If you are pressed for time, here is a summary. The full description appears below.
Summary: I have four major complaints, each of which is independently reason enough to never stay at The Ridge again.
1 - A Standard Double on Booking.com claims to be 200 square feet, 50% more than the actual area of 130 square feet. I verified this with a measuring tape. 200 square feet is not a rounding error, it is fraud.
2 - When I called to ask for a room that was closer to the advertised size, I was moved to a room that was exactly the same size.
3 - Only by running an air conditioning unit 24 hours a day was I able to get the room down to the lower 70's - while the temperature ranged from 42 to 55 degrees outside. Once the temperature hit 86 degrees.
4 - The bed was so hard, I had to put an inflatable pillow under my hip bone to sleep on my side.
The full version:
While not an entirely negative experience (the Ridge was clean and recently renovated), there are four major issues I experienced, each of which independently reason enough to never stay there again.
I stayed at the Ridge Hotel October 16th-20th, 2022. When I arrived for my Standard Double room reserved through Booking.com (in Ridge terminology, it is a "Full" room), it became immediately obvious that the room was smaller than advertised. I later confirmed with a tape measure that the room was 134 square feet - not the 200 square feet listed on Booking.com. The room's advertised size was 50% larger than the actual size. This is not a rounding error; it is fraud! (Reason #1) The total area includes shower, toilet, bed, etc., by the way, not just space to move around. Walking space, including in the bathroom, is about 60-65 square feet
I don't mind living like I'm on a boat, where every inch counts, as long as I know ahead of time and pay a price that reflects the size of room. But I overpaid and would not have reserved the room if I had known its true size.
By the way, all the Ridge rooms - full, queen, and king rooms - are listed at Booking.com as being 200 square feet. I saw a queen size room and it is definitely bigger than a full size. A queen or king size bed would never fit in a full-size room.
When I called the hotel (there are no live people; the hotel provides "touchless" service) to point out the discrepancy between actual and stated size, I asked if I could move to a room that was closer to the advertised 200 square feet. The employee agreed to move me the next day. So, I packed up the next morning and left my things to be transferred to a new room - which turned out to be exactly same size! (Reason #2) Cluelessness? Passive aggression? I don't know. When I called back to inquire, I was informed there were no other room available all week, so there was nothing they could do.
The new room was actually worse than the original. It was slightly smaller (128 square feet) and the bed was so hard, I had to put an inflatable pillow under my hip bone to sleep on my side. (Reason #3)
The first room got too hot (77 degrees); however, the new room was hotter. I woke up sweating at 2:30 am to blasting hot air and a temperature of 86 degrees and rising! (Reason #4) I had set the thermostat on "Cool" earlier in the evening and that did not seem to do anything, so I set the thermostat on "Fan Only" before I went to bed, thinking I would at least have some neutral air circulation. No such luck. I managed to turn the thermostat to "system off" - deactivating the heating, cooling, and fan- and I turned on a window air conditioning unit, which I was fortunate to have (most rooms don't have it). In the next 8 hours, I was able to bring the room down to 72 degrees. All this occurred while the temperature outside was 48-54 degrees. I kept the A/C on for the rest of my stay and I was able to get the temperature down to 68 degrees once, but only for a few hours, then it was back up to the mid-70's. Outside, the temperature never got above 55 degrees during my stay. If the room overheats that badly in the fall, what would it be like in the summer? I will never find out and I recommend you don't try to find out either!
I could go on about lower-priority complaints, like the tedious online check-in process, lack of table and chair (though "all rooms have them", I was told on the phone), harsh lighting, lack of decaf coffee, inconvenient outlets, and cheap construction, but none of these were deal-breakers like the four issues described above.
When in NYC, find yourself an ethically run hotel that covers all the basics and delivers on its promises - not The Ridge! read more