Beacon Hotel NYC my best bet

Dakota Apartments NYC

With a city as big and diverse as New York, how do you find a suitable hotel? Ask a friend, use the various internet sites or just take my advice?

The Beacon Hotel on the corner of 75th and Broadway in Manhattan's Upper West Side is a great choice for a brilliantly located property, good facilities, scrumptious beds and pillows, big TVs and a refurbished lounge and bar for either guests or passers-by. I know there's no such thing as too helpful or too friendly but the staff at The Beacon come close and Darryn I think it was, gave me some suggestions for loads of local restaurants from India to Italian. Not that I needed much help as we'd already discovered about six casual places, the type that I like, with a comfortable ambience, between 72nd and 74th streets (which are really short blocks) and the longer block to Amsterdam Avenue. The Beacon's rooms and suites have cable TV, free Wi-Fi and kitchenettes which makes the food store opposite a very handy thing to have across the road.

According to a few Aussies who've stayed at the Beacon, the Fairway Market is one of the best in town - best meats, fish, cheese and the prices are reasonable. In fact they're cheap. I bought a punnet of blueberries for $2, a walnut and fig wedge for $3 (would've been about $8 in Australia) and a couple of cheeses from a huge deli selection. All this food access is very important I'll have you know, as The Beacon makes eating in an 'easy and good' alternative especially if you've been traipsing around looking at everything important nearby. The Museum of Natural History is four blocks, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts less than a kilometer and the Beacon Theatre next door.

NY mates

A ten minute walk gets you to the Dakota Apartments where John Lennon lived and was later shot (1980) and then across the road is Central Park (which stretches from 59th Street to 110th Street and 5th Avenue to 8th Avenue.. Walk a few metres in and you'll find Strawberry Fields and while I was there, a busker was sitting on a park bench near the Imagine mosaic, playing the guitar and singing Hey Jude then Let it Be. It was much more moving than I thought it would be but then again, I grew up with the Beatles. And on the corner of 72nd is the subway, only four stops to Times Square.

So, for all these reasons, The Beacon's my recommendation for a great New York hotel and there are deals available year round.
www.beaconhotel.com

I Wanna Go Home - Is this the worst hotel in the world?

 

Seven hours of driving through winding roads in the north of India, barely missing scooters, trucks, other cars, people, cows and around a million trishaws would have been worth the nail biting if we'd ended up where we thought we were going. That was meant to be a fresh air, relaxing, hillside lodge with views across the valley and gardens full of fresh herbs. Now that I've survived the trip, I can reveal that it wasn't anything like that. Don't get me wrong. I love surprises when I travel but this surprise was above and beyond anyone's expectations and not good ones at that.

At a town about half way there we stopped for lunch and looking forward to eating at a local restaurant. I love Indian food and always have and I prefer basic restaurants or cafes as long as they serve good hopefully wholesome food. But this was unbelievable and none of us could face it. Take a look at the fish - the main dish. Nup - not possible to eat.

Just a bad experience, a crappy restaurant and no big deal perhaps. But let's just get to the accommodation which was truly astounding. The water in the taps was yellow, the beds were rock hard and so was the thing that was meant to be a pillow. It was a harrowing drive and all we wanted was something edible and a place to go to sleep as by the time we arrived it was well and truly dark so no view until morning. (By the way, we left early the next morning before sunrise to go back - so seven more hours dodging traffic and animals along the same winding roads).



During the night, or more precisely, around two in the morning I could hear people in the room next door chatting and laughing but by then I didn't really care. However, a guy in the room on the other side of mine couldn't stand it any longer. The whole scenario was just too much. He banged on their door and said"Shut up. People are trying to sleep". As he came back past my door I heard him say "I can't stand this. I just wanna go home." I reckon he was close to tears. Get over it some would say but it was bloody terrible and on a paid famil. Part of life's rich tapestry but not the part I'd choose as it was unnecessary dangerous driving and completely unhygienic all round. I was looking forward to staying in real Indian hotels - I'd stayed in palaces and in tents and loved both experiences but this hotel was a humdinger - and didn't even see the view. Don't even know if there was one.