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.
