend any time in them. If you want convenient and quick options for grabbing a bite to eat, or even to sit down for dinner, you will find you are spoiled for choice, even in the immediate neighborhood/block. I would certainly go back, the location can't be beat. I do imagine room prices will be more expensive, once the renovation/remodeling is complete however, since for similar hotels in midtown, this was one of the most reasonably priced I found.