Hotel Santuario Machu Picchu

The river view is lovely, and the hotel is handy for both the train and bus stations. Rooms are clean, with big comfortable beds and hot showers. Breakfast is very good, the lobby has free tea, the WiFi is excellent, and there's a nice bar.

The grout was dirty or moldy, and the rooms felt gross. At least we had warm showers. Breakfast was very basic and gross too. A couple of people in our group thought the place was haunted. It's close to shops, bus stops, and restaurants, and it's along the way to machu picchu if you're hiking the whole way, though distances around this small town aren't clear.

The staff put real effort into giving guests a great experience, and the service was strong. Rooms are spacious and comfortable. The view rooms are spectacular, but rooms at the back look straight onto a wall. You can also feel and hear the train from those rooms, though it wasn't too bad once we got used to it. I had to argue for about 20 minutes over a 5% Visa surcharge when I arrived, so that brought my service rating down to four stars.

The room we got was much smaller than the photos suggested, with barely enough space to move around, and there was no hot water. It was unusually warm when we visited. The front desk warned us about mosquitoes and said there was a fan, but the windows had no screens. The fan was a tiny floor model, maybe 24 inches tall, loud and barely working. We spent the night before visiting MP in a dark, stuffy room with no air. Our few interactions with the staff were pleasant enough. We were also charged extra to use a credit card, although that fee wasn't disclosed in the reservation. The location is what you're paying for, but at $150 US I expected better.