Hotel de la Parra — Hotel in Oaxaca

The hotel did not have ANY running water until the second day of our stay. Naturally, the place stinks like sewers and has cockroaches coming out of drains. Their front desk did not disclose that they had no water when I checked in and paid for our full 4 night stay - VERY dishonest. When we noticed and asked about it they lied to us to make us believe it would be solved right away when in reality the water truck arrived next morning, by which time we had missed our paid tour. The facility's tank was also dirty - water came out visibly dirty (brown) for a couple of seconds each time you opened the sink.

Their front desk made it impossible to contact management - they insisted there was no one we could speak with or call. We had to press really hard to even get an email address, which they never responded anyway.

After much effort, a supervisor that we met in person said she would work to refund us for the first night, but never actually got in touch with us after we left. She has been dodging calls for a week.

Do yourself a favor and look at other options. For $250/night you can easily find places with actual working utilities and staff that can recognize when they have failed to provide their services. This place is just looking to take your money and does not care about...

Outstanding 9 day stay. We had the Master Suite which was a great size. Room had a great air conditioner - we were very comfortable. Here is the key discriminator for me on this hotel - THE POOL. Pools in the downtown area are hard to come by and our travel partners were all envious of our pool when it came to the 2 hour break before dinner! Staff is awesome. We had breakfast in the restaurant most mornings - very good, prepared from scratch, and portions are significant. Location is great. The area centered around the Zocalo (around the corner from the hotel) and Santo Domingo church (10 min walk) is the epicenter of tourist activity IMO. One thing to share that is unique to Oaxaca. For the past several years the Teacher's Union goes on strike 15 May for several weeks. The strike consists of road blockages in the Zocalo area because they set up hundreds of tents on the streets. There is very little noise from the group and some say it's less noisy overall because of the lack of cars. When you look at the group - they are what they say they are - TEACHERS with their kids. We would prefer there not be a strike but the strike was pretty much a non-issue. I would definitely stay at this...

If a negative star rating were available thats what they'd get (if you look at my review history I normally just 5 star rate places). Had a 5 night stay booked and when I showed up after 10 hrs of travel the front desk told me that I didn't have a room there but instead had a room for me at the roach motel a block away. Needless to say this is/was unacceptable and after fighting with them (they tried to argue this was my fault lol) they allowed me to stay for 2 of the 5 nights I BOOKED!? 3 weeks prior! This experience pretty much ruined my vacation. So actually stayed 1 of the 2 nights (also in a standard room, not a suite like I booked) they conceded because I was desperate to sleep somewhere that night. Hotel building was charming but the rooms were pretty substandard as well. TV did not turn on, wall AC didn't really cool and dripped and made tons of noise which made it impossible to sleep, bed was hard as a rock, plumbing or water pressure seemed really weak etc. Again, I normally leave positive reviews but this was the most outrageous travel experience of my life. Feel free to email me direct at gkaupert2 for any further specifics on how these people blew up...