New York, New York - The Jumeirah Essex House

We recently returned from a trip back East, where we spent over a week in Manhattan.  While there, we stayed at the Jumeirah Essex House, which is on Central Park South (59th Street).

Our stay started out a bit rough.  About two hours after we checked in, our room started to reek of cigarette smoke.  Someone in a nearby room must have been lighting up.  While we don't like to complain, the smoke is a problem for us -- my son and I both end up with breathing issues when we're exposed to smoke for longer than a few minutes.

So, we asked to switch rooms.  After a bit of debate about where the smoke might be coming from, and whether the smell was really that bad, they moved us to a new room lower down in the hotel.  The new room didn't have much of a view -- we were at about tree level, facing the leave-less trees of winter in Central Park.  The new problem -- when I tried to pull the shades up to see the view, the shades themselves actually fell apart and broke entirely.  And no, I wasn't pulling that hard.

At this point, I'm happy to say that the hotel really stepped up.  They gave us a fantastic room/suite on the second-to-top floor of the hotel, with a partial view of the Park, a full view of the Time Warner Center (which is one of the great new architectural views in 21st-Century NYC), and a bit of a view beyond that of the Hudson River.  They didn't raise the price on us, and they allowed us to extend our stay when our trip itinerary changed.  Despite the rough start, the Essex House really came through in the end.  We recommend it.

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