W Hoboken

It's new. It's stylish. It's in New Jersey. An unpopular cousin to the five W sisters in New York City, the freshly built W Hoboken (opened in March 2009) is a nearing-hip add-on to the nearing-upscale Hoboken riverfront. Like other W's, it has the on-site nightclub (the Chandelier Room), the abundance of purple mood lighting, and a self-obsession with the letter "W" (there's even a Woof written in the dog bowls). But as much as these quirky corporate consistencies might seem to devalue the "proper" boutique hotel experience, there is value in Starwood's long-tested hospitality expertise. Beds are superb. There's rarely a service-related slip-up. Details -- like cookies and citrus-infused water at check-in; the especially comfy sofas in the Living Room lounge; the top-notch fitness equipment in Sweat -- all work to create a seamlessly pleasant stay. And like the W South Beach, the Hoboken W has smart architecture that allows great views from just about every guest room.

At times the W Hoboken can be cheaper than its Manhattan counterparts, but these savings come at the cost of convenience. Top-tier dining is hard to find in Hoboken and the food at the in-house Italian restaurant, Zylo, is overpriced and mediocre. The Whatever/Whenever concierge services are helpful, but only to a point -- Hoboken is a city that does indeed sleep. And getting to Manhattan can be either costly ($50 to $60 taxi, one-way) or time consuming (20 minutes on the $2 PATH train if you're lucky, an hour if you're not). All told, if you're doing business in Jersey and looking for something a little swankier than the Sheraton Weehawken or the Westin in Jersey City, the W Hoboken is a fair choice. But for anyone interested in NYC, there are much better, equally comfortable options -- like the Affinia Gardens, the London NYC, the Ace Hotel, or the Hotel Gansevoort, just to name a few.

Outside the hotel, there are well-manicured jogging and walking paths along the riverfront. In general, Hoboken is a quiet, mostly residential neighborhood -- no skyscrapers; no congested traffic; no all-night crowds. Its handful of pubs and beer-chugging sports bars mix with some Italian restaurants, the occassional natural food store, and historic homes. At night, the immediate area around the hotel (about two blocks in all directions) can become very dark and desolate (relative to New York, that is). It is a safe, comfortable neighborhood; it's just not very exciting.

Getting to Manhattan requires one of three methods: a) drive, and pay a fortune in parking and tolls; b) take a $50 to $60 taxi, and hope to convince a yellow cab in NYC to take you back to Jersey; c) Walk about five minutes to the PATH train station (like a subway), pay $1.75, wait about five to 20 minutes (or longer, at night), ride into in Manhattan, and then pay another $2 and wait even longer to ride another subway to wherever it is you wanted to go in NYC; or d) take a scenic water taxi ($6) to Lower Manhattan (also, not the most exciting part of Manhattan).

• Five-minute walk to the New Jersey PATH (subway station)
• About a 40-minute (or more) multiple subway ride to Central Park
• About a 35-minute (or more) multiple subway ride to Times Square
• About a 35-minute PATH train ride (plus 10-minute walk) to the Empire State Building
• 20-minute, $6 water taxi to the ferry terminal to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
• 45-minute (or more) multiple subway ride to the American Museum of Natural History
• One-hour multiple subway ride to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the "Met") and 35-minute (or more) multiple subway ride to the Museum of Modern Art (the "MoMA")
• Taxi to/from Manhattan can be $50 to $60; finding a taxi that will take you back to New Jersey from Manhattan can be difficult
• Up to one-hour train or taxi ride from Newark International Airport
• Very long (about two hours) subway to PATH train ride or very long, very expensive taxi (at least one to two hours) from JFK International Airport or LaGuardia Airport in New York.

• Excellent, W Bed: pillow-top mattress; 350-thread-count sheets; goose down comforter and pillows; hypoallergenic feather pillows (or another pillow, available from their pillow menu)
• Well-stocked minibar (called a "Munchie Box")
• Slate-tiled bathroom, Bliss Spa bath products, and a sexy, glass-enclosed shower
• 37-inch flat-screen TV, DVD player (you can borrow DVDs for free), and on-demand movies
• iPod-docking, Tivoli alarm clock radio
• Two dual-line cordless speakerphones
• Electronic safe, large enough for a laptop
• Plush bathrobes and towels (no slippers)
• Cozy Room, the base-level room type, starts at a comfortable 280 square feet (though this is somewhat small, compared to other W hotels)
• Wonderful Room (the most common room type), starts at a spacious 330 square feet and has a manhattan skyline view. The Spectacular Rooms and the Cool Corner Rooms are basically the same as the Wonderful rooms, but they're on higher floors and the Cool Corner also has a balcony.
• The suites, including the Fantastic Suite, the Wow Suite, and two-bedroom Extreme Wow Suite, range from about 550 to 1,088 square feet and all have balconies.

• Sweat Fitness Center: huge, 1,520-square-foot facility that overlooks the Hudson River; offers yoga, Pilates, sparring, jogging; all cardio machines have personal TVs and iPod docking stations (with free headphones); personal trainers by request; fresh apples and water
• Bliss Spa: Full service, men's and women's locker rooms with digital lockers, steam showers, saunas, and snacks -- including the "legendary brownie buffet"; massage, mani-pedi, waxing
• "Wired Business Center": 24-hour; PC and Mac workstations; printer, copier, scanner, fax, audiovisual and telecommunications equipment, shipping services -- but it's an open space, around the corner from the noisy nightclub (not an ideal space for getting work done)
• Laptops available to borrow via "Wired2Go"
• W Store: on-site fashion boutique with quirky gifts and designer clothes
• Acura Experience: For a free ride anywhere in Hoboken (a five-mile radius of the hotel), the hotel offers free rides out (not back) in an Acura MDX luxury SUV from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Zylo, the on-site restaurant, offers Tuscan-style Italian fare and steaks for breakfast (open at 6:30 a.m.), lunch, dinner (open until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. on weekends). Breakfast is great, but the poorly executed dinner entrees are subpar for the price, at least by NYC standards -- pizzas and pastas for $10 to $15; entrees for about $22 to $37.
• Living Room, a cocktail lounge just outside the lobby, offers light snacks from Zylo's menu (open to midnight, or until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday)
• 24-hour room service

• Pets must be under 40 pounds.
• $25-per-night fee, added to the room, plus a nonrefundable $100-per-stay cleaning fee.
• Separate room-service menu for pets
• Great area to walk dogs, along the riverfront