This is what we do. Full time.
PoolsideStays is a hotel research operation based in the New York metropolitan area. Helping people find the right hotel, the right pool, the right tub, the right room, is not our side project. It is our calling.
Jason Manning
Jason Manning has traveled to more than 120 countries and stayed in close to 1,000 hotels across nearly a decade working in the tourist industry. He founded PoolsideStays from the New York metropolitan area to do one thing full time: judge hotels by the water in the room. “We're not just web developers, we have the ins and outs,” he says of the operation. His five-check Soak Standard, jet power, two-person fit, privacy, heat hold, room integration, is how every stay on this site gets judged.
The research team
Behind the picks is a team of data scientists and professionals with finance-grade habits: a number on this site either traces to a record or it does not appear. The team calls and emails properties directly to confirm the amenity that matters, the indoor pool's season, the room type that truly carries the jetted tub, whether a cabin's hot tub is private. A listing earns its place here only when that confirmation is on file.
What this site is
A booking-grade index of hotels and cabins chosen for their water, indoor and rooftop pools, private plunge pools, hot tubs and in-room jetted tubs, with the exact room type to book named on the card, an indicative rate range, and a verdict we stand behind. Rankings are opinions with receipts; they cannot be bought.
What it is not
A scraped directory. We never invent ratings, room names or guest quotes, never upgrade a hotel's claim (a shared plunge pool is never listed as a private pool), and never print a Verified badge the research team has not earned on the phone.
Contact the team
For corrections, property owners and partnership questions: the contact page. Corrections go to the front of the research queue.
Counts on this page are computed from the live dataset, October 2026.