PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST SO YOU CAN HOPEFULLY AV...

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST SO YOU CAN HOPEFULLY AVOID A TERRIBLE STAY IN NYC.

Horrible experience at the Shelburne Hotel NYC. My wife called the hotel in advance to confirm whether they have cribs available as we have a 5 month old son. The hotel employee said that they do have cribs. However, once we got there (at 8pm at night with a tired jet lagged baby) they gave us an old, stained, odorous graco play pen instead. The play pen didn't have a net to place a baby higher up and instead the mat would have to be placed at the bottom where the metal peices could be felt through the mat (less than 2 inches above the dirty, dusty carpeted floor). I have three compressed vertebrae in my spine and my wife recently had a car accident (rear ended) so we have difficulty bending over very far and holding weight (our son) at the same time (which the hotel employees we spoke to were made aware of). When I spoke to the manager on duty for Friday, Sep. 14, 2018 about the play pen, the lady working there repeatedly told me it was a crib and not a play pen. It literally says play pen on it. I have pictures and video as proof. After she argued about it being a crib and tried to convince me otherwise I asked her if she had any children to which she said "no". Then I told her to google the word 'crib' and then the word ' play pen' and see what comes up. Absolutely disgusting to have to argue with her as to what an actual crib was and wasting the first several hours of our trip trying to sort out what to do for our son so he could sleep at night and nap during the day safely. She also had the audacity to say we could buy a crib from a store if we like. Really? We were visiting from Vancouver, Canada and we are going to buy a crib for 4 nights because you first lied to us about having a crib and then argued that a play pen is a crib. So needless to say that for the 4 nights we were there I had to sleep in the chair and my wife and son slept on the bed. This is the first time our son has slept on a bed and we spent most of the night terrified he would roll off or inadvertantly be smothered by the blanket when my wife moved in the middle of the night in her sleep.

They also have a pillow menu advertised on the website and have a literal pillow menu card in the room. When I called the second night to order a swedish memory foam pillow (as that is what we use at home) the gentleman at the front desk said they do not have a pillow menu anymore and that we only have regular pillows. When I spoke to the manager (Ecker) about the crib situation (which got us nowhere) I happened to mention the pillow issue to which he sounded surprised and said that they do have the pillow menu and that the pillows are available. That shows me that the employees are either not well trained and are uninformative, or lazy.

My wife suffered a cut on her heel while at the hotel and I called the front desk to ask if they have a first aid kit to which the lady said "we have bandaids". I said that's fine we'll take 2 bandaids please. The next day we wanted to clean the wound and replace the bandaid and the gentleman at the front desk told my wife they don't carry bandaids. I might be mistaken but I would assume a first aid kit may be a legal necessity for a hotel to have on hand. And again an uninformed and/or lazy front desk clerk.

This was not a 4 star hotel by any means. It was dirty, smelled of cigarette smoke and they refused to move us to a different room. We would have been better off in a dingy motel at a quarter the cost. And at the end they had the audacity to charge a $35 (+fees/taxes) per night "facility fee" that they failed to mention when we checked in. Worst "hotel" I have had the misfortune to be stuck in.