The Time Rating: 3.5 Pearls

Times Square, Manhattan, New York City

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The hotel's whimsical elevator

Don't be fooled by the hype. Despite its flashy website, even flashier owner, and a featured appearance on the Travel Channel show Great Hotels with Samantha Brown, the Time is a relatively low-key hotel experience with modest rooms, few frills, and friendly, informal service.

Along with the Dream and the Stay hotels, also in New York, the 193-room Time belongs to Vikram Chatwal Hotels (a subsidiary of Hampshire Hotels & Resorts), a company founded by Manhattan playboy Vikram Chatwal in 1999, when he was just 28. Before becoming a hotelier, Chatwal was better known for dating celebrities like Kate Moss and starring in several Bollywood movies. (Think "male Paris Hilton," with the hotel fortune coming after the trust fund, not because of it.)

Of course, to judge the hotel by the gap between expectations and delivery isn't entirely fair. The Time does have its charms: terry-cloth bathrobes, a unique primary-color scheme in each room, the popular Inc Lounge (which supposedly rocks out until 4 a.m. on the weekends), and the first elevator I've seen with a sense of humor (cartons of eggs line the base of the shaft, narrowly avoiding a crushing -- and messy -- demise each time the elevator hits the ground floor). Just don't expect the time of your life.

Check-in at the Time

First, the most egregious error: I didn't even get the breakfast I ordered from room service. The night before, I had left the menu they provide hanging from the doorknob, as per their instructions. It was gone in the morning, but the food never came. (Upon checkout, when I informed the woman at the front desk about the mix-up, she offered a cursory apology.)

I even heard complaints about the service from the staff itself. When I pointed out to the bartender at the Inc Lounge how cold the back room was, she mentioned that she had contacted maintenance "20 times" about fixing the heat, to no avail. Basically, the hotel seemed a tad undermanned when I was there; perhaps when (if?) the economy improves, management can remedy that.

• 18-hour room service
• Complimentary overnight shoeshine

View on a Larger Map

Nestled on a well-lit but relatively quiet street seven blocks north of Times Square's epicenter at West 42nd Street and Broadway, the Time is just far enough from the sightseer hordes, but still just steps from the city's most popular attractions. Central Park (10 short blocks north), Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, the New York Public Library, the MoMA, 15 subway lines, and countless restaurants (including a few not called Sbarro or TGI Fridays) are all just a five-minute walk away. (Then again, staying virtually anywhere in or near Times Square will put you near those sites.) It's also in the heart of the Theater District, surrounded on all sides by -- and within short walks of -- all the major theaters.

New York City has three nearby airports: JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark (in New Jersey). Getting to town from JFK or LaGuardia is usually more convenient than there from Newark, but travel times are heavily dependent on the time of day and traffic conditions. From JFK, a taxi to anywhere in Manhattan costs a flat rate of $45 and takes around an hour in average conditions. From LaGuardia, a metered cab ride to midtown Manhattan costs about $40 and can take 30 minutes if traffic is light, three times that if it's bad. Rides from Newark cost at least $40 plus tolls and can take more than 90 minutes. It's customary to tip your driver 15 to 25 percent.

Those looking to save some cash can use the privately run shuttle buses that are available at all three airports for about $14 per person. For more information on the shuttles, go to Super Shuttle or New York Airport Service. Public transit is also available for as little as $7 per person, but travel can take up to two hours and involve a lot of lugging bags up and down stairways.

For mass-transit directions right to the hotel, check out HopStop.com.

A Superior Queen Room

The Time has 193 rooms (164 standard guest rooms, 28 suites, and 1 triplex penthouse), each featuring one of three primary-color schemes: red (Romance), yellow (Active), and blue (Calm).

I must have looked a bit flushed at check-in, because they gave me a red room. When I asked the woman who checked me in how staffers determine what color each guest receives, she said they just confer the "best room available." Whatever they do, it certainly has nothing to do with any palm print on a "mood pad," contrary to what Samantha Brown and her Travel Channel show might have you believe.

If possible, avoid lower-floor rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. Apparently the music from the parties in the Inc Lounge on the second floor blasts through those first few ceilings till 4 a.m.

I stayed in a Superior Queen room, the basic room, and it was small; the queen bed (complete with scarlet bedspread and headboard) took up most of the room. But then, this is New York -- that's often the case with standard rooms.

The room was clean and well-lit (including adjustable "natural-light" fluorescents on both sides of the bed that performed nicely as reading lights), but the bed didn't match the standards set by other mid-range New York hotels -- no feather duvet, and the lower-quality mattress sagged in the middle.

According to the website, the Bose alarm-clock radios in the rooms are iPod-compatible, but you'll need to bring your own connector cord if you want to plug in your MP3 player. On the other hand, the website doesn't bother boasting about the terry-cloth robes, which are a nice touch. The Panasonic flat-screen TVs show basic cable.

In the bathroom, the Gilchrist & Soames toiletries include the usual shampoo and conditioner, plus mouthwash, a mending kit, a shower cap, and a "shoe sponge." On the bad side of the ledger, the showerhead was loose, the water pressure was mediocre, and the bathtub was too small for someone to actually take a bath.

My room on the 12th floor had a view of half a dozen other nearby buildings. The 16th-floor one-bedroom suite I also visited overlooked 49th Street, though the view -- of the theater across the street and not much else -- probably isn't worth a pricier upgrade.

The 24-hour fitness center

The Time is low on frills. There are no rooftop views, no verandas, no conference rooms, and no business center ("We're working on that," the manager, Mr. Casanova, told me). There is, however, a well-stocked 24-hour gym, complete with free weights, a weight machine, three modern cardio machines, yoga mats, towels, a TV, a water jug, and a bathroom. For private parties and events, guests can reserve the glass-enclosed pavilion on the penthouse level, which I was not able to visit but is supposedly quite nice.

There are better options in and around Times Square, but if your kids are old enough to share a room on their own, there's no reason necessarily not to go to the Time.

• No rooms with pull-out sofas; no rollaway beds
• No kids' menus
• Cribs available at no extra cost (though it'll surely make the tight squeeze in the room even tighter)
• For a roundup of the most family-friendly hotels in NYC, click here.

Some mildew buildup in the tub

Cleanliness isn't an issue so much as upkeep. The carpet in my room could have used shampooing, the corners of the walls and edges of the desk were dinged up, and the walls were scarred by tread marks (probably from luggage wheels).

In the bathroom, the shower head hung limply, like a dying flower, and some corners of the tub were stained with mildew buildup.

It's worth noting that about half a dozen guests who posted on TripAdvisor complained of bed bugs. I didn't catch them myself, however, and it's worth noting that (A) bed bugs are endemic to New York urbanity and not necessarily a reflection of a hotel's cleanliness or maintenance, and (B) the guests who experienced this are only a half-dozen out of many thousands of guests who have stayed at the Time, not the few hundred who have posted on TripAdvisor.

Dinner at Serafina

The Time's restaurant, Serafina, serves up authentic Italian fare, along with some traditional favorites (Cornish hen, $20; steak and fries, $23.50; filet mignon, $28) and a few imaginative fusion creations like my Il Sashimi di Tonno, which was excellent. The simple sign outside, in bright (what else?) blue and yellow cursive, belies the Euro scene you find inside, particularly the techno/house/trance background beat, which seems to clash with the understated decor and middle-aged clientele.

The waitress (who was also authentically Italian -- she spent most of my meal chatting up the Italian tourists at the table next to us) said the most popular items include the Penne Stolichnaya pasta ($15.50) and the thin-crust pizzas. The special the night I ate, risotto, was "fantastic," according to the group next to me.

All told, my damage came to $60 for an appetizer, a main dish, and a glass of wine. Not excessive for New York, by any means, but you can surely find a quieter, equally classy Italian meal if you head downtown or uptown a bit.