Placitas Library Labyrinth

A nice B&B with friendly people, a walking distance from Santa Fe's historical centre.

Our experience at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa was honestly quite disappointing. The hotel feels very dated and, overall, seems to have aged rather poorly. There is a huge lobby area that lacks warmth or charm, and during our stay it was partly taken over by a kind of vendors’ exhibition near the bar, which felt rather odd for a hotel of this category. The bar itself is particularly disappointing: there are barely any proper places to sit, and it closes surprisingly early. The overall atmosphere feels much more like a conference hotel than a charming Santa Fe property. The rooms are another weak point. There is quite a significant gap between the attractive, carefully staged photos online and the reality. The rooms feel old-fashioned and lack the character we were expecting. We booked a room with a fireplace, but you cannot simply use it: there is a whole process to request that the fireplace be lit. Given that temperatures can drop to around 17–18°C at night, having a small fire instead of running the air conditioning could have been a lovely touch, but the whole process makes it unnecessarily complicated. The pool is another example of the same issue. It looks beautiful in the photos, but in reality it is rather underwhelming and lacks charm. Service was perfectly adequate, but very basic and nothing memorable. Overall, for a hotel presented as one of the better options in Santa Fe, we found the experience far below expectations.