Kachina Lodge — Hotel in Taos

Okay, let me start off by saying..I read all the reviews, addimitingly, only AFTER I booked it, so as we were traveling to Taos I was very apprehensive at what I would find when we arrived. But, once at the front desk, the check in was very smooth, no problem with the reservation, great price for an entire week, and the desk lady was quite cheerful and happy to have us there. Okay, so we’re off to our room..I’m looking around for all the worn looking buildings and piles of trash that some reviews had claimed, and in contrast, I found well landscaped grounds and not a stitch of garbage. Once in our room I was pleasantly surprised after all the scary reviews, found it to be extremely clean, although older, and yes, furniture and comforter outdated, but there were no holes or spots on the carpet or chairs. I stripped the bed, as I always do, to check for bugs or nasty stains, and found absolutely none. And with a huge sigh of relief settled in for our week long vacation. So far - 5 stars!!.......until it came to room service. Arrived Saturday, called Monday to see if we could get the room tended to while we were out for the day, just the normal, minor replenishes like towels, toilet paper and soaps, front desk assured me, no problem! Returned to nothing, no change, called down to front desk Tuesday as we left, I am a patient person and I understand occasional oversight, and they assured me that it would be taken care of. It wasn’t. Nothing, no housekeeping, asked for a set of sheets to change the bed myself. Wednesday...nothing, again. Had to request toilet paper, which was brought and explained that they had some type of extreme housekeeping issue that day. Now it’s Thursday, my THIRD direct call to the front desk, my 5th time to leave the “please clean my room” door hanger out, and I was promised that today, 100% someone would make up our room. Got back around 7:30pm, no..nope..nada..nothing. By now, I am out of toilet paper again, no clean towels and have trash spilling out on to my floor and in dire need of having the room cleaned, so Friday I am on the phone, begging the front desk person to get someone to please, please clean my room, and she tells me, “I’ll see if they can get to you today.” What? Like YOU are doing ME a favor???! So, needless to say, I don’t even have to tell you NO ONE showed up, no one cleaned our room, changed our sheets, gave us clean towels, changed our toilet paper, replenished our soap or shampoo, no one, NOT. ONE. SINGLE. DAY. in the ENTIRE week, not once. And that is with me calling the front desk every morning personally asking them to please have some one clean my room. And yes, leaving the sign on the door EVERY DAY. Every. Single. Day. So, here’s my thing, I wanted to give you a chance, I really wanted to prove your reviewers wrong, Kachina Lodge, I really wanted to like you, but once you’re past the pleasant front desk, paid for your week and enter your room, they are done, they have your money and your screwed. Do not expect another thing from them, because there is no way you are getting your room cleaned, or any further service from the staff. The lower price in no way makes up for the lack of room service, clean sheets and clean towels, take your money to where you are appreciated, and they don’t give you BS answers just to get you off the phone, knowing housekeeping will be gone by that evening when you get back to your room exhausted. I am so disappointed, you let me down Kachina Lodge. I had such...

My wife and I have stayed here before. It is a decent hotel with a great location; just a couple of minutes walking distance to town. Previously, we had very good experiences here and based on those I would give 4 stars. Not so on this occasion, however.

On this trip, my wife and I were camping in Colorado the night before and found ourselves in town at 11:30am (which is well before check in). I thought, what would it hurt to ask if we could check in early. We were informed that there were no rooms ready.

So we decided to go have lunch. The woman at the check in desk (Cheryl) said she would call me when a room opened and said that it shouldn’t be long. I asked if I could change out of my camping clothes in their lobby restroom and she replied “yes.”

We went to lunch… then drove out to see the Taos goji farm near Arroyo Hondo… we went to the San Francisco de Asis church… we wandered in the plaza. By this time it was near 2pm. Having been camping and driving from place to place all day I was starting to feel like I needed to get cleaned up and didn’t want to be in public any longer.

I called the hotel up and asked if there was any way we could get checked in. Cheryl informed me over the phone that there were no rooms because she had just checked in a bunch of construction people.This seemed odd to me, almost as if my wife and I were being prioritized after another group. If they had been checked in after we visited the office before, it felt like our reservation was being prioritized at the end. She offered fo us to come and sit in the lobby and have a coffee until our room was ready.

We arrived at Kachina and asked Cheryl again what was going on and she repeated that 10 construction people had been checked in and that our room was not yet ready. She suggested that we go and do something while we waited and I responded somewhat irritated that we had already done that.

While we were seated in the lobby (less than 5 minutes) a man walked in asking to be checked in early and he was immediately served by another employee (I don’t recall his name - Eric maybe). Eric(?) asked us what our reservation was under and instructed Cheryl to check us in.

After check in we drove around to our room. The entire parking lot is empty except for two cars near where our room was located.

It feels a lot like we were not told the truth from the start. Granted, we were early and they had no obligation to check us in early… but if they couldn’t do it (which it is obvious that they could have) Cheryl should have just said “we don’t do early check in.”

I will likely not be returning to this...

Not what it used to be, stay away. I am writing this after just being yelled at in front of my room, by "management", Miles the person who checked us in last night. "You can checkout or you can stay, you have to decide right now!" Literally yelling at me after pounding on my door. Why? Because I requested a room change. The night before, the people above us were up stomping around until 1 AM. Then they got up at 4AM stomping about until they left at 630AM. In the meantime they came out, started their truck and left it running for 45 minutes while having a loud conversation this morning. Apparently, they are workers staying here long term. Which is why I requested the room change. I checked on hotels.com, and there were rooms available for tonight, but I was told they were sold out and would not change our room. When I brought this up to Miles, he just said, well we are not changing your room. When we got to the room the night before, the bathroom sink was still dirty, still had soap residue from before, the shower was not clean, the bottom of the toilet was dirty, spots on the bathroom wall that had not been cleaned. My wife used a washcloth to wipe the table, nightstand, and dresser tops. It came up gray and dingy. The remote still had ice cream (?) drippings on it....in this time of COVID, you would think at least that would be wiped off. After showering last night and walking around on the bare floor this morning, our feet were dirty. This was what we are paying $115/night for? Housekeeping did come clean the issues I pointed out, but they would not accommodate the noise issue. I have been coming to this motel since 1986, every time it gets worse. They spent money making the lobby look nice, but the rooms are dingy at best, and not updated. This will be our last stay here, especially after being treated like WE did something wrong. I highly recommend you stay somewhere else in Taos. Also, they don't tell you the restaurant, hot tub, and pool are closed until you get there. Can't blame COVID for that, have stayed in many hotels since, that those were open. But hey, they gave us granola bars at check-in. Miles, he is a disgrace, and we never heard from Pinder, the owner. I was told he would contact me. Stay away from this once charming...