“Day Stays” At The TWA Hotel JFK

Save your original confirmation . Screen print all room descriptions and prices as hotel may try to downgrade you without compensation. I booked a runway view suite with two queens and when I arrived was told I had not and was given a regular room with no view. Fortunately I was able to pull up their confirmation email. At first they said non available - tough luck. When I said I wanted the differenced credited back to my credit card based on the price the day I booked they magically found a runway view king suite. The only apparent difference between a suite and a regular room is an uncomfortable couch that is under rather than facing the TV. It may be a few square feet larger. It certainly is not two rooms which is how I interpret the word "suite" to mean The Paris resturant was surprisingly good. Prices are about what you would expect in a downtown NYC resturant. Staying here is an interesting novelty, but you can do better for you hotel dollar with a short Uber ride which probably will be a lot less hassle then lugging bags on air tram. The gym is nice and has a $25 buck day use. For a layover consider a work out and meal at TWA's Paris resturant.

@Lucky: You need to review this place as soon as you can. I am just here and it has a lot of small issues remaining, but WOW! The pool! The lobby! And what a great gym. I can see a lot of multiple hour layovers at JFK coming my way, being spent at and in the pool.

This building was my home airport back in the day. I loved it! Just looking at it brings back memories of starting in the miles game as a TWA Royal Ambassador. I'd love to find my old membership card and show it at check in.

I agree with others. Just simply being there was an amazing feeling! I went on opening night and didn't think it was a port authority terminal. There were free drinks here and there though and it was so much fun to meet other aviation geeks; especially former TWA employees who remembered the original TWA terminal in its glory. I had a great time! Yes, I think they prematurely opened the hotel and there were certainly kinks here and there (i.e. my Paris Cafe reservation that I made on the first day reservations went live was abruptly cancelled the day before). It would have been great to meet the other OMAAT readers (heck I may have met some of you!)

Stayed here this past weekend. Overall it is a must see, but I recommend waiting a couple months for the kinks to get ironed out. Agree with others that it seemed they "opened early," but even still the whole thing is just really really cool. Examples of some of the "growing pains" issues we encountered: - On check-in our room type (runway view) was not available- these views are apparently only from the top two floors of one of the wings of the hotel (due to the position of the JetBlue terminal); we were told the AC was not working on those floors. I suspect the rooms are just not finished yet, as we could see into some of them from the restaurant and it was clear the furnishings had yet to be fully set up. - A lot is still unfinished in general: the hotel is dotted with missing fixtures, trim, etc; the pool is just flat out not ready- can't even go on the roof at all; the gym's yoga studio is still a construction site; the former Ambassador Lounge is being turned into something (not clear what); and the Connie cocktail lounge is still getting its finishing touches. - Service is still very very unpolished, and it feels somewhat like they are trying to operate the hotel with a much smaller staff than they should. The front desk is an odd setup with a long row of self-check-in kiosks but only 1-2 actual staff members manning the desk at any given time to help when the self-service kiosks invariably don't work (as ours didn't given our reserved room wasn't available). Our dinner in the Paris Cafe took over 3 hours, and one of our entrees didn't show up for over 45 minutes even after 4 different members of the staff went to check on it- the whole time it felt like the staff was stretched very thin. Service was also very unpolished in the Connie cocktail lounge (which is supposedly operated separately from the hotel itself). All that said- the hotel is incredible. A lot of really cool uses of the former terminal space, and all of the "theme" details are really thought out. It's clear they invested a lot of money in the hard product aspects of the property, maybe even to the point of being over the top in some places: -The hotel check-in desk utilizes the old airline ticket counters, complete with a functioning checked baggage conveyor. -The staff uniforms are all 1960s themed (my favorite were the valets'/bellhops' TWA baggage handler jumpsuits); even the engineering staff wear vintage TWA aircraft mechanic uniforms. -The Paris Cafe decor is really well done (tulip chairs and tables, etc), and the food is quite good if a little small on the portion sizes. -The two former flight information displays in the lobby have been refurbished back to the original 1960s Solari flip board designs- one displays mock real-time flight information and the other displays a rotating welcome message / TWA logo design. -The gym is easily the best hotel gym I've ever seen in my life, and it's not even finished. They claim it will be the largest hotel gym in the world, and I believe them. It has a full Peloton cycling studio, a yoga studio (when they finish it), and (the first time I've ever seen this in a hotel gym) actual barbells, complete with several sets of Eleiko competition weight plates. Why anyone needs IWF-certified calibrated plates in a hotel gym is beyond me, but I'm sure not complaining. -The rooms (the only part of the hotel that is new construction) are really well done and look just like on the website, although they oddly lack closets. Vintage TWA branding on everything, from the elevator floors down to the coasters under the cups in the bathroom. They even made great use of the flight tubes- the new guestroom wings are attached to the existing terminal via holes cut about half way down the flight tubes. Really cool to walk down the tubes to get to your room. Definitely planning to check this out again in another few months when hopefully everything is done and the service is humming.