Stayed at this hotel in March. Usually stay at another hotel in Boston, but was prompted to stay here by a traveling companion. What a great surprise. Room was very nice, great staff, good location close to the North End. Only negative - area is a little sketchy at night.

My mother and I stayed at the Onyx for a long tourist weekend and could not have been happier with the location and the staff. Every person who worked there said hello to us and could not do enough to help us with any and all requests. The room was small but sparkling clean and had nice furnishings and comfortable beds and bedding. I always love the leopard-spotted robes at the Kimpton Hotels.

The shower has good water pressure, unlike showers in most hotels. We were just two blocks from Fanueil Hall and most downtown attractions, and there was a 7-11 and a subway station right around the corner. Getting a cab there was no problem, and we were about 10 minutes from the airport.

The immediate neighborhood isn't much to speak of, but has a couple of decent pubs and a nicer bar down the block. I'd recommend not walking around on Causeway at night by yourself, but other than that, I felt safe the whole time.

I booked through the hotels website. They offer a choice of smoking or non-smoking. I chose smoking. At the time of check-in I was notified there is no smoking anywhere in the building. The desk told me that was a special request and that all requests were not guaranteed. I contacted Kimpton(the hotels owners), and they said the same thing-special requests are not guaranteed. I suggested they should change their website and not offer smoking as a choice because it not available. To this day, they still offer a choice of smoking and non-smoking rooms. Very misleading.
Also, when I booked the room, I had to prepay for my stay.(I did that a month in advance). The day I am leaving, they put a copy of the invoice under my door and it was more than I had prepaid. (And they charged the extra to my credit card) I took the bill to the desk and they insisted I was not overcharged. I showed them my copy of the invoice that I had brought from home and they still insisted I was not overcharged even though the charges were clearly higher than what I had prepaid.
Overall, the staff attitude was that they were not very concerned about making the customer happy. The young man at the desk was actually paying attention to something or someone else as I was expaining these problems.

This was my second stay at the Boston Onyx. They do a great job at maintaining a small boutique hotel. The rooms are not the largest, but that is expected in a large city. The bed was very comfortable. Overall the room was very clean and did not look too worn. One very minor thing was the garbage can had some leftover stuff from a prior guest, probably just a small oversight by housekeeping. If I return to Boston again I would definitely stay again since it is within walking distance to many places in downtown Boston.