I have just spent three weeks in one of Carlos’s Manhattan apartments and I have to say that the stay was great. It was a business trip - I was working at the US Open tennis where the hours were long, the commute was frustrating and all I wanted was a quiet, clean place to come to and call my own.
I booked a car to and from the airport through Carlos’s car company and, lo and behold, it was Carlos himself who came to meet me. He showed me around the apartment, answered all my questions (everything from how to work the TV and the air conditioning to where to throw the rubbish out) and told me to contact him at any time if there were any problems.
The only hitch was the internet connection – it broke down for a few days just after I arrived. This turned out not to be any fault of Carlos’s or of the equipment in the apartment but rather that of Time Warner Cable (the same company that managed to turn off the internet connection in the press room on the first day of the US Open. That went down well, as you can imagine). Anyway, I e-mailed Carlos late one night as I wrestled with the dodgy connection and within 15 minutes, he was back in touch having contacted the cable company. It was past midnight at this point but he was happy to help. He dropped round some extra cables the next day in the hope that they would help until TWC got its act together and within two days we were up and running perfectly.
As for the apartment itself – it is just as it looks in the photos. The living room area is large, the sofa and arm chair are comfy and the desk makes working from the flat easy (no balancing the laptop on your knee while perched on the end of the bed as in most hotel rooms). The kitchen is small but has all mod-cons and the bathroom is as any bathroom should be (plenty of hot water and good water pressure in the shower). And there is heaps of storage space in the hall closets.
The midtown location is great, the apartment is quiet (and cool thanks to the air conditioning unit that is probably powerful enough to stop the ice caps melting) and Carlos is a helpful, friendly and an extremely efficient landlord. I would definitely stay in the same apartment again and would recommend any of his properties to my business colleagues.