I stayed at The Belvedere with my daughter, neice & great neice for a 3 night /4 day stay. ( our ages are from 18 to 53 )
On the plus side the hotel is in a good location, 5 minutes walk from Times Square.
The hotel staff are all courteous & helpful.
The reception is very nice.
When I looked at the hotel's website it said it had been refurbished in 2007, in fact the refurb started in 2007 and is unfinished. We were put in a small room on the 4th floor, it was shabby, with dirty curtains - very disappointing.
There were very few plug points so we had to pull out a chest of drawers and unplug the TV to plug in a hair dryer. There is however a hair dryer on the bathroom wall.
There is a filter coffee maker ( coffee is supplied ) with cardboard cups, no spoons, none of the rooms have kettles, so if you want tea you have to heat the water in the microwave.
We complained and got moved to a room on the 12th floor which had been refurbished and was more spacious. ( much better )
The lifts are quite small and slow.
The air con is old and very noisy - so take ear plugs !
To be honest i wouldn't stay at The Belvedere again.
Breakfast at the hotel is expensive at $17.95 so take a 2 minute walk to The Pigalle ( turn left out of the hotel, cross at the traffic lights and its on the corner) where they do lovely freshly cooked breakfast/lunch/dinner in traditional old French style surroundings.
Lastly I can highly recommend "The Big Apple Greeter" which is a free service, you can arrange for a "native New Yorker" to take you on a tour of the city, ours was called Al Riggi, who was fantastic ! He knew NY liike the back of his hand, the history, culture etc we walked for 7 hours and saw so much more than we could have covered ourselves - it was the highlight of the trip !

Just returned from New York with my two daughters, one aged 11, and one aged 15. I was a bit anxious as I have never been to New York before and especially as I was on my own with my two daughters, although had no cause for concern, the people were always friendly and helpful. The hotel was very pleasant, with breakfast available in the hotel at a very reasonable price, you could also have an evening meal there too, and even phone up for take-away delivery, although we ordered a pizza that never turned up.
The down-side we experienced at this hotel, was not being told that they deducted money from your credit card. Having stayed in hotels before, this is the first time that I have actually had money deducted from a card, as they usually take the number for security, which they stated, they did not at any time say that they were going to subtract it from my credit card, which as you can imagine was very inconvenient, and I only found out after contacting my bank. They credit it back after you've checked out, not at all helpful when you actually need the money when you're in the Big Apple!
The hotel itself is a good location, near enough to all the action, but far enough away from the expensive parts of nyc.
MY TIP: Take blister plasters for all the walking and don't believe that you're comfortable shoes still wont cause you to get some!

When arriving at the Belvedere the check-in staff and bellman seemed friendly enough. Our room was clean and spacious and I thought it was good value for money. Our room was on the third floor and when we called the elevator it would come from the ground floor and go up all the way to the 17th floor and then get us on the way back down. Most of the time we used the stairs. We were never supplied with sufficient towels and face cloths.

We went to the hotel café for breakfast the next morning. It was $18.99 for all American breakfast and $13.99 for Continental breakfast. It was overpriced and not much to choose from. There was also a hair in the hash browns.

One point that really made me angry was the fact that I received two faxes. One was from the Big Apple Greeter which arrived the day before we checked in. The other was about our Niagara Falls Experience pick-up time. I already knew when we were to be picked up. However, the fax was faxed to the hotel on the 11th August and had Urgent written on it. It was for our experience which was on the 12th August. I received the fax on the 16th August. Good job I knew when we were to be picked up!!!

That's not all, I actually got charged for this fax. Only one and not both. I complained to one of the receptionists who was very rude and she said that I would have to pay for it. I said that I was not going to pay for someone sending a fax to me, as I didn't ask them to, so why should I pay for it and I mentioned I received it on the 16th August and not the 11th. They said I was given the fax on the 11th August.

The receptionist then told me that I didn't have to pay for it but they had my credit card on file. I then asked for it to be taken off the invoice which she told me she was not going to do. I asked for the manager and the manager took of the charge for the fax and updated the invoice. But she did say that they charged people for incoming faxes.

All in all I guess our stay at this hotel was OK however, the bellmen seemed to be so overworked they hardly ever opened the door for us.

Booking a hotel in New York is not an easy business. They seem to be over priced and over hyped. Just before I began to pull my hair out I was recomended this hotel by a friend who is cabin crew with our national airline. She told me that they would stay there if they were paying for their own stay ( say for a shopping expedition). So on her advise I checked out the website and booked a room that worked out at just under 600 euro for 3 nights. We ended up in an executive room with THE most comfortable bed myself or my partner have ever slept in (it was 6ft sealy). The location was excellent (our room faced onto the original Fame school) with Times Square 2 blocks over and 9th ave having some nice inexpensive restaurants right beside us. The staff were lovely and the room was quite. Hopefully I'll be back in New York in the not so distant future and if so, I'd be overjoyed to stay there again.