At Hotel.com I ordered a private room for me and my friend to share. However, it was not as promised as we got to share a mixed room with two guys. Quite different than expected! In the private we were promised a twin-bed, but we got a bunk bed. The girl at the desk said that it has happened a lot of times that hotels.com has messed up the reservations, and Canal Loft did not take responsibility for this. Furthermore, we were promised a hairdryer in the booking reservation, but there wasn’t any in the room. Instead we had to go to the reception every morning to borrow one that we had to share with the other guests in the hotel - not nice.
The location is China Town - it is messy and packed with people, however, it has its charm and the neighbourhood is close to everything (center, East Village, Brooklyn Bridge, Soho, metros etc).
After a while, we got used to the hotel and the staff, and we got along in spite of the problems with the reservation. The hotel is simple and more or less clean if you just want a place to sleep. It is not cosy, and you don’t want to hang out there when your feet are too tired from walking... Then you need to upgrade somewhere else.