The impressive atrium at the Embassy Suites New York.

I had a business trip to New York, and had procrastinated booking my hotel. I’d heard that there were great last-minute deals to be had in NYC, so I figured to grab one of those via Travelocity a few days prior to departure. Most of the deals were in Times Square, but I was looking to stay somewhere different, and I found it at the Embassy Suites New York in Battery Park.

At $149 per night for a Travelocity “four star” hotel, it seemed to be quite a deal. My room was indeed a suite- two separate rooms- with a king-sized bed, flat-screen TV, couch, desk, coffee table, and a smallish bathroom. The rooms all wrapped around a soaring atrium that was pretty dramatic. Instead of a fancy hotel restaurant and bar, there was a Chevy’s. Now as far as chain restaurants go, you could do a lot worse, and Manhattan isn’t exactly a hotbed of kickin’ Mexican food like we have aqui. I’m a fan of their fajitas, and twice my lunch was a very economical bowl of chicken tortilla soup. Hotel guests get 10 percent off.

There’s also an 11-screen movie theater, but what’s annoying is that the box office is four flights below the theaters, and there’s nothing to tell you that until you get all the way up there if you grab the escalators from the mezzanine.

Included in your rate is a complimentary breakfast buffet with made-to-order omelettes and other standard fare, as well as a free cocktail at the appropriate hour. I didn’t make it to any of the social hours, but I was reminded how unappetizing it is to watch Americans saddle up to a buffet trough and grab fistfulls of bacon and sausage. Just because you can shovel chunks of every farm animal known to man onto one plate, doesn’t mean you should.

Annoyingly not included is WiFi, which is ten bucks for 24-hours. And I was not amused at the hotel-wide test of the fire alarm system in the am following a very late night.

The neighborhood, Battery Park, is just a couple of blocks from Ground Zero in the fractured heart of lower Manhattan. Directly outside the hotel there were plenty of cabs, and the subway was just three blocks away across the Westside Highway.

The Embassy Suites New York is a great hotel for the business traveller, but not the best if you’re visiting New York for the first time or want to be close to the action. It is very clean and modern, but not exactly full of personality. Is it really a “four star” hotel? I’d say not. But a good solid three-star, for sure.

This post was written by guest blogger, Dan Dion.

Photos courtesy of Embassy Suites.