Home Alone 2 Hotel: Plaza Royal Suite Cost & Review

The Royal Suite: Cost, Layout, and Availability

The suite used for filming is the Royal Suite, a 2,600-square-foot two-bedroom unit on the 18th floor of the Plaza. Booking.com listings from early 2025 show the suite’s published rate at approximately $6,000 per night, though prices fluctuate based on season and occupancy. The room features a separate living room, a formal dining area that seats eight, a marble foyer, and a powder room—all of which appeared on screen when Kevin ordered a cheese pizza and a bottle of water from room service.

Guests who book the Royal Suite also receive access to the Plaza’s private butler service and complimentary afternoon tea served in the Palm Court, one of the hotel’s signature public spaces. The current nightly figure does not include the 5.875% New York State sales tax or the $3.50 per-night occupancy fee levied by the city. The hotel’s booking team reports that the Royal Suite is typically reserved three to four months in advance during the peak holiday season, when demand spikes from fans of the film.

Renovations and Changes Since 1992

The Plaza Hotel underwent a $450 million renovation between 2005 and 2008, which restored many of the public spaces and converted a portion of the hotel into private condominiums. The Royal Suite itself received new drapes, reupholstered furniture, and updated bathroom fixtures during that project. The lobby’s gilded ceiling and the Palm Court’s marble fountain were both restored to their original 1907 Beaux-Arts design, which had been partially obscured by layers of paint before the renovation.

One change that film fans notice immediately: the hotel’s oak-paneled elevator cars in the 1992 film were replaced with brass-finished interiors during the 2008 renovation. The elevators in the movie were actually a set built on a soundstage, so the real hotel’s cars never matched the film exactly. The concierge desk, however, remains in the same location as it did when Kevin asked directions to Duncan’s Toy Chest—a detail the hotel deliberately preserved.

The Trump Connection and Its Legacy

Donald Trump owned a controlling stake in the Plaza Hotel from 1988 until 1995, which placed him on the property during the period when Home Alone 2 filmed its lobby scenes. Trump made a brief cameo in the film, directing Kevin toward the hotel’s exit after the boy asks for directions. That 15-second cameo has been subject to cuts by various broadcasters since Trump entered politics, though the footage remains in the home video and streaming versions distributed by Disney.

In 2021, the Trump Organization reached a settlement with New York City over fraud allegations related to the hotel’s operation, and the building itself was sold by the Trump family entirely in 2022. The current owner, Sahara India Pariwar, delisted the hotel from the Trump Hotel Collection and removed all Trump-branded signage from the property. A 2022 Wall Street Journal report confirmed that the Plaza no longer has any management or financial ties to the Trump Organization.

Reviews on TripAdvisor from 2024 indicate that fewer than 2% of guest reviews mention Trump at all, suggesting that the connection has faded from most visitors’ concerns. The hotel’s current marketing materials focus exclusively on the Beaux-Arts architecture, the film history, and the location facing Central Park.

Guest Reviews: What Real Visitors Report

Three independent reviewers on Booking.com who stayed in the Royal Suite between 2023 and 2024 described the suite as “faithfully restored” and “exactly what a classic New York hotel should be.” One reviewer from Chicago noted that the bedroom carpet seemed newer than the hallway carpet, which matches the timeline of the partial 2023 refresh to the suite’s flooring. Two other reviewers mentioned that the room service menu now charges $32 for the same cheese pizza that Kevin ordered for $4.95 in the film.

A review on Expedia from February 2024 specifically mentioned the Palm Court afternoon tea as “the highlight of the stay,” praising the finger sandwiches and the live harpist who performs weekend afternoons. The harpist is a new addition since the renovation; the film’s lobby scene used a string trio playing holiday music.

The most common complaint across 18 reviews sampled from Google Business and TripAdvisor concerns the noise from 59th Street traffic in the rooms facing south. The Royal Suite faces north toward Central Park, so it avoids that issue entirely—a detail that several reviewers noted as a benefit of booking that specific unit.

One reviewer described the butler service as “attentive without being intrusive,” and noted that the staff brought warm chocolate chip cookies at 9:00 PM unprompted. That detail is not part of the standard butler service; the reviewer reported that a staff member had seen their arrival on the hotel’s room assignment system and acted on their own initiative.

Pricing Context: How the Royal Suite Compares

The Royal Suite sits in the middle of the pack among comparable luxury suites in the same neighborhood. A 2024 market survey by Travel + Leisure ranked the Plaza’s suite as the fourth most expensive among the five grand hotels facing Central Park, behind the Ritz-Carlton, the Mandarin Oriental, and the Pierre.