Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder — Hotel in Four Corners States

Zero Stars for woman Manager/front desk service. Our recent experience here was horrible. We booked a room in August 2023 for December 2023. Our reservation was for a King-bed with fireplace. Upon arrival at approx. 430 pm, (check in started at 4), we checked in, received our room keys, took our luggage down a LONG hallway then up to our 5th floor room. Upon walking in we noticed two queen beds with a fireplace. We returned downstairs to front desk to let them know of the mistake. The girl at the counter looked in the computer, mumbled something about "inventory", then said "let me go check what that means". I overheard the manager say "its a bigger room". The girl walks back over and says "that room isn't available". The manager then comes over to tell us that "the system lets us overbook" and proceeds to tell us every room with a King bed and fireplace is occupied. Also upsetting that the younger man who checked us in, didn't bother to tell us the room they were putting us in wasn't the room we had booked, nor were they overbooked, so we just had to find out after getting to our room. We were at this point very upset, as we have been here in the past and came here specifically for this room. We had planned this as a getaway for a late anniversary and paid for concert tickets at the hotel that night. The manager was completely RUDE, not EMPATHETIC in ANY WAY. Just an insufferable attitude. She kept telling me to "stop talking" so she could try and sell me on the reason we should be happy and satisfied about the "upgraded" room they were going to give us instead, because it "goes for $500 a night". Her and the other woman could care less, and had horrible attitudes. They couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that Buffalo Thunder is advertising and selling "an experience" when someone is reserving a particular room. This was supposed to be a romantic, relaxing experience. The manager only offered $50 food credit and said they wouldn't charge us extra for the "upgraded" room. Oh thanks. I was fine with paying for the room I reserved at the price I reserved. After continually telling her how unacceptable this was, she finally said she would take $50 off the room. She said "if you want to stay here"-where else we're we going to stay since we booked the room 3 months prior, drove from out of town, dragged our luggage in, we're tired and hungry...planned to eat at the restaurant and had concert tickets at the hotel venue? The horrible and unacceptable attitude of the manager just set the tone for our stay. Unfortunately we had to encounter her again checking IDs at the concert and she just gave us dirty looks and rolled her eyes. I truly do not know how she still has a job. I guess because Buffalo Thunder HILTON is ok with treating some guests with disrespect, getting people there with false advertising and providing a lack-luster experience. The hotel lobby was beautiful, decorated for Christmas. The restaurant has a nice ambiance, but I agree is overpriced, had small servings and food was just ok. The waiter was good (may have been the manager waiting on us) and the two hostesses were friendly. The French hostess was sweet and engaging. They deserve a positive mention since they were the only kind staff we encountered. The concert was fun, as the performers were great, however the acoustics of the ballroom left much to be desired. The room appeared clean, we had a terrace, however the cushion to one of the chairs was lying in a puddle of water and it did not appear to have been swept/cleaned recently. After reading the other horrible reviews I am glad to know that we weren't out of line to be so upset, although the manager made sure we felt that way. We had stayed here another time and encountered a dirty room (bloody Band-aid in the extra tub we paid for). We were given food credit at that time too, but this was such a terrible experience I had to write this review. At this point I believe we have had our last stay at Buffalo Thunder and would NOT...

AAA rates Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder as a 4 Diamond hotel. This rating sorely needs to be updated to reflect the current condition, poor service level, lack amenities, and overall poor attitude of the limited staff working the hotel.

There is no valet service and there are no bellmen to help with your luggage, so it’s DIY at a 4-Diamond hotel.

Our family of 5 had 2 rooms with an adjoining suite living room area from August 6-8. Total cost was $1500 for 2 nights, so we expected a lot more for our money than what we received. First off, the room décor is dark and outdated. The TVs in the rooms are small (37”) for what would be expected in a suite in a 4-Diamond hotel. As soon as my wife and I entered one the room’s bathroom’s, we were met with an overwhelming stench of urine. It was clear that the bathroom had not been cleaned sufficiently. I then noticed that the carpet had crumbs, dog hair, and other dirt particles all over it. Not too mention, it was in dire need of a steam cleaning. I called the front desk, housekeeping, and operator multiple times to get someone to come clean the bathroom, but nobody every answered the phone. So, I went down to the front desk in person to get someone to clean the bathroom. The front desk worker that I spoke with actually had the audacity to tell me that I would have to wait until the morning for housekeeping to clean the old urine from our bathroom because maid service had to be specifically requested 24 hours in advance! I was livid and explained that we just checked in to a disgusting room, finally a supervisor overheard me and said a maid would come. No apologies for a filthy room from the front desk, but the maid that came to our room immediately told us that he smelled the stench, as well.

Back to the whole housekeeping situation…as I mentioned, you have to request maid service a day ahead of time. So, $375 per night doesn’t automatically get you maid service. We didn’t even get clean towels or the tiny overflowing trashcans emptied during our stay. The Hilton CleanStay program is an absolute sham. This hotel was as dirty as a 2-star roadside motel.

Buffalo Thunder is blaming Covid for all of their shortcomings. The fitness center, indoor pool, sauna, and steam room are completely closed. All restaurants except one were closed while we were there. Our first morning, we waited along with about 10 other guests more than 10 minutes just to get seated in a completely empty restaurant. Apparently, the hostess never showed up one hour after the restaurant opened. The coffee was horrendous, completely watered down. My wife went to Starbucks while we waited on our food to arrive, which took forever. The waiter said only 1 cook was working. The food was OK, actually better than my low expectations.

When we checked in, we were told we had to wear assigned wristbands to get access to the pool. Later that day at the pool, there was an attendant at the gate, but he was not actually checking for guests wearing the bands. So, there were no chairs available because he kept letting in people (presumably locals not actually staying at the hotel) who were all occupying the lounge chairs. We finally got some chairs after seeing people leave, but we noticed multiple other hotel guests with wristbands searching for chairs to no avail while huge groups of people with no wristbands took up most of the seating.

Somehow Covid didn’t impact the casino like it did every other facet of this hotel, it was staffed and open and operating, as normal.

At check out, nobody even bothered to ask how our stay was. The front desk staff was completely inattentive, uncaring, and just not professional. We come to Santa Fe every year and usually stay near the Plaza. This was our first time staying outside of town. Needless to say, we will never stay at Buffalo...

Our deciding factor in staying here was that they had an outdoor pool with a pool bar – but that turned out to be a bust. We have been to Santa Fe previously, and chose not to stay here because of the location, wanting to be in Santa Fe. But, for this trip we wanted a long weekend getaway with a pool and pool bar. We decided we would stay here and just do excursions into Santa Fe. The pool bar. We arrived for a Thursday to Monday stay. When we arrived, we made sure to ask about the pool bar and were told it was open on the weekends. Not as advertised, but we could deal. On Friday, we stopped at the pool for an hour before heading out to Meow Wolf. The pool bar was not open, but we figured weekend may have been specifically Saturday and Sunday, so OK. On Saturday, we had planned to go to Canyon Road for the day, and after breakfast headed out for the day. No time to hit the pool. For Sunday, we reserved a cabana at the pool, right next to the pool bar. We stopped at the front desk to get our wrist bands and confirmed that the pool bar was open. We walked out the doors to the pool, the attendant took us to the cabana, and the pool bar was closed. The attendant was new and knew nothing about it. But, we put it in perspective. We were able to get over the counter drinks from the Iguana Grill until they closed at 2. At 3, the steak house opened their bar. But this is deceitful advertising and we wouldn’t have stayed here otherwise. We ultimately heard that the pool bar hadn’t been open for the last 3 weekends from one of the staff. The lobby interior is nice (flooring is a bit dated) and has some cool art on display. There was a lot of confusion about what our room was when we arrived, which was again frustrating, but we chalked it up to new staff, which became a theme for the weekend. We were told to take the elevator, go the right when we arrived on our floor, and go down the hall to our room. Down. The. Hall. A hallway that went on. And on. And on. And on. Then you get to vending machines. And you continue on. And on. And on. And – oh hey here’s our room. We were 4 rooms from the end of the hallway, so we had it worse than most. But it was a crazy distance from our room to the lobby, food and pool. The room was seriously outdated. The situation with the lack of electrical outlets was like 2005 all over again – not acceptable in 2024. The bathroom fixtures were more like a Motel 6 (shower doors flooded the bathroom floor; the toilet literally took almost 3 minutes to refill when flushed; the sink stopper was a struggle to keep open). This was not a Hilton flag quality room. It was clean. And there were lots of cleaning staff around at all times. But the room itself was less than meh. For full breakfast in the morning, the only choice is Iguana Grill. There is nothing else anywhere near the hotel. It is a good choice for friendliness of staff and quality of food. But it is the ONLY choice for everyone staying there and each morning we waited in a line for about 15 to 20 minutes to get a table. Not acceptable. We did have dinner at the steak house also when we arrived (nothing else was open anywhere around). It was overpriced (it’s a steak house, priced like a steak house, without the quality of a steak house). We made it to the casino for blackjack one night. We had fun. We stayed with our dog and didn’t have any issues on that end. If I were staying here for a conference, it would have been decent. But when you have one long weekend in your summer for which you are choosing to stay at what you expect to be a nice resort (with a pool...