We booked our hotel through Hotels.com again. My main search criteria was breakfast and in Albuquerque. The price seemed more than fair at the Hawthorn Inn & Suites and it was not too far from either the airport or the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the reason for our visit. The complimentary wireless access played a part in the decision too. According to our reservation with the hotel we had made them through Expedia so they must be related to hotels.com somehow.
To explain my state of mind on our arrival I went through Travelzoo.com to arrange our flight. I chose Friday "morning" for Denver departure and Sunday afternoon for our Albuquerque departure. One of the recommended sites was CheapOair.com. The price they quoted was $157 per person round-trip with a $20 total discount to "purchase now". No mention of the additional fees. I booked them immediately. We got to the airport yesterday at 7:30AM and the Frontier check-in kiosk informed me it was too early to check-in for our flight. We spoke to someone at the counter and they informed us our scheduled flight was not until 9:23PM!!! I checked and sure enough the flight from Denver was 9:23PM and the tickets were Economy so to change the flight cost an additional $150 per person. Frontier changed us to a 11:42AM flight for the extra $300, waived the $15 checked bag fee and we waited till then. Somehow our departure dates and destination were transferred from Travelzoo.com to CheapOair.com, but our time-of-day preference was not, or apparently there was no notice that it was being ignored. I intend to pursue this matter with both Travelzoo.com and CheapOair.com and I'll comment on their response. I'm expecting to get to the Albuquerque airport tomorrow and find that Frontier canceling our original flight caused our E-ticket with United for the return flight to be canceled. So far the score is: Frontier +15, Travelzoo.com -150, CheapOair.com -150.
Now on to the hotel ...
We arrived at 2:00PM knowing the room would not be available till 3:00PM, but we had nothing else to do until then. The person at the front desk called house keeping and found us a room on the third floor of four floors. As we've always experienced the people of New Mexico and Albuquerque are really friendly and easy going. It's an intentional slow pace here. We got to the room to find the promised very comfortable king size bed with a wet bar, fridge, and microwave. Overall the room appears pretty clean. The room has all the normal accoutrements including a hair dryer, hand along with bath soap and body lotion. The room also has a regular ironing board and iron. The minor downside was that we quickly learned the light switch in the bathroom turns on the fan which could wake the dead from the noise. We also found the light on one side of the bed and the florescent light over the wet bar don't work.
We had dinner at the Cervantes restaurant at the corner of the Gibson and San Pedro. The food was excellent, as is anything with Green Chili. We had the Chili Renos and beef enchiladas. The "silver" margaritas were okay and a little expensive.
The wireless Internet works fine, albeit a little slow. The signal strength varies from low to very low with the transfer rates varying from 11 to 24 Mbps. There are two WAPs and I didn't find any difference between them. The connection has proven reliable.
A simple thing, but one that can annoy you are the waste baskets. In the past I've stayed in hotels with one trash can in the room. Our room at the Hawthorn Suites had three trash cans. One in the main room, one under the sink and yet another in the shower/toilet room.
Now serious issues. As we were going to bed around 9:30PM the guests in the room above ours began doing gymnastic floor exercises, or at least it sounded that way. Then guests next door apparently staying with someone directly across the hall started visiting one another frequently and slamming the doors to each room. Sound isolation between rooms and floors is poor. Then I found the bottom sheet on the bed had a torn corner which didn't allow it to stay fixed to the bed. I awoke at 4:30AM and as expected found I was sleeping on the mattress and tangled in the bottom sheet. THEN at 4:30AM I found the carafe to the coffee maker didn't match the coffee maker and the coffee maker would not stay turned on. To adapt and overcome, I stood there holding the "On button" with my left hand while lifting and pressing the coffee carafe against the bottom of the coffee filter to activate the shutoff valve with my right hand for the entire time it took to brew. I did this twice - once for the regular brew and once for the decaf. 4:30AM is not a good time to mess with someones coffee!
The bathroom facilities are a separate room for shower and toilet. A sink and mirror along with the hair dryer are just inside the room door. The shower is wonderful. The water stream is strong. The shower curtain is on a curved rod so that the curtain doesn't cling. The room has several mirrors the one on the bathroom door is full length.
The hot breakfast was wonderful. It consisted of hash browns, scrambled eggs mixed with ham and biscuts with gravy. The cold breakfast available included fruit, cereals, etc. I was very pleased with the breakfast which runs from 7-10AM on weekends and is meant for hotel guests only.
Before breakfast I spoke to the desk person about the lighting and coffee pot. He said he would take care of the issues while we were out. After breakfast we went back to the room and found the light next to the bed turned on. Appears we had missed the independent light switch for that single light fixture, thus our problem not the hotels. The coffee pot and florescent light remain broken. Quick response to our reported problems, the staff are trying.
We spent the day at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) and had a wonderful time. When we got back to the room, the coffee pot had been replaced and seems to work. Since housekeeping left two decaf packets and no regular coffee packets, I went by the front desk and traded for three regular coffee packets. So the problems appear fixed.
The next post will give a brief summary of the day at the NHCC.
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