Hotel HW Libertad

The rooms are nice and the buffet breakfast was great. To find the hotel, look for the High Wellness HW name at 2828 Romero Street, since Libertad isn’t visible from street level. Enter the elevator on the ground floor and go to the third floor. The elevator’s Button 3 should be labeled Hotel. Check-in is on the third floor.

If you’re on a budget, this is a perfect fit. It’s close to a great transit system, and the included breakfast is as good as you’ll find anywhere.

The gym was fantastic to have access to, breakfast was great, and the man at reception gave us a warm welcome when we arrived. I expected the area to feel safer based on earlier reviews, but I wasn’t comfortable walking around at night. Be careful at the nearby market, where someone tried to pickpocket us. Get an Uber if you can. Our room wasn’t clean enough at first: it smelled of smoke and there were lots of hairs on the sheets. Reception didn’t apologize and refused our request to move rooms. They agreed to replace the bedding, but we later saw that only the bottom sheet had been changed, while the others were still stained. The walls were very thin, and loud music from neighbors could be heard constantly.

The room itself was fine, but I’m never going back. At checkout they inspect the sheets and towels, then charge a fine for stains they decide can’t be removed, without putting them through a washing machine. I saw them tell a couple, in front of everyone in the lobby and without any tact, that they had stained the sheets with blood, then charge them $40,000. There are things they don’t tell you: the neighborhood is neither clean nor quiet, and ride-hailing apps often have trouble getting drivers to accept trips to or from there. The hotel is inside a Chinese-owned shopping mall or strip mall, which isn’t easy to get into. At night you have to call a security guard to open the mall gate, and the same goes for food delivery.