This was honestly the worst hotel that I have ever stayed in. My wife and I were in Cuernavaca for a wedding and spent four days at Hosteria Las Quintas (a great place) before heading to Aristos Mirador.

It started with our cab ride there. The hotel is essentially in the middle of no where, tucked away in a residential neighborhood with absolutely nothing within walking distance. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the fact that my wife and I didn't really ever want to be at the hotel. I was not feeling well at all when we arrived at the hotel and wanted nothing more than to lie down in an attempt to recuperate. As we walked down the depressing, blue, fluorescently lit hallway I hoped that the room would be nicer than the hallway. No dice. The room was straight out of 1971. Let's start with the bed: there was no fitted sheet, just a flat sheet that barely fit the bed and was sort of tucked in under the mattress, but not really, next came the brown and orange fuzzy, polyester blanket, covered by a comforter with two cigarette burn holes so that the orange/brown monster could peek through. Oh yeah, it also tilted a little to one side. The next thing that disappointed us about the room was its location looking out over the pool grounds. It was actually a pretty nice view, but the exterior speakers were pumping out a thumping mix of electronic music for all of the loud, laughing pool goers to enjoy. My wife went to ask if we could switch rooms to one that was not directly next to the pool. Instead of switching our room we were told that they would switch to "musica mas tranquilo." The "tranquilo" mix that they then put on included some Aerosmith and Nirvana's "All Apologies", twice. Now, "All Apologies" is one of my favorite songs, but it definitely has parts to it that are not so tranquilo. We shut the windows and napped a little. So, this was how the stay started.

THE RESTAURANT- Our first visit I ordered chicken soup and my wife ordered a turkey sandwich. (our stomachs were a little off) It took 45 minutes for us to get our food. For breakfast on the last day I ordered what the menu called "English muffins". I got a basket with a chocolate muffin, some sort of sticky muffin and two buttery pastry sticks. My wife ordered toast and with her mix of English, Italian and very limited Spanish tried to ask for wheat bread. She got some sweet rolls and four pieces of Wonder bread that were burnt on one side and completely untoasted on the other. Regardless of language barriers, ruining toast is not okay.

MISC.-

We saw dirty, food crusted dishes from room service left outside of a room in the hallway at 8 p.m. and they were still there the next morning at 8 a.m.

I saw a few fairly large insects crawling around on the floor of our hotel room.

We were serenaded by large numbers of howling, barking, miserable dogs until about one in the morning, only to have the roosters take over at about 2:30.

The second night we were there my wife got sick. At about 1:30 am (just after most of the dogs had finished) a television came on in a neighboring room. It was playing a live music show and the first song that I heard was "I Did it my Way" in Spanish. I looked at and listened to my wife to see if she had been awakened by the music. She hadn't. I decided to let it be until it woke her up. Finally at about 2:15 I decided to figure out what room the music was coming from and either knock on the door or go talk to someone at the front desk. When I went to investigate I saw that the door to the room next to ours was wide open, the lights were off, no one was in the room and the television was on. I went to the front desk to tell them about it and the lobby was completely empty. Everyone had gone home for the night, but the front doors to the hotel were propped wide open. It was great to know if anything happened in the middle of the night, no one was there at the reception desk to help. Anyway, I went into the random, unoccupied room next to ours and turned off the television. Then I went back to my room to listen to the roosters. Good times.

We attempted to launch many of these complaints with the hotel staff, but no one spoke English and when we explained in Spanish they were fairly non-responsive. I could go on and on about numerous other little things, but I will end with one piece of advice: DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL.

We attended a family party at the hotel garden. Food was great, the view was lovely and the service was OK. However, problems started when I was trying to book and the people at reservations said I couldn't book or give me any rates until 2 days before the event! Of course, we complained and after a call of the party organizer to the Events Manager, we could make the reservations. When we arrived, they didn't have one of the rooms reserved registered. They had to assign my mother-in-law another room that wasn't on the same floor. The indoor facilities were awful - stained carpets, rusty elevator. We all (250 invitees) complained of the beds - like sleeping on jelly full of stones. The worst was when we woke up the next morning and there was no water at all. Not a drop. We had to wait for almost 2 hours until they could fix the problem, but in the meantime we couldn't bathe, brush our teeth or clean anything. That was very annoying.

Flew to Mexico City to meet some friends and drove to Cuernavaca on a Friday evening. Sat in traffic for close to 3 hours before we got on the autopista to Cuernavaca, putting NY and LA to shame in the traffic department. Went to Cuernavaca for a wedding and the accomodations were very simple and inexpensive. The beds & furnishings were a little dated, but it was CLEAN. Had a nice balcony and the grounds were nicely maintained, but not enough lounge chairs at the pool. Very simple property, clean and the food was reasonable in their restaurant.