We just spent 4 nights here. Yuck. NEVER again. The only positive I can say, you can walk across the street, (Trinity) -to the movie theater and a couple blocks further to Starbucks, a few restaurants, a mini dept. store and the Bradbury science museum. Being snowed in made it too dangerous to drive to Santa Fe, so we were trapped here, and hung out and pretty much did it all in two days. Boring town if you are not working.
So many problems with this hotel, this is SO not a holiday inn in my opinion, so below par, shockingly so. Supposedly, all the problems seem to have developed since April --(according to collegues who stayed here at that time). First thing I noticed, the smell of smoke in elevator and ground floor, it was gaggingly strong, and especially on 2nd floor where there are apparently smoking rooms. There is only one elevator and two sides to the hotel. One side faces the parking lot /busy street, back side faces some apartment/townhouses. You had better fight to get that room that faces the back side or you will get no sleep.
Amenities? few. No hotel laundry for guests, filthy carpets in public area, only 1 ice machine working.
They had also painted the stairwells, and with NO ventilation the fumes were noxious. The fire alarm went off one night of our stay, the firemen came. Insisted they smelled cigarette smoke, and said the paint fumes were a hazard. Told front desk girl to open windows to ventilate. That never happened. Our room was adjacent to this stairwell, I think it was paint fumes that were burning my nose and lungs for two nights.
WE, like many others we saw, had to change rooms 2-3 times during our stay but each time it was not much improvement.
First room she showed us on 2nd floor had dangerous sharp busted floor tiles, we could not believe that had not been addressed. We INSISTED (despite the b.s. that they were booked up), to be moved. AMAZINGLY there were in fact a few other rooms available. Well, the second room similar to first, but floor 3-- and also had busted tiles, not so severe, so we took it, We didn't realize until we had unpacked that the window faced the hotel sign, and directly over parking light, so we had this unbelieveable bright light in room all night, no sleep for 2 nights. Also people up at 2 a.m. then 4 a.m. etc. honking horns, starting cars in lot below. Traffic on Trinity also very noisy. Beds comfortable, that is the only nice thing I can say. TV from stone ages, one in a room, including the 'suite'. No pay per view, but HBO if you cared. One window in each room with a ton of dead moths on outside sill, yuck and we could not shut curtain all the way.
Smell in room and halls was gagging me, burning my nostrils. Seemed like something other than paint. Third day-housekeeping tracked the smell culprit-two different sprays the rooms and halls are saturated with, to kill bacteria? Well good luck- it was killing my lungs. She sprayed some in the air, then sneezed like crazy, said something like "Oh yeah it's this stuff. I forgot, guess we got used to it. "Good God. She said the GM insists they use it. Well it was like sleeping in a subway station bathroom all night, I will not forget that smell for a long time. I will also never go to Los ALamos again, unless I stay in a Santa Fe hotel.
After 2 nights we moved yet again to the opposite side of hotel, a more sympathetic front desk girl (Laurie?) offered us 3 rooms to choose from, one away from parking lot. "King Suite" --so they call it. Basic difference from other rooms--chaise lounge in a corner, tiny sleep sofa. A fridge with iced over freezer, and a microwave. Otherwise same as other rooms. But we took it and so much quieter at least. Although there was a large quantity of nasty red sticky stuff that somebody had spilled on the bedspread, bed skirt and carpet, and they never cleaned it, never changed bed skirt, I was amazed! Just left it, put clean sheets on the bed. I made a point to say please, NO room spray, that helped a lot re sleep, despite the residual spray in room. But with two more depressing nights to go I wished we had stayed in Santa Fe.
Lobby is decent, a fireplace that was not on, a computer that was not working supposedly due to somebody trying to download porn and getting a virus instead? :) So we were told, which was a pain as we could not print out boarding passes the last night for our flights. There were a few chairs and a tv, and the breakfast area adjacent with tables and chairs. But it seems like a load of local workers come in and start making themselves waffles in the morning, bus drivers? Not sure, but that was weird.
No restaurant in this place. No pool. There's a hot tub on floor one which has seen better days. NO towels for guests in there except one night, we had to bring room towels. Heat was cranked way low in there as well. Dry sauna ok, but could tell the wood was going to give way on at least one section of floor. Tiny excercise area, 2 treadmills and a bike. Expect nothing and you wont be disappointed.
Free breakfast on a par with super 8-hard boiled eggs, plus make your own waffle. A bunch of green bananas, some apples, oranges. Had a yogurt one morning that was moldy probably from not sitting on ice. duh. . Nice breakfast guy, Steve I think. ANd again, a nice front desk girl Laurie? Rest of staff indifferent, disgruntled. Apparently the GM was absent and seemingly clueless.
THis place is a dump and should be bulldozed-- pretty much like all the other places in this town. I could hear comments from business people in lobby often enough to sense the shock and bewilderment. A place like Los ALamos with all these scientists and visitors and no decent hotels to choose from, how the hell did this happen???
Hey somebody with spare cash out there??--somebody out there with bucks to spend and no ideas?? here's a suggestion, maybe some of you scientists and techies--pool your resources, see the light, and build a luxury hotel, or a high rise, or at least a NICE hotel with amenities in this town, you will clean up. There is NO competition believe me.
On the second day, thinking things couldn't be worse, ha, we took a look at the Best Western down the road. Lobby with zero charm. A bar/restaurant looked just ok. Small. Anyway we were shown a room available-a walk up some squeaky steps to the second floor, we saw a room with lots of orange- bed spread, carpet etc. which means at the least very dated. BUT worse was the still unmade bed with what looked like a big blood stain on the bed spread. Yikes. So we went back to holiday inn and bit the bullet.
My advice if you must come to this town on business...In a snowstorm the drive out of town is scary, so find a friend with a spare room. Or come here in mild weather and drive to a Santa Fe hotel. Or just be prepared for a nasty hotel experience and you won't be disappointed.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
