The La Fonda is a beautiful hotel. The main issue was that the rooms needed a bit of updating. Because the decor in the room was so old, I had significant trouble with my allergies. Given my sensitivity to mold and dustmites, the old carpet and furniture was not good. Also, the La Fonda has one of the smallest fitness rooms I have seen in a hotel. There were two treadmills, an elliptical and two stationary bikes. This equipment took up 95% of the room. There was a rack with free weights, one mat and a universal workout machine. With that being said, the food in the restaurants was excellent. I had a meeting in the Ballen boardroom. The boardroom was great for a smaller meeting. I would use this hotel for meetings and dining, but due to my allergies, I would go for a newer hotel.

First off, I must admit that my husband and I are hotel snobs. We pay good money and expect the best. We have both traveled the world extensively and have stayed in many many hotels. With all that snobbishness off my chest, we must say that La Fonda (stayed Feb 2012) has been absolutely wonderful. The margaritas in the restaurant were delicious (be careful if you are not acclimated to the altitude, you can get drunk 10x faster on half as much as your used to drinking), the tortilla soup was fantastic, and the service was impeccable. If you can afford the upgrade, we would highly recommend staying in the La Terrazza portion of the hotel. The room was large and had a fire place. These rooms also have a private concierge. Mary Ann was so sweet and helpful for our stay. I only have 2 complaints; 1) breakfast was not to my liking. Actually, it was gross. No worries, we wandered down to Cafe Pasquale and had a wonderful breakfast. 2) The Loretto Chapel outside our room is in love with their bells! Just don't expect to get a nap during the day. They stop ringing at 9pm but start at an excruciatingly early 7am. The hotel has taken up this issue with them, which they have made some compromise. The Chapel used to ring their bells every 15 min ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT LONG!

We have just completed a 3 weeks trip around Arizona and New Mexico. We stayed the longest that we stayed anywhere in La Fonda on the Plaza, 4 nights. It also cost the most per night of all of our hotels and I stayed in much better, but for less money. We thought it was quite a nice hotel but our bathroom needed a little updating. The bath had a large crack in it. One of the biggest problems with the room was the excessive amount of pillows, 10 for 2 people. Every night I had to find somewhere to put 8 of these pillows and it wasn't easy. Put them on the floor and you risk making them dirty or falling over them in the night (the room wasn't that big) so I had them balanced on the easy chair each night and each day when housekeeping came in, they went back on the bed, I hated those pillows. The bedsheets were supposed to be changed every 3 nights but I know ours weren't because there were holes in the sheet on my side of the bed and they were there the whole stay. The sheets on our bed were not the correct size. They didn't tuck in and every morning, were all over the place, which I find annoying. The foyer/shop area and the restaurants were very nice. The food was very good and the staff excellent.

My wife and I stayed here from Oct 8 to Oct 12, 2011. We were part of a group of 12 for a family reunion. We had a number of bad experiences while we were there. The first problem was that there was no hair dryer in the room. We called Sat night and were told one would be delivered to the room. When we got back from dinner that evening, it was not there. We called again and asked. We went to sleep and no one came. The next moring we called again and when we returned from breakfast, still no dryer. It took 4 calls to the desk to get one.
On Sunday, our group went to the concierge to make a reservation for a car. We were told we would be picked up at the hotel at 10AM on Monday. The pickup never happened and we had to drive ourselves to the car rental facility to find out there was no reservation in our name.
That evening we had agreed that the group would meet in the lounge for dinner and drinks. We had stopped at Starbucks on our way back to the hotel and went to the lounge with our drinks. The waitress came to our table and told us that it was unsanitary for us to have the coffees there. We were embarrassed not only in front of the rest or our family but in front of other guests. Someone else in our group complained since we left but there was never so much as an apology.
I do think it is interesting that the general manager responds to these reviews because they are posted in a public forum. I responded to the survey sent by the hotel after the stay with the same review but never heard anything.
I would not recommend this hotel. Their customer service was terrible ans we will stay somewhere else on our next trip.