Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa — Hotel in Espanola

This place is Hit-or-Miss. Can't count on having a consistently good experience and this makes it very difficult for us to want to make the reservation. (FYI, I never write reviews...but I needed to get this off my chest) Sad to say...but we are having a hard time liking this place. My husband and I have stayed at Ojo MANY times over the years and we would like to "like" this place, BUT it's been challenging to continue to want to visit there.

The last four visits went like this: Visit 1-- we had a great time staying at Posi and check-out went smoothly. After leaving and was on the road for literally 10min., we realized that we forgot out winter vest and a jacket inside the closet (our bad). We pulled the car over, called the front desk to check with the housekeeping and asked them to hold them for us for 2 days. The front desk transferred us to the housekeeping. No one answered. We left a detailed message and asked them to call us back. NO one did. Front desk never followed up with us. We stopped by 2 days later, but they said they didn't have them--they were left in our "expensive" Posi. In the end, we lost a jacket and a vest.

Visit 2-- They put us at the end of Posi Suites next to the mechanical room so we were up all night with the noise right at our heads. No other rooms available. They gave us some discounts @ check-out.

Visit 3-- We stayed at one of the Posi Suites that had broken soaking tub pump with a section of the seat chipped and broken--this causes your upper legs to chafe (yup, funny...but it hurts). We have stayed in this same Posi prior to this visit and we were hoping someone fixed it by this visit, but no one had done anything to fix it.

Visit 4-- Ready for this one? Ok, so we were enjoying our public soaking tubs experience, but there were a group of people who came in with multiple vapes while we were inside the Soda Pool, the only inclosed pool. They started to vape, filling up the space with both the "smoke" and the noise. No one would do anything about it, so yes, back to the frond desk!

And the very last visit we had with Ojo made us not want to go back, EVER...(We stayed 2 nights in Posi) I decided to participate in a Free Yoga class (I even brought my yoga mat this time!), since I had never done yoga at Ojo. When I arrived, only the teacher was there, sitting in the yoga room. I took my shoes off and walked in. She never looked up from her phone, never said hello, recommended where to put my mat, etc. She completely ignored me. I'm a C-IAYT (Yoga Therapist) and a Yoga Teacher (trainer as well), so I was shocked that she would not welcome a person entering into the room. I wanted to respect her, so I put my mat down and waited for her to say something. She finally put her phone down and said, "I need to take care of something" and left the room, leaving me alone in the room after the start of the class time. I rolled up my mat at that point and started to leave. She saw me leave outside the studio and said, "oh, are you leaving?" I said to her, "I have no interest in staying for the class." I was quite upset... Went back to our Posi Suite and my husband was confused to why I was already back. After I told him what happened, we went to the front desk. They gave us some discounts for our stay...but honestly the whole thing didn't sit well for us. And do we have to continue to go up to the front desk every time we are there??

We live in Colorado, so we would love to drive to NM and stay at Ojo, but it feels like we can't count on being a good visit. It is so hit or miss...so we don't feel comfortable making the reservation.

Ojo is popular now and very busy, so they will continue to fill up the rooms and won't even care if we ever go back. Us not going back isn't going to make any difference for them and won't affect their bottom-line.

It's just really sad for us, because we love this sacred land that Ojo is located. But, I feel so much better that I finally decided to write about our...

Man, where to start?

My wife and I arrived on June 16th, the day after our wedding for our honeymoon. We are Hot Spring hoppers, we've been to at least 10 now, primarily in our home state of Colorado and were very excited to stay here. And for the most part on the first day everything was great, it was that evening and day 2 where we saw things begin to shift.

When we arrived it looked gorgeous. we got a suite with a private tub, room 62, and the room was beautiful. Now I will preface my next criticisms by being clear I have lived in the desert for years before in Arizona, and my dad is from New Mexico, so I am very used to the climate and the local wildlife. But I have never experienced something like this before. They have a genuine cockroach infestation, and they know about it.

On the first night we noted a glue trap under our mini fridge. And it wasn't hidden either, it sticks out, so the first thing you see when you open that fridge is a cockroach stuck to it, struggling, still alive. Exactly what you want to see right before you eat. before we left there would be 2 more on that glue trap. We also had a cricket in our room which was very loud and took forever to find, and a bee somehow ended up in our bed and stung my wife. We never left doors open and it was at night so this was extra strange. I am also allergic to bees myself. And I watched a roach while I was in the shower run under our sink, and when I looked under I saw the biggest cobwebs I've ever seen, and dozens of small piles of, confirmed by google searches, roach droppings - also indicating a clear infestation. The amount of bugs in the rooms for over $500 a night is revolting and unacceptable.

That night after walking out of the bathroom, I could see we had a fairly sizable gap at our front door, so its no wonder we had so many uninvited guests. And given things like the glue trap clearly they are very aware of this issue.

We also received fairly spotty service at the restaurants. Every server seemed very annoyed we were there at the wine bar, the restaurant did have better wait staff. We were told once by one workers they couldn't do an ice latte because "they don't do that". After I told the lady we got one yesterday and another at breakfast she said 'Well I don't know how to make it" (hint: add ice to a latte) and I pointed out the girl who made it the day before, so she grabbed her to make it again. They did give it to us complimentary, which was nice. They seemed short staffed and tired, so I do not fault them for this next annoyance.

We ate at the Restaurant the first night, and while delicious, it was quite expensive. The next night we wanted eat at the wine bar since that menu was cheaper and a pizza sounded great. When we arrived at 6 we were told that unfortunately they stopped serving food at the wine bar that day at 3 so we had no choice but to do the expensive dinner again if we wanted to eat, or drive 45 minutes to Taos. This is pretty predatory business practice and I was very unhappy. Nowhere was it advertised they stopped meals at the wine bar at 3. And the menu for the Restaurant did not match the menu given to us by the front desk, it was missing several items.

We really enjoyed the pools, especially after dark, and even more so our room's private tub. This was easily the highlight of the trip and what keeps this review from dropping lower. What was disappointing was on the day we left, we were able to stay at the pools after check out, a day over 98 degrees F, but the main pool, which was the only cool temp pool, was closed all day for cleaning. I'm glad they were getting it cleaned, just would have been nice on such a hot day.

All in all it was ultimately disappointing stay, especially with the price tag it had, but we are willing to give it a second chance. We'd love to comeback in the winter when it's cooler, hopefully not get nearly as many...

We were a little early for check in so we went to the restaurant for lunch. It was ok quality of food. Never saw the hostess or any of the servers smile at anyone in the restaurant. Later when looking around in the gift shop, we found that there is a selection of premade sandwiches and wraps available for purchase. These items were similar to the ones we had been served in the restaurant. Although the resort states it is artisan food, it is best described as Costco premade food flavor.

The gentleman that checked us in was friendly and gave us great suggestions on hikes and ways to enjoy the property. He highlighted an area that has a back entrance to the springs for guests. Although it turned out that there is a padlock on that gate whenever we tried to go that way.

The room was easy to access and the curb appeal is definitely there to draw you in. We excitedly opened the door to our room and were disappointed at the inside. The sheets were torn, the pillow cover zippers were broken on most of the pillows (one pillow cover even had a sensor on it as if their broken pillowcases are some highly desirable luxury) the baseboards were really dirty and the a/c in our room should have been put out of its misery years ago. I personally did not like that the kitchen sink area is also the bathroom sink. The cupboard the holds the mini fridge opens to the left but the fridge opens to the right, annoying! There was only 1/3 of a roll of toilet paper left in the room for us for our 3 day stay and there was some sort of bug infestation going on behind the bathroom mirror.

We called for someone to bring extra pillows, toilet paper and bug spray. Two people came with pillows. No smile, no courteous exchange from them. A very kind and friendly person came with toilet paper and then sprayed all around the bathroom/kitchen mirror. We tipped him well because we of his kindness and professionalism. Over the next day dead bugs accumulated on the counter under the mirror so the pest control worked.

The next morning after a bit of a rough nights sleep (because the room a/c wasn’t working well) my husband went to get me a latte from the restaurant. He asked for oat milk to be substituted and was told that although they do have oat milk, they are not allowed to use it in the latte machine. He also ordered an omelette for him and I to share and brought it back to the room. The eggs were cooked perfectly but everything was really bland. We decided to go to a grocery store and get food for a few meals so we didn’t have to keep going to the resort restaurant. We love great food. We enjoy eating delicious food at high end restaurants, nothing we had at the resort restaurant qualified for “delicious.”

We tried to set up appointments for the Spa about 5 weeks before going to the resort but they couldn’t find any appointments that were close together. Our whole purpose in going to the resort was to spend time together.

The mineral soaking pools are amazing! There’s two different color robes provided and the different colors distinguish the overnight guests from the day time guests. I highly recommend staying somewhere else and just buying a day pass to use the soaking pools

On the way back to our room from the pools we would stop at the ice machine. By early afternoon, the construction workers had emptied all of the ice. This happened each day we were there. I understand that keeping the workers hydrated is a major priority but it shouldn’t happen at the expense of the guests comfort. Get the construction workers their own ice machine please.

The nightly rate for the room we stayed in was almost exactly the same as what we paid nightly for an all inclusive, ocean front, adults only resort in Cancun, Mexico. As a result of that experience, we expected at least a certain level of luxury. We did not find anything luxurious about our time at Caliente...