I've had plenty of appointments confirmed well in advance but there's something to be said about the 2-hour or day-of confirmation and it works BOTH ways. It says I didn't forget the appointment and I'm on my way and will be on time ... unless there's a traffic problem. In NYC, traffic can screw up a lot of appointments. When she texts or VMs me, it says that she didn't forget and is politely reminding me not to forget, either.
My worst NCNS experiences were with popular well-reviewed providers who normally kept very reliable schedules so I just headed out to show up 5-minutes early ... only to be cancelled on the spot or NCNSed.
I just remembered another one: booked and confirmed a week or so in advance with someone who now has several hundred reviews. Normally VERY reliable. Everything was by e-mail and she sent me her phone number for "day of" final info. I show up and at t-minus 5-minutes, there's a 'number not in service' message. I'm in NYC looking for a place to send a SAFE e-mail and I FINALLY get through to explain that I was there and I did NOT ncns her and I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah. Well, she had changed her phone number and forgot to email me the new number! We rescheduled on the spot. I had to hang around a few hours, but I got to see her a few hours later. If I had tried to call or confirm 2-hours ahead of time, I would have found out about the problem sooner been able to use safe email from where I was and, presumably, with the new number in hand everything else would have been on time.
Even though both parties can be committed in advance to a meeting, stuff happens and the 2-hour confirmation -- no, let's call it "reminder" or "update" -- can save a lot of trouble (travel around town or, as OP mentioned, travel to Manhattan from LI).
Although two hours doesn't help you (Zoey) with your pre-booked room, it could give you a chance to at least try schedule someone else on short notice. Reciprocally, two hours notice ("I'm not feeling well." "I double booked and I like the other guy better.") saves the guy from wasting a long commute on the LIRR