The Pod Hotel in Manhattan, New York 51st St

We spent 3 nights at the Pod Hotel in Manhattan, New York as part of a flight-hotel deal via expedia. For the two of us (Attila and Anna) the flight from New Orleans to New York and the hotel accommodation was about 1,140 USD in May 2008. In New York we spent an extra $600, as we bought a lot of gifts in MoMA, Apple Center and the American Museum of Natural History (OK, we spent some more on a new macbook too). But counting only the food and drink and local transportation, the city was by far more affordable than we expected. More on that later on.

I think the location of the Pod Hotel was great, we were really close to lots of major attractions, plus there was a grocery store about 1 min walk from the hotel (on the corner of 3rd avenue), which is open 24/7 and has loads of stuff to make you feel full with cold and warm meals too - besides selling the usual products you can buy in an average store. The hotel is very close to the headquarters of the United Nations, the St Patrick Church, etc.

Our room was an absolutely low budget room: we chose a bunk bed room, which had a shared bathroom (we somehow skipped this ’shared bedbathroom’ info, but it was not a problem).

The bunk bed room we had (1023) on the tenth storey had a nice view and not much space to move around, but enough for us to get back to bed, and unload the gift packages. Admittedly, the accommodation seemed slightly bigger in the photo. The room was clean.

The air in the hotel occasionally smelled strange, sort of stale, but we kept the windows open all night, so again, it was not a major issue. There was a little desk and a chair stuck into the corner, the alarm clock went off next morning just in time - although we did not set it. The hygienic wall unit on the right had a wash basin and some pod hotel toiletry stuff, white towels, a hair dryer, and 3 mirrors. What else in the room? About 10 coat hangers and 4 plugs or so.

Dislikes: sometimes smelly stale air in the corridor and the room, smaller room than expected based on the brochure photo, being on the 10th storey meant that it was faster to take the stairs and come down on foot (good for fitness), the free wifi worked fine, maybe a bit slowly

Likes: the view, the neighborhood, the clean sheets, the security: the fact that I left my macbook in the hotel 3 days (only used it at night), sometimes my camcorder, and other values, and everything was fine, nothing disappeared

Dining in The Pod Hotel

We did not eat or drink in the hotel as there were great options at any hour of the day very very close to the hotel. But you can have some coffee and snacks in the hotel itself. Breakfast time is from 6am to 12 pm (noon).

For breakfast, we went to Barnes & Noble on 3rd Ave (5 min walk from Pod hotel) and had the Starbucks coffee and cake/ sandwich combo for about $12 for the two of us. We love reading fresh journals, hack books and more, so it was an obvious choice for us.

Lunch and dinner: Pax organic foods are really good (1 min walk from Pod hotel on the corner of 5th avenue), I wish there were places to eat like this in Budapest too. Other places we ate at were farther off.

Shared bathroom During the 4-day, 3-night stay we had no issue with the shared bathroom (we had to wait max. 1-3 minutes to get into). It was always clean, there was some pineapple scented body wash and a shampoo dispenser, so if you like traveling light, all you need is a good pair of slippers, toothbrush and paste and some cream or lip balm to protect your skin (our mouths went dry in the windy weather), etc.

Night life: the hotel was constantly full, lots of young and youngish people around but we had no noise problems (true, we fell asleep like a log after walking all day). As our Manhattan journey was the celebration of our first anniversary as a married geek couple, we chose to toast with wine in a bar right at the hotel (the restaurants were full) and I think it was about $10-12/ glass, the jukebox had the Cake, and other music we liked.

Metro and cabs: the Pod Hotel is quite close to some metro stations and there are loads of taxis you can hail down. We liked the metro and the buses, and bought a 7 day pass for $25 each (there was no 3 day option and one ride is $2). There are bike taxis too (rikshaw) and some donkey and horse carts.

Here’s what we say from the window (for those few minutes that we stayed in):

We did not use the public transport system to really make full use of the New York metro card: we walked and walked and walked so much in great and amazing places during these few days. I’m afraid a fifth day would have killed my soles totally, so be prepared to take a good, airy, light weight pair of shoes with you to manage the fantastic walking routes. Originally we planned to go to Brooklyn too, but in the end there was enough to see in Manhattan in 3-4 days, and we are bound to go back to New York city.

Check-out: after checking out at noon, we asked the hotel to take care of our luggage and they did. Then we went back at 4 pm, picked up our baggage and hailed down a regular NYC taxi to La Guardia for $30 bucks (incl tip).