Best Western Kachina Lodge & Meetings Center

We stayed here last month on a ski trip.  If all you need is a nice size warm room and a bed, then this may be your place.  I agree with the average to lower reviews.  This hotel is run-down everywhere you look.  The TV is small and from the 1980's.  Our shower head was missing. The carpet is grungy looking.  It does include breakfast, which is nice, but although there was free coffee in the lobby, the waitress charged us for coffee with our free breakfast (that's just wrong!).  And she was more interested in gabbing with the other hotel workers than serving the guests. This motel/hotel is inexpensive, but we found that you can spend $10-20 more for a nicer place.

We came here on a family ski trip around Christmas and we were recommended here by friends who've been to Taos for skiing trips. On the first look, the room looks pretty old. There were some dirt around the edges of the room, the carpet looked unclean, the TV looked ancient, and many of the electrical outlets were loose, rendering them useless since the plugs will just fall right off (we barely found enough to charge our phones and laptops). Usually I'm fine with walking barefoot in a hotel room but not this time.

Despite all the cons, this place is also really cheap (almost half the price of other places we've found)! Not just cheap but functional as well. The room was bigger than a normal 2-Bed hotel room which gave us plenty of room to put all of our luggage and ski equipment. The heater was great and the hot water was immediate. Coming from a family that have been living in hot places, those functions were really important to us in a cold place. Breakfast was also provided everyday, which included hearty stuff like eggs, sausages, potatoes, pancakes, muffins, cereals, and even fresh hot chocolates! This place is 20 minutes away from the Taos Ski Valley.

Normally, I would have given this place 2 or 3 stars but as a place for a winter trip, it's a solid 4-star.

Note: For some reason, Kachina Lodge sometimes has Best Western in its name but the receptionist said they had nothing to do with Best Western.

We had a good stay here over one September weekend. We paid a low, double-digit rate because we booked last minute, so it was a good deal for Taos. The awesome bonfire at dusk, friendly staff, newly painted entry, and bug-free, large room were all good things and helped us not care too much about the stained couch and faint cigarette smoke smell in the room and the free breakfast of eggs and pancakes that taste like stale grease. It's was a good deal for us and we had no problems. We noted that the Best Western signs were all painted over, so it's probably under new management.