Hotel Aqua Rio — Hotel in Baja California

ooohhh..let me count the ways. I came here as I did not want to get a room for under twenty dollars as they are ones for prostitutes but did not want to pay US hotel prices so chose this one as for $30 for one person it seemed o.k.from the description, picture and reviews, what a mistake!! I can NOT imagine why ANYone would give this an excellent review unless they were paid sycophants. The reasons are not stupid superficial ones as kind of TV, size of bathroom but basic ones like lack of heating, noise etc.||||||||The place is clean and I guess not too far from the city center to walk a couple of blocks but it IS located in a sketchy neighborhood on the OUTSKIRTS of the city center. ||||||||Although the latest review said it was noisy but because someone said that it was quiet I chose it, again, thinking because of all the excellent reviews, the bad one was a fluke, but since it is like a motel with hallways opening outdoors, it IS noisy because of the street traffic and even made more noisy as the floors are marble so you hear people walking in the floor above (carpeting is nice not only for bare feet but because it deadens noise) and for some reason it attracts clientele who instead of sleeping at 3 AM, walk around then and have their TV turned on.||||||||There is NO elevator, did not see it mentioned in reviews and there are THREE stories. The lighting is very poor (one of the reasons I chose this over another is that another had that and because I like a room to be brightly lit I chose this is because no one mentioned the dim lighting here, had to move the standing lamp around. The main light in the ceiling fan overhead, was disconnected because the light works in conjunction with the fan and when they put AC in, they disconnected the fan and thus the best light. There are thermostats only on the second and third floors but it doesn't really matter as during my stay they did not work so even if you have the extra "bedspreads" the room is cold and I needed to wear my jacket in the room.||||||||The pictures are deceptive, the beds look like they have 5 pillows on the bed and the towel is shaped like a fan, they only had one pillow and NO blankets on the bed, Laura, who is the MAID is the only one who is bilingual (their website says they are bi-lingual and people at the FRONT DESK speaks very little English) and she is only redeeming quality to this wretched place brought me extra bedspreads to use as a blanket and extra pillow, the towels are NOT fanshaped, not a big deal but it is NOT representative of what the room looks like. It says no smoking but there seems to be the odor of smoke in the rooms.The in room phone is hard to use so they have to call out, but since they do not understand much English it is hard, if you can find Laura she will call on her cell. The website said a bar/restaurant (nothing in their website said that it was closed for renovation) just another thing that was misleading in their ad.||||||||Customer service is VERY important to me and when I emailed them to request a room in the back recommended by a Trip Advisor reviewer, they never responded. That should have been the warning for how I was treated once I got there from trying to cancel the second night to requesting things. Remote did not work, asked twice and even dragooned a maid to help me, they finally brought one up, one hour before I left. BTW, if it's important did not find an English speaking channel on their tv schedule on the TV.||||||||I paid for two nights but when I sat in the room for the first hour, I knew I would not be able to sleep well due to the noise and called my booking agency because I had to cancel through them. When they talked to the front desk they claimed not to understand English, I told them to ask for Laura but every time the agent tried to call they kept hanging up. I think if you had a problem here, they would not be very helpful. I spoke to another customer who was upset the heating did not work and because he was there a half an hour they refused to refund his money.||||||||If noise, lack of elevator, dim lighting, non working things in room. stale smoke odor in room, heating system not working, sketchy neighborhood, misleading website and perhaps inability to deal with problems do not bother you, than this is not a bad place to stay for the price, which IS low, at least, it doesn't seem to have prostitutes as their clientele which is why I gave it a poor not terrible rating. There are others like Caesars or one called (Espana sp??), try hard to look for others, for $10 more you can get the one I moved to called Bmyhotel, much nicer and they offer you a breakfast buffet, not too far from Revolution Ave. its location is the reason you get a MUCH nicer hotel...

Uno de los peores hoteles que me he quedado. Yo sé que habemos muchos que solo usaremos el hotel para dormir por lo que buscamos un hotel económico y bien ubicado, el problema viene cuando no esta tan bien ubicado y casi todo lo demás no cumple con el mínimo.

Primero he de mencionar que el hotel solo lo queríamos para descansar y no esperábamos grandes amenidades (tampoco somos exigentes ya que salió a un buen precio, aprox 1200 la noche por booking) pero vamos por partes:

Como dije queriamos el hotel para descansar ya que estamos de vacaciones y pagamos tres noches, el hotel está como a tres calles de donde está el ambiente de la avenida revolución por lo que se podría decir que esta bien ubicado, pero ya conociendo la zona te das cuenta qué hay hoteles mucho más cerca y a un precio muy similar, incluso tuve la oportunidad de entrar al hotel de un amigo y no solo estaba mejor ubicado (si tú intención es irte de antro) sino estaba a un mejor precio.

La cama: sobre el colchón le pone una cubierta como de esponja (algo muy improvisado), desconozco por qué hacen esto, si por que los colchones ya están en muy malas condiciones o qué pasa, pero este material que le ponen encima hace que la cama sea incómoda, al caminar frente a las demás habitaciones me di cuenta que todas las camas tiene esta cubierta, les dejaré una foto para que sepan de que hablo.

La TV. Nosotros no somos mucho de prender la TV pero esta vez queríamos que nos hiciera algo de ruido, cuando nos registramos nos dieron el control del cable, pero resulta no NO HABÍA CABLE. Preguntamos en la recepción y nos enviaron al chico de mantenimiento, nos dijo que estaban re cableando y que por el momento no había (yo siento que ya ni tiene ese servicio) pero que podíamos usar Netflix, la cuestión era que solo había un control remoto para TODAS las TVs del hotel ya que todas son el mismo modelo, así que nos ofreció poner una película pero si queríamos poner otra cosa tendríamos que llamarle nuevamente!!!! En resumen (No hay TV)

Estacionamiento: aunque nosotros no traíamos auto, me pude dar cuenta que junto al hotel hay cómo 7 cajones de estacionamiento pero se llenan enseguida y entonces te ofrecen dejar tu auto como a media calle donde tienen otro espacio de estacionamiento.

El precio. Cómo mencione por booking nos salió en 1200 una habitación sencilla para dos personas, en su estacionamiento a media calle del hotel tiene una manta de quien sabe cuándo que dice, habitaciones desde 800, en la recepción tienen un pizarron con los precios por si no traes reservación y la habitación más sencilla la tienen en 1700.

La llave. Eso si tienes que pasar todos los días a la recepción para que te la programen ya que todos los días de forma automática se desprograma.

El ruido. El hotel es un pasillo largo y para llegar a alguna habitación tienes que pasar frente a las demás, esto te da una sensación de poca privacidad y además TODO se escucha, no me refiero a gente teniendo relaciones, sino a la gente qué pasa frente a tu habitación o por alguna razón se queda platicado en el pasillo o niños corriendo en el pasillo.

La habitación es muy pequeña, apenas es espacio suficiente para caminar alrededor de la cama.

En fin pocas cosas buenas podría decir de este hotel. Definitivamente hay mejores opciones. Lo siento pero pocas veces encuentro tantas cosas malas respecto a un lugar.

El baño. A la regadera le hace falta que la destapen o la cambien ya que bota agua por todos lados y la coladera igualmente requiere servicio ya que se anegaba el agua mientras te estabas bañando.

El personal: en todo momento ha sido atento y amable, el chico que vino a ver la TV se apenaba por qué no servía y ya no hallaba que hacer!!! En general todos te saludan amablemente. Se incluía un desayuno continental, solo un día lo tomamos y estuvo bien, cuando te registras te lo dicen claro “es continental”.

Cosas buenas??? El clima, los contactos y el lavamanos estaban en condiciones, ah y el internet también...

Rooms are great, housemaids are awesome too! But hotel front desk attendants are ok.(This review will be about a rude front desk, fyi)

Be careful with front desk girl, NERI, a tall, skinny, black hair with braces. She has the worst customer service. As soon as I walked in, her an another girl started making jokes about me. This was very unprofessional. Especially being a first timer here; I hadn’t even arrived to the desk yet, and I felt uncomfortable.

A shorter girl helped me (she was nice) and NERI was interrupting her service. I politely informed Neri, to please stop talking and let the shorter girl finish her job, Neri just became disrespectful. I asked her for her managers name and she just was impolite. I finally had to ask her to please step out of this conversation. I no longer wished to speak to her., so she did.

One more thing: Neri, also CHOSE to give me a FAKE name- “Janet”. If you will stay here, please avoid this girl.

It appears she’s been rude to several other guests. This is not an experience one wishes to think experience. She needs to be...