JW Marriott El Convento Cusco

We had a deluxe room and there was nothing deluxe about it, it was small, dark and claustrophobic and the AC was not effective at all. The entrance and history is amazing and the breakfast was adequate. The location is great. We stayed here twice and both times the rooms were similar both faced another building which didn’t help with natural light. Was average stay.

Lovely hotel, amazing staff, good location and great facilities. Do get their activity calendar, and make sure to meet the cutest baby Alpaca. Their tour drivers are nice and polite. The best part was their complimentary oxygen cylinder service, and every time the staff was very cordial.

This hotel was highly disappointing !! while the common areas are fine and the courtyard is spacious, the art hung on the walls visible in the courtyard were very ugly and did not match the style decor and class of the hotel at all. There was a strange child like poster board with no mindfulness to the surroundings that disturbed the vibe of the old monastery. The rooms were very small and did a terrible disservice to the beauty of the monastery with very low ceilings ugly carpeting in the hallways and guests were not allowed to open the windows for fresh air due to the oxygenating system of the hotel and security. I was given a room with very small and badly placed windows and took the staff two days to find me a room with bigger windows that was in line with the photos on their website for the category of room i booked. The spa was small and rather dated. Food was good though and generally the staff looked like they are trying their best. I would not reccomend this hotel at all. There are many other boutique hotels with good vibes and nice andean decor.

When we arrived at the property, we learned that the room that was blocked for us was not handicap accessible. We had made this reservation many months in advance and, because my partner uses a wheelchair, we must have an accessible room. We were told by the manager, Fernando Fernandez, that the ONE accessible room at the property is always booked on "an availability basis". We told him we would not have booked at this property if we were not 100% certain that an accessible room would be available for us. He responded: "you'll need to speak to your tour agency because they made a mistake". I assured him that our tour agency would never have booked us a room that was not guaranteed to be accessible. He was not moved, and refused to take any responsibility for the hotel's error. He offered the following solution: we could stay in a "regular room" and come down to the lobby to use the accessible bathroom there. We were both insulted and angered by his suggestion. I told him he needed to fix this problem and he summarily walked away. I later spoke to the front desk supervisor, Carmen, who graciously offered to contact the guest using the ONE accessible room to see if they would consider moving to a different room. Miraculously, the other guest agreed, and we ultimately were given the accessible room. But only after 3 hours of frustration and heated discussion with Mr. Fernandez, who, in all honesty, stains the fine reputation of Marriott.

Cusco hits you first in the lungs… thin, ancient air and the clatter of cobblestones under old Spanish bones. And then you step through a stone archway into the JW Marriott El Convento and realize somebody had the good sense to marry monastic calm with modern indulgence. It’s a cloistered courtyard glowing at dusk, lanterns flickering against 16th-century walls, history humming in the bricks. The staff move like they’ve been waiting for you all day… not with stiffness, but the easy competence of people who actually like their jobs. You feel looked after, not handled.  Mornings here are a small ceremony. The breakfast spread is the kind of excess that makes sense at altitude… fresh fruit that tastes like sunshine, pastries that flake into memory, eggs the way your grandmother swore only she could make them, and strong coffee that reminds you you’re alive and far from home. You eat like you’re fueling up for a day with the gods. The pool is downstairs, warm like a hug, steam curling off stone… exactly where you go after chasing Inca steps you had no business sprinting. Soak, float, breathe easy. The oxygen-enriched rooms help too… a quiet little miracle at 11,000-plus feet.  Architecture? Beautiful in that unshowy way… arches and cloisters, artifacts tucked behind glass like whispers from another century. You can sit with a coca tea and listen to the past settle around you.  Is it cheap? No. This is not a backpacker’s secret. But if you want five-star, Western-standard hospitality at the roofline of the Andes… if you want to be coddled a little before or after you flirt with altitude and ruins… this is the place. A sanctuary with a pulse.