New York City: Gansevoort Meatpacking (July 2016)



My spouse and I stayed at the Gansevoort Meatpacking for two nights on a weekend in mid-July 2016. The Gansevoort Meatpacking is owned by the Gansevoort Hotel Group, which operates a second property in Manhattan on Park Avenue, a hotel in the Turks and Caicos, and a fourth hotel in the Dominican Republic. (Originally, when this property opened in 2004 and there was only one Gansevoort in Manhattan, this location was called the Hotel Gansevoort, but it has since been renamed the Gansevoort Meatpacking.) The hotel is located on 9th Avenue and 13th Street (and positioned on the small piece of land between Hudson Street and Gansevoort Street, near the top of Greenwich Street). As its name indicates, the hotel is located in the Meatpacking District, near the end of the High Line, Chelsea Market, and the new location of the Whitney Museum.

The 14-story Gansevoort Meatpacking property offers 186 rooms, 23 of which are suites. Each room features either a city view or a river view. The chic, contemporary rooms feature large bay windows (with electric blinds that open or close with the flip of a light switch) or step-out Juliet balconies. Accommodations are decorated in a white and gray palette with pops of fuchsia (such as the tufted suede headboards and the sleeper sofas), with local art decorating the walls. The hotel offers several room types: standard (250 square feet), deluxe (300 square feet), grand deluxe (300 square feet), Gansevoort suite (435 square feet), Manhattan suite (500 square feet), and a duplex penthouse suite (1700 square feet). L’Occitane supplies the toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body lotion, shower cap, soap). The hotel thoughtfully provides flatirons for women’s hair in addition to the usual blow dryer. Rooms contain minibars, electronic safes, irons and ironing boards, and umbrellas. The hotel provides two quality bathrobes for guests to use, along with disposable pedicure-style flip-flops. The staff offers twice-daily maid service, and evening turndown comes with a bucket of ice so that you can mix your own drinks. Rooms contain many products that you can purchase for an additional fee, such as makeup, haircare products, sunscreen, stuffed/plush animal (duck), Dollar Shave Club razors, rubber ducky for the bathtub, energy drinks/boosters, and our favorite, the Curious Provisions luggage-style boom box. Our grand deluxe room was a good size for two adults, with a king-size bed, small sofa bed, two side chairs, and coffee table, in addition to the usual desk and chair and dresser/TV stand that held the minibar, safe, and some drawers. The lighted make-up mirror in the room itself (a fancy version of what you would see backstage in a theatre dressing room) as well as the huge floor-standing mirror were functional decorative touches. The bathroom (which closed off using an old wood-paneled door with an opaque window that was frosted fuchsia) was a decent size, with an enormous amount of counter, shelf, and drawer space and several mirrors. We were very comfortable in our room, and we wish that we could have stayed longer.

One of the main draws of the Gansevoort Meatpacking is its 4-foot deep, 45-foot long heated outdoor rooftop pool located on the penthouse (PH) level, which is open daily year-round. Disappointingly, the pool was so crowded during our stay that we could not use it. The pool deck contains about seven reclining lounge chairs, with a few other regular chairs spread around it, but the majority of guests sat on towels around the edge of the pool. The pool is supposed to be reserved for hotel guest access only, but because the rooftop bar is accessible to non-hotel guests, it seems easy for non-guests to infringe (we say this because no one requested to see our room key card to access the pool deck). The actual pool deck is not large, but the rest of the rooftop offers a good amount of space. The Plunge bar features a retractable roof, and it has a bar rail that surrounds one side of the rooftop where you can sit on a stool and look out over the city, an outdoor lounge area on another side, and some enclosed club space for the Zerzara Bar, where a DJ spins music at night. The hotel also offers a Spa, hair salon, and 24-hour fitness center on the basement level. The Chester restaurant features American cuisine in both indoor and outdoor seating areas on the street level. Oddly, although the hotel claims Chester to be the hotel restaurant, we were told that we could not add our restaurant charge to our hotel folio because both properties were operated independently, and that we would have to cash out our tab rather than transferring it. The ground-floor lobby features some comfortable seating, a billiards table, front desk, concierge desk, and a small jewelry display case. We thought that the hotel housed the elite Provocateur lounge, but we did not see the entrance (or mention of it) anywhere– maybe it is that exclusive! Private event space is available in certain areas of the hotel. Wi-Fi is complimentary throughout the property. Access to Plunge makes the hotel entrance busy in the evening. Although the hotel has three doors from the street to the lobby, the hotel restricts the use of the revolving door at night. One of the remaining two doors allows hotel guests to enter, and door attendants manage the third door in order to provide hand-stamps to non-hotel guests so that they can access the elevator to reach the rooftop bar. We occasionally had to wait for large groups of revelers to vacate the elevator before we could use it to reach our guestroom floor.

Be aware of the non-posted cancellation rules: When you make a reservation, the cancellation details mention the policy to cancel a Sunday through a Thursday night reservation, but they do not specify how to cancel a reservation for a Friday or Saturday night. I thought that this meant that you could not cancel a weekend reservation; however, my spouse thought that it meant that you could cancel a weekend reservation at any time (presumably, because the room would be quickly re-booked by another party). We called the hotel to inquire about the weekend cancellation policy, and a reservationist told us that the policy was 48 hours for a weekend reservation (versus 24 hours for the other days). When we asked if our confirmation email would state that policy, the agent assured us that it would; yet the confirmation email contained no details about it. In addition, we sent an email to the hotel prior to our stay with a few inquiries, but no one ever responded to it, which was disappointing.

We enjoyed our stay at the Gansevoort Meatpacking. Even though we did not take advantage of the hotel clubs, and we were unable to use the rooftop pool, we liked our grand deluxe room, and we liked the hotel location.















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