Albuquerque Hotel Tips by toonsarah

Hotel Blue: A great night’s sleep

We chose this hotel because it seemed to offer the best value/location combination of all that we checked. I was also impressed that they offered a free shuttle bus to the Old Town (until 10.00 PM) which we thought would be useful in the evening especially, although in the event we didn’t use that having found some good eating and drinking options within an easy walk.

The hotel is a modernised 1930’s cross between a motel and hotel – the shape, lobby, parking lot etc are more like a hotel in feel, but you access your room from an outside walkway. This may not suit everyone (I’ve seen a few comments about security on Trip Advisor) but we had no issues with it, and rather enjoyed the expansive views of the city from our fifth floor room (see photo five). Incidentally it’s worth asking for a room in the north east corner to get views of the mountains beyond the city – our Moon Handbook advised exactly that and, although I’d booked online and forgotten to make the request, when we arrived we found we were right in that corner anyway :-)

The hotel lobby is very impressive (see photo four) and really reflects the Art Deco style of much of this Downtown district. Staff at reception are helpful, and another nice touch is the plate of cookies on the desk for you to help yourself! Décor in the rooms is a lot plainer and external areas (e.g. the walkways) are not up to the standard of the interiors – but how much time are you going to spend there anyway? On the whole we felt the facilities and overall appearance exceeded what we would expect for this price (we paid $70 including all taxes).

Our room was one of the King rooms, and was of a very good size, with plenty of storage, a large plasma TV, tea & coffee making, A/C (not needed though in late September) and a fairly basic bathroom. The only toiletries were of the “dispenser on the wall” kind, but there were more than enough towels, and a hairdryer. The shower and tub were nothing more than adequate, but that’s OK at these prices. My only criticism would be that it’s not a great idea for the same switch to operate both bathroom and a bedroom light – when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I had no choice but to flood the room with light, thus waking Chris.

Unique Qualities: The highlight of a night spent here is the bed that you sleep in. These feature “pressure relieving Tempur-Pedic” matresses and I was amazed at how comfortable it was, while Chris declared it the best sleep he’d had in ages (despite the incident with the light switch!). We are seriously considering splashing out on one for our own bed at home!

The hotel provides a complimentary if simple breakfast – fruit juice, yoghurt, bread, waffles (make your own) etc. They proudly announce that they serve Starbucks coffee, but it was nevertheless far too weak for my taste, as usual in the US I'm afraid.

There is a pool which we didn’t use, but it looked a nice one and I saw one guest enjoying a dip. One small downside is that you can only access the free wifi in the lobby; they will loan you an Ethernet cable for in-room access but that was of no use to me and my iPhone. Still the lobby is so attractive that it wasn’t a major hardship to spend some time there.

Address: 717 Central Avenue NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102

Comparison: less expensive than average

Other Contact: info@thehotelblue.com

Phone: 505 924 2400

Price: US$20-40

Theme: Hotel

Website: http://www.thehotelblue.com/home.php