Wimdu Room Review: Mooning Around Manhattan
It was our first time to New York together.
Since it was our first time, we really wanted to stay right on Manhattan Island! And why not? It’s the heart of the Big Apple and where all the action goes down. We wanted to be walking distance to cool stuff and be able to zip around on the Subway, should be do-able!
The problem is there are not many hostels and the ones that do exist are priced ridiculously high, especially for those travelling as a couple. There are lots of hotels of course, but they aren’t cheap either for what you get. This is where Wimdu proved itself remarkably handy.
Location, Location
We settled on a room that was located right in a neighbourhood known as East Village. This area is renown for its pubs and cafe life as well as funky little shops and friendly people. It sounded perfect to us, and let me tell you the area did not disappoint.
If you’ve looked at a map of New York before the layout is remarkably simple and it makes it a pleasure to explore. Running through East Village we had 6th Street, 7th Street and 8th Street, all of which comprised of numerous vibrant cafes and pubs with a delectable range of beers and food treats. Don’t forget the bustling vintage shops and trendy little gift shops perfect for the sporadic shopper.
The main thoroughfare is St. Marks on 8th Street which is known by the locals as a hot spot for great happy hour deals and grabbing a quick drink or hunkering in for a night out on the town.
We tried quite a few of the cafes, pubs and restaurants around this area, but that’s another post in itself!
Here’s where we were staying in East Village.
The Room: Photos & Thoughts
We met our host, Bruce, after a long flight stopping over at Iceland and coming into the city from JFK airport. We were ready to relax and have a sleep before exploring New York early the next morning.
Bruce was very welcoming, and gave us an introduction to the area and a couple of recommendations on where to go in East Village. He told us not to worry about noise, gave us the key and it was all ours.
The room itself was spacious and warm, and much larger then I thought it would be.
The bed was just a double so it would have been nice to have had a Queen, but I’m not complaining. There was a desk and a small dining table, cupboards, television – a full room with all the amenities you would need.
The kitchen, which can be one advantage of booking through a site like Wimdu compared to a hotel room, was quite small. Bruce had basically winged off his own room and then our room into two completely separate areas with a “middle” room that acted as the entrance way to the unit, the kitchen and the door to the bathroom.
I honestly wouldn’t recommend this place if you were planning on doing a lot of cooking. He had a small oven/microwave and not a lot of space to stretch your cooking elbows. Another weird thing was that you had to wash your dishes in the bathroom sink! We found that quite bizarre and a little strange, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
Luckily, cooking our own food was the last thing on our minds with the smorgasbord of delis, cheap eats and local food snacks available in NYC so this wasn’t close to being a deal breaker.
A shot of East Village and 7th street by night, ubiquitous shot of a New York yellow taxi whizzing by.
The Local Experience
We stayed in New York for a total of 7 nights in this room in East Village. There’s so MUCH to do in New York I wouldn’t say we came close to “seeing” all of the city, but we did quite a lot and our place in East Village really gave us a feel for how the locals live (although maybe they wouldn’t eat and drink out as much :D).
That’s one of the main advantages to booking a room like this is you get to stay in areas without lots of hotels that are still excellent areas popular with the locals.
Did I mention this was the view from our roof terrace? Almost as good as the Empire State Building!
I would highly recommend nabbing a room or apartment in East Village if you get the chance, it was a fantastic neighbourhood to be in for our week in the big smoke!
Wimdu were kind enough to give us some assistance with the room in exchange for this review, however all of the thoughts and points within remain completely our own.
2 Responses to “Wimdu Room Review: Mooning Around Manhattan”
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Sounds like a cool place, and looks nice, too – and very original! I think extremely small kitchens are very common in New York, and all the movies LIE (incredible, I know:)) about the crazy spaciousness of New Yorkian appartments that all the movie-waitresses live in… 🙂
Wow I live in Chicago and it’s similar but definitely not as beautiful! Thanks for sharing!