The Industrialist Hotel Gowanus Brooklyn, Sonder

If you’re happy with needing a hotel to just sleep in this is perfect. The room itself is small. Everything about is small. Including the fridge. INCLUDING THE FRIDGE. This is important to note, as it is smaller than a beauty fridge, and you’ll only be able to fit two small bottles of water in. On an angle. Because of this I would recommend joining the local Park Slope Buy Nothing Facebook group prior to arrival (they took a number of days to approve me) and try and borrow or get a free mini fridge for your room. The bathroom area consists of a toilet and shower, the wash basin is outside of the bathroom and in the bedroom. There is a large storage drawer below the bed which, depending on the size of your luggage may only fit one suitcase. There is no wardrobe, just a shelf with a long hook which holds five or so hangers for items. They include ear plugs and a white noise machine. There’s barely any noise from the street though, what you will hear is other hotel guests as they let their doors self close and it’s LOUD. That’s what will be annoying as you try to sleep. There’s no maid service either, there’s only a $35USD PAID maid service. Be aware that you can go to reception and ask for fresh towels or bedding and then discard the dirty ones in their refuse rooms. The location of the hotel is right near the subway, stores and Barclays Centre. Staff were pretty chill, friendly and helpful. Would stay again, but with a byo fridge.

The room, as expected, was very small, but the bed was extremely comfortable, the shower was one of the better hotel showers I’ve had, plentiful hot water. Air conditioning system was quiet and efficient. Only negative was proximity to refuse room,very loud when guests threw out their garbage. This is a very low key and laid back vibe. Staff were friendly and helpful. Convenient location and reasonably priced. Cautionary note: We are not very large people, so the size of the bedroom and bathroom was not an issue for us, but bigger folks might not be happy.

While basic and simple, the Sonder makes a good attempt at making it feel a little more upscale with lovely bedding and a nice shower. The sink was awkwardly placed outside the bathroom, so that one has to work to not spit on the floor when brushing teeth. The closet space is a shallow, but this was totally fine for a single person on a quick trip. It was also the least costly of hotels I had researched in the area I wanted. The highlight was Krishna at the Front desk who made me feel very welcome. Great location in Brooklyn.

The room was cozy and clean. The staff were incredible! There was just a few issues with the key code system malfunctioning that left us trapped outside for a few hours late at night. Otherwise my review would be higher.

Kind of a bare bones cross between a hotel and an Airbnb. The bed was comfortable enough. Like most hotels in the city, the room is small. As someone who likes to sleep in on weekends, my biggest complaint is that housekeeping was vacuuming before checkout and that they knocked on our door even though we paid $20 extra for late checkout. I know they have a lot of rooms to clean, but I wish they'd wait a little longer and that Sonders management would communicate with housekeeping about late checkout.

For a budget hotel it's not great, but this was the only option we could find in NYC in our budget. We stayed in the queen room which was *tiny* so if you're more than 1 person and staying for longer than 1 or 2 nights its not really ideal but for the price I suppose you can't really complain. The biggest downside is the soundproofing, you can hear *everything* from the surrounding rooms and the hallway (I could hear next door cough and sneeze - that's how paper thin these walls are). The banging of the hallway doors was super disruptive and woke me up loads so even with my loop sleep earplugs I didn't sleep well. The room was also not designed well, there were so many small annoying things about it that if they had user tested the room they surely would have found out? There's a sink in the bedroom and the tap is so far forward that it splashes water on the floor. There's also no hook to put a towel for when you dry your hands, nor a hook on the back of the door for coats. The shower is *tiny* and the shower curtain didn't meet the floor so when we showered the entire bathroom was flooded with an inch of water which it took about 4 soaking wet towels to mop up and after it started to smell bad. The TV didn't work and the mini fridge is so small you can't even fit a standard size bottle of water in there so it's pointless. Just really bad design. On the plus side, the staff were lovely and the subway is literally a 1min walk!