Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel: Amenities

For those traveling light on toiletries and expecting to use the complimentary ones in the room, the Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel offers products from Aveda. These include the brand's refreshing body bar, a refreshing cleansing bar, rosemary mint shampoo, rosemary mint conditioner and botanical kinetics hydrating lotion. Among these items is a shoe shine mitt. More info about the bathroom to follow in another post.

Here's the lowdown on internet availability. Other than club level rooms, high speed internet (wired and wireless) are offered for a fee. Club level rooms offers complimentary wired internet but wireless internet offered for a fee. The daily rate is $16.95 and allows users to access the internet from rooms and public areas. The rate also includes unlimited local calls. The electronic panel on the desk and outlets bedside provides more than enough places to keep every electronic charging at the same time. Last time I checked the monitors on the main lobby level are available for accessing the internet and inquiries can be made at the concierge desk for a keyboard.

The in-room electronic safe is conveniently located not in the closet or at floor level but in one of the top set of drawers below the television. The storage capacity of the safe is indeed compact that placing an iPad into it seems like a tight fit. Probably it's best to hold small important items. As usual hotels do not guarantee the security of these electronic safes and the best place to hold valuables is in the hotel safe in a security deposit box. But I do use these in-room safes to store cash, credit cards and tickets and constantly check that it is locked before leaving the room and verifying the contents upon returning.

The hotel has replaced the coffee pot coffee makers with new ones offering single serve coffees. This is a welcome change for those who always doubted the cleanliness of the coffee pots. Even the paper coffee cups are sealed in plastic until ready to use. Just fill the basin with water using the paper cup. Place the coffee pack into the pull out tray on top, push it back in and turn the coffee maker on. An extra coffee pack offers decaffeinated coffee. The Urbanista brand sounds fancy but its a trademark brand of Renaissance Hotels. The teas are from Taylors of Harrogate. The coffee and tea products and cups are kept in a simple but chic black box on the counter above the mini-bar which is hidden in a cupboard below.

Turn your iPhone, iPod or iPad into your own jukebox by hooking it up to the alarm clock/cd player/radio. The room also includes an iron and ironing board. As usual both are impractical use because it's difficult to fill the iron basin with water the ironing board being a mini-version of standard one. Newspapers of your choice (USA Today, New York Times or Wall Street Journal) are delivered directly to your room. But beware, twice already during this seven-seven night day my paper was either missing or the wrong paper delivered unless some other guest switched it.

This is one of a series of posts in review of the Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel.