The View Hotel — Hotel in Four Corners States

Definitely book The View Hotel for your stay in Monument Valley. Here is why:||SUMMARY: The view is unsurpassed, the rooms spacious and comfortable, and the breakfast is quite adequate. You are an outsider to the Navajo Nation, but your credit card makes you “welcome”.||THE VIEW: Every room in the main hotel has a balcony that overlooks the famous buttes/monuments and is very close to them. By comparison, Goulding’s is nice, but much farther away from these particular buttes (though it is in the shadow of its own massive mesa/monument, so it excels in its own way). The View however has the far superior “view”. VIEW FROM ROOM RATING: 5 out of 5||GUEST ROOMS: Our bathroom was spacious, with an actual tub (good for after being thrown to the ground off a horse), and a decent fan to remove shower steam, etc. As a comparison, we also peeked inside Goulding’s rooms (for some reason they leave the windows and doors wide open on unoccupied Goulding’s rooms – airing them out for some unknown reason???) and by comparison, The View rooms are 2 to 3 times the size of the tiny Goulding’s rooms. Also, every room at The View has its own private balcony. Private in that it’s sided by thick high walls, it would take effort for anyone to try and peek around at your balcony. ROOM RATING: 5 out of 5.||CLEANLINESS: Superb. While we were checking out, I was curious about the overlapping layout of the bathrooms, and so peeked into the empty room adjacent to us. I was surprised and yet delighted to see that the maid had disassembled the coffee maker for cleaning, and it was drying on the clean bathroom marble counter. Very impressive. The restaurant for a complimentary breakfast was also spotless. Being the first to pour milk on my cereal from the brim-filled 2% pitcher, the milk sloshed and made a puddle. I pointed it out with an apology to the employee, who silently and stone-facedly immediately cleaned it up. This illustrates the cleanliness we experienced. CLEAN RATING: 5 out of 5.||NOISE: Typical hotel construction without any sound dampening in the floors. Person in room above us probably felt that they were walking normally, but to us it was the sound of an elephant stamping. There are signs saying “Quiet Time is 10:00pm to 7:00am” NOISE RATING: 4||FRIENDLINESS: Okay, this is the Navajo Nation. Visiting is a privilege, and it’s made obvious by the typical Navajo “stoicisim” (easily misidentified as “rudeness” by non-Navajo visitors). The basic principle seems to be: “You as a person are not welcome. The money on your credit card is welcome. Thus we allow you as the card-carrier to enter our Tribal Park”. To illustrate the difference:||If this were an Outside-the-Nation gift shop: “Hello! Welcome in!”||Here in The View Gift Shop: two women behind the counter staring at you silently with arms folded.||If this were an Outside-the-Nation breakfast buffet: (after a guest spills milk from the filled-to-the-brim pitcher) “that’s okay, I’ll get it”||Here in The View buffet: Stone-faced silence and lack of acknowledgement, followed by wiping up the milk.||So with the general principle being illustrated above, we must admit the Navajo employees we encountered were easily cracked by a smile and sincere words of appreciation. It’s not really “rudeness” it’s just the Navajo way with outsiders. FRIENDLINESS RATING: 2||GIFT SHOP: So here is where your heart may be touched. True, the native-made items (bowls, art, jewelry) are marketed in the typical insulting tourist manner (high tag price, but “40% off!”). However, once an outsider shows genuine interest in an actual purchase, the magic of “funds on the credit card” will lighten the mood. My wife had her two unused “10% off per day” coupons from the front desk, received upon check-in. The sales lady not only knocked off the 40%, but also the 10% from one of the coupons, and then continued to knock off another 10% from the 2nd coupon, despite it being the same day. This was touching. GIFT SHOP RATING: 4||BREAKFAST INCLUDED: Pretty basic “free breakfast” fare, with a few key ingredients missing. We had sausages, hardboiled eggs, pancakes, raisin bran/corn flakes/rice crispies. Orange juice and coffee. MISSING: scrambled eggs and bacon. It seems that anything that needs “cooking” is missing, just stuff that can be heated from frozen (sausages). Perhaps the “pancakes” are produced by a machine in the back? Basic stuff, it’s all you need. THROWBACK: juice cups are in the most flimsy clear plastic cups you can imagine. Coffee cups are made of the now politically-incorrect white Styrofoam, which has a certain 1960’s throwback charm to it, if you have the right attitude. “Silverware” consists of packets of thin white plastic utensils. INCLUDED BREAKFAST RATING: 3||SUMMARY: Book your stay at The View, as opposed to Goulding’s. The people are no friendlier at Goulding’s, you get your best experience...

Definitely book The View Hotel for your stay in Monument Valley. Here is why:

SUMMARY: The view is unsurpassed, the rooms spacious and comfortable, and the breakfast is quite adequate. You are an outsider to the Navajo Nation, but your credit card makes you “welcome”.

VIEW FROM ROOM RATING: 5 out of 5

ROOM RATING: 5 out of 5.

CLEANLINESS: Superb. While we were checking out, I was curious about the overlapping layout of the bathrooms, and so peeked into the empty room adjacent to us. I was surprised and yet delighted to see that the maid had disassembled the coffee maker for cleaning, and it was drying on the clean bathroom marble counter. Very impressive. The restaurant for a complimentary breakfast was also spotless. Being the first to pour milk on my cereal from the brim-filled 2% pitcher, the milk sloshed and made a puddle. I pointed it out with an apology to the employee, who silently and stone-facedly immediately cleaned it up. This illustrates the cleanliness we experienced. CLEAN RATING: 5 out of 5.

NOISE RATING: 4

FRIENDLINESS: Okay, well this is the Navajo Nation. Visiting is a privilege, and it’s made obvious by the typical Navajo “stoicisim” (easily misidentified as “rudeness” by non-Navajo visitors). The basic principle seems to be: “You as a person are NOT welcome. The money on your credit card IS welcome. Thus we allow you as the card-carrier to enter our Tribal Park”. To illustrate the difference:

If this were an Outside-the-Nation gift shop: “Hello! Welcome in! Let us know if you have an questions”

Here in The View Gift Shop: two women behind the counter staring at you silently with arms folded.

If this were an Outside-the-Nation breakfast buffet: (after a guest spills milk from the filled-to-the-brim pitcher) “that’s okay, I’ll get it”

Here in The View buffet: Stone-faced silence and lack of acknowledgement, followed by quickly and quietly wiping up the milk.

So with the general principle being illustrated above, we must admit the Navajo employees we encountered were easily cracked by a smile and sincere words of appreciation. It’s not really “rudeness” it’s just the Navajo way with outsiders. FRIENDLINESS RATING: 2

GIFT SHOP: So here is where your heart may be touched. True, the native-made items (bowls, art, jewelry) are marketed in the typical insulting tourist manner (high tag price, but “40% off!”). However, once an outsider shows genuine interest in an actual purchase, the magic of “funds on the credit card” will lighten the mood. My wife had her two unused “10% off per day” coupons from the front desk, received upon check-in. The sales lady not only knocked off the 40%, but also the 10% from one of the coupons, and then continued to knock off another 10% from the 2nd coupon, despite it being the same day. This was touching. GIFT SHOP RATING: 4

BREAKFAST INCLUDED: Pretty basic “free breakfast” fare, with a few key ingredients missing. We had sausages, hardboiled eggs, pancakes, raisin bran/corn flakes/rice crispies. Orange juice and coffee. MISSING: scrambled eggs and bacon. It seems that anything that needs “cooking” is missing, just stuff that can be heated from frozen (sausages). Perhaps the “pancakes” are produced by a machine in the back? Basic stuff, it’s all you need. THROWBACK: juice cups are in the most flimsy clear plastic cups you can imagine. Coffee cups are made of the now politically-incorrect white Styrofoam, which has a certain 1960’s throwback charm to it, if you have the right attitude. “Silverware” consists of packets of thin white plastic utensils. INCLUDED BREAKFAST RATING: 3

SUMMARY: Book your stay at The View, as opposed to Goulding’s. The people are no friendlier at Goulding’s, you get your best experience at The View. True, you'll pay twice as much, but you get 3 times the value. Visit Goulding's during the day, but sleep at the...

We stayed at this hotel for 1 night in September – we have always wanted to stay at this hotel, so paid extra for one of the nicer rooms. Sadly, we arrived on a day where there was a lot of cloud and rain – not the hotels fault! The hotel is situated right on the edge of Monument Valley, the design and architecture mean it does not impede the natural landscape and has really been designed well. There is ample free parking and check in was quick and easy. We were able to park near our room, so we only had a short trek with the bags, be aware there are no elevators. Our room was very spacious, nicely designed with the Navajo theme throughout and a nice sized bathroom. The room included all the needed amenities, including a fridge and safe (which sadly wasn’t working for us). The bed was very comfortable, but although the room was quiet, we could hear footsteps occasionally from above – but this did not overly disturb us as the ceilings were quite high. Air con was also included and was quiet.

Sadly, our bathroom had several hairs, so we complained to front desk who ensured this would get cleaned and provided us a discount which was very good customer service. The main attraction for this hotel, is of course the view from your room/balcony – and believe me, this did not disappoint. The balcony was of good size with a table and chairs, and we spent a lot of time admiring the view, and the sunset. Sadly, the weather did not provide us with a sunrise, but we can only imagine how amazing this would be.

We ate at the hotel restaurant that evening, the menu is quite limited, but the food was very tasty and service was good – the price also for the location was good. The following morning, we went for the complimentary buffet breakfast – choice again wasn’t huge, especially the hot buffet was very limited – but what we had was tasty – but please stop using plastic cutlery!

There is no pool at this hotel due to the Navajo lifestyle, which we understood and were aware of before booking. The hotel includes a large Navajo gift shop with a huge array of items, many local or handmade. When staying at the hotel you get a 10% discount at the gift shop, and 2 complimentary bottles of water. We bought several items which we felt were reasonably priced.

One major negative for this hotel – was that the gift shop can be VERY busy with tour buses arriving all the time which is understandable. However, due to the large amounts of people passing through - the toilets in the gift shop area were disgusting and really need overhauling and cleaning more frequently – as this was a major let down and not respective of how nice the rest of the hotel was.

If you are looking for a special place to stay, this hotel really must be on your list, the view from your room is truly spectacular with a view that in our opinion is...