Hilton Vacation Club Villas de Santa Fe — Hotel in Santa Fe

False advertising about hotel amenities! I was traveling with family on a ski and snowboarding trip and I specifically chose this hotel because it had a pool and hot tub. There were much cheaper options in the same area of town. WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU: if you are booked into building 2, you do not have safe access to the pool, hot tub, or gym. For us to use the hot tub we would have needed to exit the building, walk through the parking lot, cross a city street, then through another parking lot, then into the gate where the pool and hot tub are located. Not going to do that with family. The only amenity in building 2 are the ice machines, literally nothing else. Tried to get Expedia to resolve the issue with the hotel and the hotel refused to do anything about it, not even an explanation or apology for having misleading advertising. I will never stay here again, nor will I use Expedia again. I stay in Santa Fe many times during the ski and snowboarding season and have found much cheaper hotels with the amenities I want that are easily and safely accessible from my room. In comparison, the hot tub here is pretty old without jets like most hot tubs. Nearby hotels have better hot tubs, much bigger TVs, and way more comfortable beds for less than 1/2 the price.

Also, this property has some sort of timeshare-like guests. The person who checked in before us was an "owner" and we were checked in as "guests." So unless you are somehow invested in this property, it is most likely you will be booked into building 2 while the "owners" will get the preferred rooms in building 1 with easy access to the hotel amenities.

*Update after reply from hotel: The map of the hotel buildings I received from the lobby at check-in did not have anything about a 2nd hot tub near building #2. It only showed the pool and hot tub near building #1. The person checking us in could have explained that there was a 2nd hot tub and other amenities connected to building #2, he did not. Expedia tried calling the hotel several times over 3 or 4 days due to my complaint before anyone would even answer there repeated contact attempts. Once they finally got through, Expedia did not have a very good interaction with who ever they finally ended up talking to and there was no mention of additional amenities. They were only told they refused to offer any discount, refund, or explanation. Even if there is a 2nd hot tub(?) you still have no safe access to the...

Be patient. This review covers a lot.||Hilton took over Diamond resorts and performed a refurbish/remodel on the facility. The refurbished rooms removed the Santa Fe feel. ||Hilton spent money a lot of money to refurbish, but spent zero on soundproofing. You can hear everything in the rooms around and above you. They removed the carpet in the main living space of each room, opting for LVT flooring, making it very noisy, hearing every footstep of the people above you. We named the people above us the Clompetts (after the Beverly Hillbillies).||Hilton removed the DVD players from every room. The TV is hard mounted to the wall. It should have a mount that allows a pivot so everyone in the living room could see the TV. Also, if the expectation is that everyone will stream videos, the internet connection is way tooooo slow to stream.||Hilton removed the courtesy shuttle service. Big bummer.||Hilton removed the recycle bins. Hilton says to leave a bag of trash or recyclables in the hallway, but that really looks trashy.||The closet by bathroom no longer has a storage shelf, reducing storage space.||After the renovation, some things were obviously overlooked. Missing/flaking pieces of grout, painted over wall imperfections rather than repairing the imperfections. Details, people, details!||The new furniture is drab and very uncomfortable. I.e. rock hard couch.||Our unit was missing cookware in kitchen. We could get some from the front desk, but we weren't cooking in the room, but it should have been there.||The new coffee supplier in the guest center is awful. Coffee supplied under Diamond was much better. Also, Hilton claims the coffee is available 24 hours a day at the guest center, but the sign by the coffee machine says that coffee service does not begin until 5 AM daily.||What did Hilton do to the wifi service??!! Hilton says it is high speed wifi…. NOT!! Wifi is extremely slow, and we had to manually reconnect every time we re-entered the facility, which takes forever to reconnect, at least 5+ minutes each time.||The guest center used to have a juice dispenser by the coffee center, and a hot chocolate dispenser. Both are gone.||Bathrooms lighting over sink is horrible. My wife says she cannot do her makeup in there.||Other than that, I thought the bed was comfortable, and we always...

I have to admit there are some things going for this place. Public use grills outside, a (small) pool and a couple hot tubs, fridge and kitchenette in room (great for saving money and not always eating out), split bathroom for getting read, close proximity to the square, and overall cleanly enough.

That said, I will not be returning to or recommending this place. When I made the reservation, I made sure to reserve a room with a King Sized bed. Upon arrival, the front desk failed to mention that we had been switched to 2 full sized beds. When we arrived in our room and saw this we called the front desk. After being put on hold and being told to make a reservation next time (uh, we did, which is why we are calling), they told us "the General Manager makes final decisions on who gets what rooms." Here is what that sounds like to a customer: "you are second class to someone else who wanted a King bed, so they got your room, and we are compensating you at all for not honoring your reservation." How can they call it a reservation if we aren't guaranteed it? This was part of a romantic vacation with my husband, and we ended up in a bed smaller than what we sleep in at home, not so conducive to romance.

In addition, there was yellow residue on the door frame in the bathroom next to the toilet, not ice machines on every floor, elevator doors often reopen when nothing is in the way, card access doors to outside didn't work consistently, walls are fairly thin, pool didn't look regularly cleaned, and here was the kicker for us: no free wifi. There are 2 public computers with a printer in the "clubhouse" area which have time limits, and from what other reviewers have said the internet is quite slow. We ended up using my husbands phone to create a hot spot in our room when researching places to go and getting in contact for work. This does not scream "we want young people" to me!

Other people don't seem to have the same issues we had, but with how we were treated they have lost us as returning customers, and we will be recommending against this hotel to anyone else who is...