Hotel Araiza Mexicali — Attraction in Baja California

My stay in the Araiza hotel was overshadowed by a very unpleasant happening. It was Saturday afternoon when I noticed that money was stolen from my travel case. The money was not obviously placed and in a second compartment inside. So it cannot be taken in seconds when walking aside. Whoever did this needed some time to explore diligently the inside of my case and opening inside zips to find. I had my travel case just in the hotel room and when going to customer. There is video surveillance in place in the area I had to work and my belongings were all the time under surveillance. Normally when I left the hotel after the breakfast the room service was not done and I left the room for work with my travel-case carrying with me. At that Saturday morning I enjoyed breakfast and when I returned from breakfast my room was surprisingly cleaned at an early time compared to the days before. For an evening meeting I wanted to take some dollars from my case and was shocked when figuring out that all the big notes are missing and just ones, tens and 20 dollar notes are in. Whoever has taken the money wanted to make it look like not too obviously. Seems to have some experience doing this. I have not reported immediately to avoid it can warn her because I monitored my room carefully and was hoping anyone who did this will try again and I can catch. But I have not had luck. I understand that it was my mistake to leave my luggage unattended in the room during breakfast. The stay seems to have the focus to take care of the personal belongings. Not enjoy breakfast or time at the pool and always have in mind to be in the room fast and have a look to your gear. I know that there is a safe in the room but the feeling that you have to protect your goods any minute in the safe to prevent to be taken by the hotel employees does not really make the stay relaxing and comfortable. I travel for decades in all the countries of the world, China, India, Africa, Russia, Iraq,… and I have never experienced an issue with hotel and cleaning staff. But now I learned my lesson and cannot trust hotel Araiza there. When I checked out I wanted to talk about this with the manager on duty but seems not have time for me and the front desk lady told me that I should talk to her instead and she will forward to the manager. I reported her the happening and gave the time what was around 9-12 last Saturday where I know for sure my case was in the room while room cleaning has taken place. The other days I left before the room has been cleaned. For sure it could have happened days before as well at the evening when I was at the restaurant for dinner. But there should not be a reason for anybody to enter my room. One time at the afternoon I noticed that a lady was walking from door to door and just asking if everything is ok. It is nice meant but with the happening I had it rather feels to me like figuring out what rooms are with guests in and what are not. I just can hope that whoever did this will continue to do and one time anybody will...

I do not recommend this hotel. Service is below average and inconsistent. During a 10-day stay, there was something wrong every day. To begin with, the suite I got was so noisy from the ice machine that I had to change it immediately. The new suite was not cleaned properly: tables were dusty and the bathroom had shampoo from the previous tenant. Besides I paid for the suite with a kitchenette, but all they put there is a tiny coffee maker and a sink. It was cold inside and the only way to warm up the space was by using a conditioner on a hot setting which makes a lot of noise and blows air very strongly. And there were no spare blankets in the hotel. The breakfast buffet is not suitable for healthy people. It is full of meat, chilly, fried dishes and sugar. The only thing without meat there was fruit, but it was icy cold every day. The tea would come in a coffee pot and taste like coffee. From 9 am the breakfast restaurant fills up so much that there is nowhere to walk (disregarding COVID completely). Do not use the laundry service! All the white shirts I sent, returned yellow and stretched with no apology or refund. They also charge a lot. Double the average price. The reception proved to be completely unresponsive. One of the nights the neighboring room had music so loud that I felt as if I was in that room. I called the reception and asked them to fix it. After 15 minutes they sent a guard to listen for it at the door. He didn’t hear anything (as the music was in the bedroom on the other side of the suite) and left. I called the reception again but they just stopped picking up the phone. So I had to go there myself and request them to fix it. All this took two hours between 11 pm and 1 am. There were many technical issues. One night there was a blackout. After which the ventilation for the whole building started going really loud and did not get fixed until the following afternoon! On New Year’s night the keycards to the rooms stopped working at 10 pm. So there was a line of people trying to renew the keys. I had to wait for an hour to get into my room. I had to renew the key three times and walk back and forth to the reception. At the end, I got access to the room after the technician “disabled” the lock. The next day the key was still not working. The location of the hotel is very uncomfortable. There is nothing to see around it, no restaurants, no shops. To get anywhere you need a taxi. Average waiting time is 20-30 minutes. Uber doesn’t really work so you have to call the reception and they call the taxi. One of the times I did that, I waited outside for 30 minutes before the reception told me they never actually called the driver. To sum up, I will not stay there again. For the price of this hotel, you can find a much nicer place in...

The worst hotel I’ve stayed at in a long long time. I stayed for two nights, the first night there was a security guard at 3 am on my floor corridor talking on his walkie talkie at FULL volume, for 40 minutes, which is 40 minutes too long. I called reception but their response was that they didn’t have any register of hotel personnel by the corridor at that time, AKA “you’re making this up”. After a while, I was finally able to fall asleep, only to be woken up again at 7 am due to cleaning personnel vacuuming the corridor. Let me say this again, 7 am, VACUUMING the corridor, oh you know, only the LOUDEST of cleaning procedures there can be. When I called reception, their response was that cleaning starts at 11 am, AKA “you’re making this up VOL. II”. And can I just add, this is on Christmas eve, a date when most hotels in Mexicali receive visitors, not an off season. How does this happen? Who allows for this to happen? One of the busiest seasons and it feels like Araiza’s guests are at the bottom of its priorities.||On the second night, the guests next door started blasting music, drinking and overall being as loud as one possibly can. I get it, its Christmas, but maybe stop when it’s 2 am you know? So, after a while, I called reception and asked for them to intervene. They said they would send someone to check on this but 20 minutes passed and no one did. I called again and they said it was only TV noise and there’s nothing prohibiting a guest of watching TV on their room. It was NOT TV noise, I recorded how loud it was, went to the reception and showed them. They had 2 security guards come up with me. The noise from these guests could be heard from the elevator. The security guards knocked on their door and asked them to keep it down and lower their music. This whole ordeal took around 30 minutes. Some time passed and then, again, they blasted music and started being impossibly loud. I had to call reception and ask for security guards for the third time. All the while, I felt as if I was inconveniencing hotel personnel with this, as if no one ever complains and this is just how things are until I showed up and started complaining.||Seriously, TERRIBLE service, absolute disappointment given that this is one of the top hotels in the area. I’m never putting a foot in here again, and you...