Viki’s guest suite was the ideal base for our family of four to explore NYC from. Set in a lovely quiet residential street of Brownstones, we were based in a two bedroom suite above Viki’s family home. A steep flight of stairs is the access - so anyone with mobility issues or unable to carry suitcases could have difficulty. However, Viki makes this clear in her description and we had no issues at all with the access. We booked the apartment from the night before as we had an early morning flight in. After traveling over 24 hours from New Zealand it was lovely to walk into a lovely, warm, clean, inviting space. Viki had a large air mattress set up in the lounge for our son (which still gave us plenty of living space in the lounge) and our daughter had one room, whilst my husband and I had the larger bedroom. All beds were lovely and comfortable. The curtains do let in a lot of light so if a sleeper who prefers a dark room bring a sleep mask. The view of the Freedom Tower from the master bedroom was an unexpected bonus. The bathroom is an older style shower over bathtub and it did take us a bit of trial and error to work out the shower mixer taps - but once this was sorted the pressure and hot water supply was great.
Viki does have another rental suite above the guest suite and due to wooden floors you can hear footsteps above. We were lucky that for the first half of our stay no one was above us - and Viki was lovely and responsive when I did mention to her about the noise that a young family created when they rented this space for a few nights. The next arrivals were much quieter and we were not disturbed at all.
Carroll St station is a five minutes away and from here the F train takes you into Manhattan - a 25 minute ride away. We were out most nights and even when returning late at night felt very safe walking back from the subway to Viki’s. This part of Brooklyn is a lovely residential area with a real community feel. Lots of little cafes around - we had bagels most mornings from Brothers Bagels and there is also a great little diner the Cobble Hill coffee shop a couple of minutes away on Court St. One block away on Henry St is the Key Food Marketplace - great for stocking up on groceries and Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain was a fantastic little find for satisfying our sweet tooth cravings.
Viki has certainly earnt her superhost status. She was so responsive to any queries both before and during our stay. We hope to return to New York some time again in the future and would definitely stay here again. Thanks Viki for sharing your beautiful space with us.