Hotel Aloft Brooklyn (Brooklyn, USA)

Staff here are a positive feature of any visit. Friendly and welcoming, they also have invaluable knowledge on the labyrinth of shops, restaurants and attractions in this pulsating district.

If you're a naturally clean and tidy person, daily cleaning of the hotel room isn't essential. Better, perhaps, to opt for the 'food credit' on offer. It's a great, money saving choice to have!

Compare prices and you'll see a very good financial deal here. It's easy to forget a few rough edges and concentrate on an unusually convenient location, right in the heart of things. The hotel is perched pretty for rich pickings in the fields of shopping, entertainment, theatre trips and sightseeing attractions. So, transport is a very minimal cost. Difficult to put a price on an advantage like this!

Parking costs a fortune here and is a real negative factor for those on a budget.

Derelict beds, scratched furnishings and worn carpets aren't really what was expected after reading the 'funky', 'in your face' publicity. OK, rooms are adequate and cheaper than many. They are, though, of an average quality to be found virtually anywhere.

It's usually unfair to comment on noise from surrounding building a re-development work because those phases eventually disappear. Here, though, there is so much ongoing work that it's difficult to see when it might end. Consequently and in comparison, the noise from the ancient air conditioning, which is either on or off, with nothing in between .. hardly merits a mention!