Renaissance New York Harlem Hotel

There is nothing

I booked this room for a few hours in the morning before a work meeting uptown so I would have a place to get ready and do some emails. Since I was arriving at 7am, I booked the room for the previous night. I called the front desk to tell them that I wouldn't be coming until the next morning. On arrival, I was told nobody had been told, my room had been given away, that the hotel was completely full. The staff at the front desk were not friendly, and made me "wait" for twenty minutes before telling me there was nothing they could do. They didn't try to solve the problem in any way at all, and I was made to feel embarrassed and ridiculous sitting there. I do this frequently when I am arriving some place early and want to check in immediately, but this is the first time my room has been given away and no solution has been found. I expected better for a four star property, to be honest. I understand the business dynamics, but that doesn't mean customer service falls by the wayside.

In addition, when I contacted the property to tell them this, they refused to refund me. So I paid $300 to sit in the lobby being glared at for a few hours. Not great.

It would be nice to have in-room coffee and a mini fridge for leftovers.

Nothing

Breakfast arrangements for vegetarians. Besides toast and bagels, there are no real options. Fruits can be bought from supermarket. One doesn’t pay 400/- a day to eat toast / bagel with tea of teabags which are bland as well as hot water which is tepid. Atleast one proper vegetarian breakfast item is which is cooked needs to be on menu daily and hopefully it’s not the same item repeated everyday.

The lights over the bed were a bit dicey and the bathroom could benefit from an actually closing door, but it was workable. The $7 water bottle was a bit much. The stay was pricey but given the location and the timing (apparently, there were graduations at Columbia and a lot of hotels were booked) we were prepared.

Very disappointing experience – still waiting on refund
We had originally booked a 6-night stay from 4 April to 10 April 2026, but our experience was cut short due to a hot water system failure at the property. On 7 April, hotel staff asked us to check out early and assured us that we would not be charged for the day and would receive a refund for the remaining nights.
We relied on these assurances and relocated that same evening, which ended up costing us an additional $400 for alternative accommodation. At the time, we were told the refund (USD $848.94, excluding deposits) would be processed within 7 days.
Unfortunately, it has now been over 40 business days, and we’ve only received a partial refund (just 2 nights). Despite multiple follow-ups, including a call with staff on 9 May (Reference: 861220919), the issue remains unresolved.
To make matters more frustrating, we were also given written confirmation at the time showing a total refund of USD $1,014.96 (including deposits), but the hotel now claims to have no record of this.
Overall, this has been a very stressful and disappointing experience. The lack of accountability, delays in communication, and failure to honour clearly stated commitments have been extremely frustrating.
I would strongly urge the management to:
Process the remaining refund immediately
Improve their handling of customer issues
Consider fair compensation when guests are significantly inconvenienced due to hotel faults
Until this is resolved, I cannot recommend staying here.

We had no refrigerator, but otherwise a lovely room.