Accuracy is the whole business

How the operation runs

Our team comes out of data science and finance, fields where a wrong number is not a typo, it is a loss. We run this directory the same way: every listing starts as a structured record, not a paragraph. Address, amenity class, the exact room type that carries the tub, published guest scores and review counts, and the indicative rate range are separate fields, checked separately.

Then the human part: our research team calls and emails properties directly to confirm the amenity that matters, is the indoor pool open in February, does this room type really carry the jetted tub, is the hot tub private to the cabin or shared by the resort? A listing earns its place here only when that confirmation is on file. Until then we publish the record confidently on its published facts, the guest scores, the room names, the addresses are real, and we keep working the phones.

This is a full-time, dedicated operation based in the New York metropolitan area. Hotel search is not our side project; it is our calling.

The Soak Standard, the founder's five checks

Jason Manning has stayed in close to 1,000 hotels over nearly a decade in the tourist industry, and he judges a tub room the way a chef judges a knife. Every Poolside Pick is scored against his five checks:

The Vibe Check, the rubric, published

Every card carries our signature verdict: an aura ring and a one-line take. It is the methodology made visual, never a random number. The score is computed from the listing's own record:

Aura = 75% guest rating + 15% review volume + 10% amenity proof. Guest rating is the published score (or its word grade where only that exists). Review volume rewards scores that thousands of guests stand behind over scores twelve people wrote. Amenity proof is full marks when the exact tub or pool room is named in the record, the fact this whole site is built on. Where a record carries no guest rating at all, its score is built from amenity proof and price tier instead, under the cap in the floor rule below.

The floor rule: there is exactly one. The score is computed from whatever real signals the record carries, its guest rating, its review volume as a weighted input (a thin count lowers that term; it never disqualifies the stay), and its amenity proof, so a twelve-review hideaway earns its number on the same terms as a ten-thousand-review resort. A stay with no guest rating at all, number or word, is scored on the evidence that does exist: amenity proof and price tier, with review volume counted wherever a count exists. That evidence has a ceiling: a score earned without a guest rating is capped below the top band, because an unrated stay has not earned the benefit of the doubt. Every number on this site traces to fields on the record itself. We would rather show you nothing than a score we invented.

Rates, honestly

Hotel prices move daily, so we publish indicative nightly ranges, refreshed October 2026, and send you to the booking page for the live number. Where a property's record supports only a floor, we print "from $X", never a fake precise rate. Booking buttons are affiliate links routed through Stay22; they may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you, and they never change a ranking.

Photography, honestly

Until our licensed property-photo feed is live, cards carry photography of the destination and the amenity, the city, the pool style, the tub class, clearly the market's water, not a staged shot of a room we have not photographed. When licensed property photography lands, it replaces the treatment property by property. We never scrape or republish another site's hotel photos.

Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons): Photo: PattayaPatrol, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: TravelingOtter, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Carnaval.com Studios, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Missvain, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: BlisswoodB&B, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Rodrigo Pizarro, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Tomás Del Coro, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Spatms, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Gatorfan252525, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: DoctorDotDJ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Agha Zain, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Andres M. Bernal, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Larry Johnson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: David Daniel Turner, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Don Ramey Logan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Michael Tracey, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: OKJaguar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Boskinhos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: JasonParis, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Johann Jaritz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Full per-file ledger: PHOTOS.md in the project record.

Corrections

Properties and travelers: if a record is wrong, tell us and it goes to the front of the research queue. Accuracy is the house religion; corrections are how we practice it. Contact the team →

Stamps and counts on this page are computed from the live dataset, last completed research pass October 2026.