Overall, our Millennium Broadway trip was a mixed bag. I'll start with the positives:
- The location cannot be beat. If you want to see a lot of Broadway shows and be centrally located near Times Square, it is perfect. Walkable from so many theaters, and very close to subway stations all around.
- The rooms (especially ones without lots of windows) were quiet. This was definitely a concern of ours staying in Times Square, but the noise insulation was quite good and we never had issues with noise.
- The hotel was LOVELY in allowing us to keep our bags at the hotel before check-in. We dropped them off around 1pm (check-in wasn't until 4pm) and since we were out late with friends, we came back around 1am and were able to get our bags no problem from a locked, safe location where they had stored them for us. Excellent service!
- Many of the reviews complained about the rooms themselves: honestly, this was completely fine. Sure, the building is a bit dated (aren't most buildings in New York quite old?) and some of fixtures could use some TLC. But the water pressure was great, the showers and sinks were all functional and warm, the bed was comfy, and who cares if the room you're staying in is super modern and up to date? If you're coming to New York, then you likely shouldn't spend much time in the room.
Now onto the not so great. I feel that I've been fair in singing the praises of this hotel accordingly, and I share these details for the benefit of future potential visitors.
- On the 4th night of our 7 night stay, there was a live cockroach in our room (20th floor). We called the front desk to get it taken care of, and it took upwards of 20 min (given that it was 2:30am, understandable) for someone to come up with a vacuum to try and catch it.
- The most frustrating part (on top of dealing with a disgusting cockroach in your hotel room) is how the hotel initially handled it. I went to the front desk to ask for a partial refund due to the health concerns and disgust of a potential infestation, as well as a new room (nothing nicer, just an equivalent room) and the night manager tried to tell me that it was "just a water bug, harmless." I did my research (and have photo/video proof that was shown to the staff) that this was not a water bug, but was actually a Palmetto Bug, aka the American Cockroach. It is well known that shady landlords in NYC try to downplay a cockroach infestation by calling them "water bugs" instead. Only after pushing back that this was indeed a cockroach, and that they were trying to lie their way out of it, did we get a partial refund. In particular, we got 3 nights of the $35 a night facility fee waived.
- Other reviews have mentioned, but be warned that you will be charged an additional $35/night fee. We anticipated this, and only after the cockroach incident did we try and get all 7 nights of the fees waived given the severity of a cockroach infestation (and having to look through all our bags to confirm no eggs or other roaches were present), but the hotel would only allow 3 nights to be taken off (total of $105) value. Instead, they "upgraded" us to another room (41st floor) which, while it had a better view of Times Square, was actually smaller and a little more in need of TLC than the room we were in before. Since we are light sleepers and had no intention to stay in our rooms, we didn't care about the view and simply wanted an equivalent room with fewer windows (better sound insulation), but the best the hotel could do was say that the $$ dollar equivalent of the upgrade was actually their solution to the cockroach problem.
At the end of the day, the hotel was expensive for what it was. I don't plan to ever stay in Times Square again (there are SO many nicer neighborhoods that are still centrally located!) and the hassle and headache of dealing with disingenuous hotel staff isn't worth the trouble. I acknowledge that much of the hotel staff did the best that they could under the circumstances. Enter at your own risk.