Hotel Review: Renaissance New York Times Square

Hotel Review: Renaissance New York Times Square

The Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel is a sleek high-rise hotel, located in the heart of Times Square and the Theatre district.  The boutique style hotel sits just outside the main hustle and bustle of Times Square and offers one of the best views of Times Square from its signature R Lounge.

Hotel Overview

If you're not familiar with the Renaissance Hotels brand - it is a part of Marriott and whether located in restored landmark buildings or newly built modern properties, the hotel brand essence is to be stylish, distinctive and designed to reflect the location, as well as embody the destination.  Hotels tend to be smaller and more boutique properties, at least from our experience at staying at a few this year.

The Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel fits the brand standard perfectly and our stay here worked out great for exploring New York City.  

The location in Times Square is perfect for first time visitors to New York and the R Lounge is hard to beat.  Those two reasons alone make this hotel a worthy contender to consider for your own trip to Manhattan.  

Here's a time-lapse view of Times Square from the R Lounge at Renaissance New York Times Square

When arriving to the hotel, you'll notice the hotel lobby on the first floor is very small and only has a check-in area and a bell/valet desk.  Once taking the elevator to the 2nd level, you'll arrive to a larger space that is home to the concierge (known as the Navigator at Renaissance hotels), space for lounging and the signature R Lounge.  

During our stay we didn't explore the fitness facility, but there is a gym onsite in case you want to get a workout in during your stay.  We ended walking so much during our stay in New York City, we had no time or energy for a structured workout in the gym.

Accommodations

Rooms here at the Renaissance New York Times Square hotel are contemporary and feature soundproof windows, comfortable beds in recently renovated rooms and AVEDA products in every bathroom.  For the quintessential New York City experience, you can book one of the redesigned Terrace Rooms, which offer balconies with panoramic Times Square views.

For our stay here, we booked a two double-bed room for our family of four and were upgraded to a high floor view room.  The view from the room was nothing special and overall the room decor felt fresh and modern, with the room size seeming standard for New York (in other words small).

Dining

The Renaissance New York Times Square hotel features one dining option onsite called the R Lounge.  The R Lounge features floor-to-ceiling windows and breathtaking panoramic views of Times Square and is a refreshing and stylish spot to enjoy a specialty cocktail or inventive appetizer.

• Breakfast is served Monday-Friday from 7am-11am
• Breakfast Saturday & Sunday 7am to 11:30am
• R-Lounge Dinner- Tuesday through Saturday 5pm-11pm
• Lobby Bar- Sunday and Monday 5pm-11pm (Dinner served at Lobby bar area)

For breakfast each morning, we enjoyed a breakfast buffet at the hotel at the R Lounge (Marriott Bonvoy Titanium breakfast benefit) and during our stay was only open for Marriott Platinum/Titanium members for breakfast.  

 In the evenings, the lounge opens up for drinks, appetizers and small bites like pizza and sandwiches.  We had light dinners here on a few nights since it was an easy option for us after a long day of exploring the city.  

Also during our stay, we were given R Lounge credit coupons from our hotel loyalty program status that gave us a free appetizer each night of our stay.   

New York City features many wonderful restaurants and various food options from all around the world to choose from.  There truly is something for everyone, including the pickiest of kids, in New York City, but it is hard to beat the service, drinks, and ambiance from the R Lounge.

Overall Impression

There are many great options to consider staying at when visiting New York City that depend on your particular preferences, travel style, hotel location and budget.

Our five-night stay at the Renaissance New York Times Square was the perfect amount of time for being able to explore the city and still having enough time in the city to relax, instead of always feeling like we had to be on the go if we had less days in New York City. 

I mainly selected this hotel since we have hotel status (Marriott Bonvoy Titanium) that unlocks extra benefits/amenities and this property seemed to offer good benefits, when compared to other Marriott brands nearby.  Also, since we had lots of Marriott Bonvoy points that could help cover our entire stay, it made sense to book a stay here.  The location in Times Square is perfect for first time visitors to New York and the R Lounge is hard to beat.  Those two reasons alone make this hotel a worthy contender to consider for your own trip to Manhattan.  

I plan on writing more about our 2022 hotel stays in an upcoming post and how we used a lot of Marriott hotel points to cover those hotel stays for 2022 and the reasoning behind it.