Hotel El Conquistador del Paseo de Montejo

We stayed here as part of an organised two-week tour for the Total Eclipse and it was OK at best...and I think I'm being kind. Luckily it was only for one night. Room was fine and everything, but the "balcony" was simply a place to stand and breathe in the traffic noise (and fumes...), and then when I tried to close the sliding door it took us both to hold it up for the lock to re-engage. It didn't fit flush so there was noise coming in easily through the gap... Breakfast was pretty dire. It was unfortunate because our group of about 100 had descended on the place and they clearly struggled. By the time we got down at 7:20, pretty much all the bread products had been hoovered up - obviously no-one had adjusted the bakery order. Even so, I got my hands on one small roll which was OK, but a small croissant-looking roll was so hard I could've thrown it and hurt someone...oh and there was no butter because that had all disappeared too, so all I had was two bites of pancake, a dry roll and a small cup of coffee to force it down. Mexican breakfast options were: "Unidentified Carcass in BBQ Sauce", "Slop Pretending to be Refried Beans", "Scrambled Eggs with Rubber" and "Even More Rubbery American-Style Pancakes". I had two of the last four of these delights which were sitting there looking pretty sad and they both had the unexpected crunch of eggshell in them. Lovely! Staff, when thanked for pouring coffee or tea, simply grunted. The bar looked quite nice, but as you'd expect when 100+ foreign tourists turn up at the same time, it was closed... Oh! Positives...? OK...erm. Yes! The shower was nice and warm and I slept quite well in the comfy bed. ...but the bath had a lovely suspicious brown stain which was nice.

The hotel seems to have invested in the reception and that seems to be about it. The reception is large and welcoming, and the room we were assigned was also large. The hotel is in a great location with a few minutes walk to restaurants. However… The rooms including the bathrooms need an upgrade. The bathroom was old and mouldy and we were consistently given dirty and marked towels and bedding.

Generally speaking it is a good hotel; I had a spacious room with a good bathroom, very clean. Good breakfast with an ample choice of food, fruit, cakes; I would only complain about the lack of fresh milk, and coffee is really lousy. Fruit juices could be of a better quality. Personnel vary from courteous to quite indifferent. One negative thing: the lobby bar is permanently closed, and the restaurant bar is open from 5 pm to 11 pm. Once I asked for a bottle of water after 11 pm and I was answered it was impossible to get one (NB there is no minibar in the rooms). The restaurant is open for breakfast and in the evening it becomes a taqueria, which makes good tacos and is quite cheap, so it is a good option if you go for a quick simple dinner.

To start with the positive things: It was very clean and the staff were really nice. The location is also not bad on one of the most beautiful streets of Merida. The hotel itself is one of these typically chain hotels, soulless and boring. This one is rundown as well. I had to tape the drawer of my bedside table shut because it kept opening and I was hurting my shin. No blanket, so one could not use the air conditioning since it was set to blow the cold air right onto one's legs. The breakfast was also rubbish. The worst coffee ever, lukewarm as well. It had probably been in the flask for a week or so. I normally like fried plantains but I don't know what kind of grease they used to fry theirs in, they were inedible. A good thing that Merida is such a nice place so I was hardly there.

We recently visited Mérida and stayed in this hotel. It is old and a little run down, to be honest. I found shocking that they did not give us face or hand towels in our room. We were given only shower towels and that was that. We were also not given any blankets (we requested them and then they gave us two). That was the bad side, now on the bright side, the hotel is really well located on Paseo de Montejo, walking distance to downtown and a lot of places. Staff was super nice and friendly and helpful. Price includes breakfast, which was excellent. And, to be fair, we did not spend almost any time in our room to be upset about towels or blankets. When you are in a beautiful city like Mérida, you want to be outside as much as possible! But I will say that it is old and it could be better kept.

The hotel is a disaster. The rooms are old, noisy, poorly insulated, dirty, very poorly cleaned. Dirty bed sheets and pillow covers. Fly everywhere. Never had such a dirty hotel. Just look for another hotel