Hotel Magdalena

This hotel only makes sense as a place to crash if you are so drunk that passing out is inevitable. This is a dive motel disguised as a boutique hotel. The courtyard area is beautiful with a bar that makes fantastic drinks and amazing food in the afternoon. In the evening you are invited to join the party and it is loud. Our room was so dysfunctional as to be laughable. No lights installed and the switch did nothing. A walk in closet with a tiny hanging bar in the corner and no shelves or drawers. The room had no shelves or drawers for clothes. The mini bar was well stocked of course. A huge bathroom with a tiny sink table, no tub, just empty space, and a tiny bedroom area. The worst part is that the motel is in an alley behind a large, popular bar with a garbage and recycling depot right next to the rooms. They are pouring bottles into metal bins until 2am. At 6am, trucks start coming in to pick up each type of bin until 9am, then they come back to replace the bins with new ones and they bang those large, metal bins around. The front desk is well aware of the complaints when they check you in.

The rooms are humid, and it is always noisy early in the mornings due to garbage trucks and delivery trucks right outside the windows. I've stayed here at least 5 times, and every room has always been noisy. Other than that, the hotel is beautiful, and the interior design is fantastic. The customer service is accomodating and the restaurant is good.

Lovely hotel, just has most of the rooms next to a street where trash and recycling is dumped every night and picked up by trucks early in the morning, so everyone in our group in their separate rooms were woken up every single night. It sounded like someone was dumping 100 glass bottles into a dumpster from a 30 foot drop. If you can stay in the building by the pool, you’re set.

We were slightly disappointed with our stay. I had let the hotel know in advance that we would be celebrating our wedding night and attempted to place a credit card on file since a friend would be checking in ahead of us. It took three attempts to resolve—one of which was the night before our wedding—which was stressful and not ideal timing. Although I had mentioned it was our wedding night, no acknowledgment was made. I wasn’t expecting anything elaborate, but even a small congratulatory note would have felt thoughtful. Our friends also tried to arrange a few things in the room before we arrived, but the room wasn’t ready in time, and no accommodations were offered. Overall, the room itself was fine—the bed was comfortable, and the shower was hot—but the experience felt underwhelming for such a special occasion.

The valets helped us load up our rental car and a large bag with gifts was left behind at the curb. Imagine our relief when we called the hotel the next morning and they had the bag waiting for us in the Lost & Found! Then, it turned out that 2/3 of the contents had been removed. Gifts for family and friends that we had not seen in a decade.