Another Hotel Change

Sheila and I were talking about hotels along the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route this morning as we watched the parade on television.  We were agreeing that if we ever did venture to Manhattan for the parade, for a few very good reasons, we would want to have a hotel with a room overlooking the parade route.  So, out of curiosity, we opened up Google Maps to see what hotels would be preferable. 

We found that there are actually a few options that look quite good and which were reasonably priced.  That got us talking about checking the prices of these hotels for our upcoming Christmas trip to Manhattan with Lukey and Kenzie.  We already have a hotel booked for this trip but it never hurts to check options and check for a better deal.

This parade route location where a few nice hotels are located was still a good central location for what we were planning to do on our Christmas trip with the kids.  First we looked into the Warwick Hotel, however and unfortunately, that hotel was still priced a bit higher than we want to pay.  The hotel itself is outstanding and probably well worth the extra cost but it was a bit out of our price range for this trip at this time.  Then we checked the Hilton Midtown.

This hotel had a price equivalent to the two other hotels we had booked previously...  the Life Hotel and the Grand Hyatt...  so that was good news.  Now, we needed to decide if we should make yet another change to our itinerary.  We had already changed hotels once but, to be honest, we both have been a bit uneasy about our second booking, the Grand Hyatt, for a couple of reasons.

First, Grand Central Terminal where the Grand Hyatt is located, was blocked by protesters in recent days which caused big problems for commuters as well as people staying at the hotel.  This bothered us a bit.  What if something like that happened while we were there?  

Next, although this hotel is no longer owned by Trump, it once was owned by Trump and this pretty much disgusts both of us.  The location was great though and it is no longer owned by Trump so we overlooked that it was once a Trump Hotel and booked it anyway.

Honestly, what Trump did to this once beautiful, historic and regal hotel is a disgrace.  As a lifelong student of architecture (and as an engineer), I can tell you that the changes this buffoon made to this hotel were changes that most architects consider sacrilegious, tasteless and even mundane.  This bothered us too but the hotel location was convenient and the price was right so we overlooked this too, taking a bit of a hit on our morals and integrity.  As time passed and as our trip quickly approaches, however, taking a hit on our morals and integrity bothered us more and more.  

The other reason we have been a bit uneasy about our decision to stay at the Grand Hyatt is that, after we booked this hotel at a very discounted rate, I found out that this hotel is slated to be demolished at any moment so a new flagship Hyatt can be built in its place.  This new hotel promises to truly be a flagship hotel and will be the second tallest building in Manhattan.  The renderings I saw of this new plan look promising, however, the current building is scheduled to be demolished and that is not a good thing if you are scheduled to stay at this current hotel.  Customer service will likely be non-existent...  the building may be in serious need of repair, in need of updating, and in need of cleaning...  the building may actually be being prepared for demolition too.  It could be a big ugly construction zone.  This definitely made us uneasy about staying here.

Consequently, after looking at various hotels for next Thanksgiving, we started looking at other options for our upcoming Christmas trip while we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

We chose to make reservations at the Hilton Midtown.  We have a room with a city view and, since Lukey and Kenzie would prefer to sleep in a bed rather than a sofa-bed, we chose a room with two beds.  The hotel is nice and the price was comparable to the price we found at the Grand Hyatt as well as at the Life Hotel.  The Hilton Midtown is located just north of most of the sites we plan to see whereas the Grand Hyatt was just east of most of the same sites we plan to see so the location is good.  Both hotels are close to transportation, if needed, so there was no difference there either.  The major difference is that we are no longer booked for what could be a noisy, dirty, messy construction zone and we no longer have to see what Trump did to this once beautiful, historic hotel.

Now we're looking forward to our stay at the Hilton Midtown!