John Hotel (Flushing, New York City)

After I had to book another hotel right across the street for the first night to get a low airfare, I chose the John Hotel in the heart of Flushing as my stay during the Tennis US Open at Flushing Meadows in 2018. Here is a review of the well-rated place. The Booking.com rating, for example, is 8.1.

John Hotel – Location

This has been the fifth time visiting the US Open to me – and I chose a Flushing hotel in all of my stays: you beat the main traffic coming in from the Manhattan side and the trip to the Billy Jean King Tennis Center is just very comfortable. If you want to visit the New York Mets, the perfect location also applies to a ballgame at Citi Field.

John Hotel is really conveniently located. It is quite close to Flushing Main Street subway station, which is just one stop away from the US Open (stop: Mets – Willets Point). Alternatively, you may use the Long Island Railroad, the stations are both closeby.Flushing is having some very nice Korean-influenced restaurants, but there are also some fast food chains and a food court in close proximity, so that it is really easy to get around. You have to say that currently the hotel is surrounded by construction work. The hotel was quiet, though, and very clean. Seeing Arthur Ashe already right when you exit the room is definitely unbeatable!

Apart from the hotel, the subway station is marked on the map below:

John Hotel – Room

For my stay, I chose the 20 sqm so called Deluxe Room, which had a very reasonable price of some 300 USD including tax for a two-night stay during the US Open, including breakfast. The booking has been done via Booking.com. The room was comparably spacious. The whole hotel is brand new, less than a year, so there was no complaint about the quality of the room, as expected. There has been a gap between the bed and the rear wall, which might be hard to spot on the pictures. A very nice feature in summer was the spacious and well-working fridge.

The bathroom had also a nice size, including the shower. There was no bathtub, but that was fine. The room had amenities (shampoo, conditioner, body lotion) and spotlessly clean. Overall, I was very happy with it.

John Hotel – Breakfast

Continental breakfast at John Hotel was reasonable, I would say. They offer a typical American choice of toast, bagels, coffee, juice and cereals. In addition, there have been some nice add-ons like some fruit, small muffins, donuts, oatmeal and Asian congee (with some stuff to put inside). The warm buffet had boiled eggs and sausage. Overall, the selection was very fine – there were two major pieces of critics from my side. FIrst of all, the room was just very narrow. Even though they opened the beautiful conference room in addition, breakfast was close to capacity. Especially on my first breakfast, the service was quite bad. Spilled juice stayed on the buffet for some 20 minutes and the items have not been refilled. It worked significantly better on day 2.

John Hotel – Other Services

As I said above, the room was spotlessly clean when I checked in. As expected by that, the housekeeping was very good and accurate and the room condition after the first night was like I had it at check-in.

The in-room WiFi was very good. You needed a password to log in, the speed and connection was absolutely good and exceeded my expectations. The TV set had numerous channels in different languages.

John Hotel – My View

Despite being part of a major construction, the John Hotel absolutely exceeded my expectations and was a great value for money in US Open walking distance. Due to the nice connection to Flushing Main Street, it is even an option for Bronx and Manhattan visitors. You will likely go for significantly more expansive options if you want to have a posh New York stay – but the hotel absolutely fulfilled my demands and gave me two great nights on the Eastern side of New York City. The breakfast situation does not make it a top pick, but I would definitely book it again.