Kimberly N.
Yelp
I've become a sort of b&b fanatic in the past few years... and when I researched the Turquoise Bear I was excited by its beauty and history (I am a writer and avid reader).
However, I was extremely disappointed by my recent visit. After spending about a week in an ABQ hotel my boyfriend and I traveled to Bandelier ( see my review) and Santa Fe for the night. We only stayed one night here... and maybe that is why the service was so poor; or, maybe it was because we are young (mid 20's). Either way, one of the owners was quite condescending and unaccommodating.
For example, when we arrived we entered through the Innkeeper door (I had alerted him of our later arrival time, as per website instructions), but we couldn't find him, so I walked around the grounds. when he saw me walking around he came outside and chided us: "this is a bed and breakfast. See, it says 'inkeeper' on the door!" Not a good start to our evening. He also talked trash about previous famous guests--if we had built some rapport this might have been okay, but it only turned us off even more.
After a walk through and dinner in Santa Fe, I decided that though our initial experience was bad, the place was beautiful and comfortably close to the Plaza, so overall not such a bad place. We decided to stay in with some wine and watch a movie (they have a collection of VHS to check out), but previously noticed our room did not have a VHS player... so before our walk we asked him if there was any way we could watch a movie--he assured us he would bring us a VHS player, so we checked out a movie, and he told us that while we were away to dinner he would bring the player and tape over. So, we buy our wine, have a decent dinner, and walk back to the Inn. It is now past 9pm, when all staff are gone. Alas--there was no VHS, no player, nothing.
Our one request on our one night.
I couldn't wait to get out of there in the morning. When we checked out, he just said "okay," not asking us about our stay or anything.
I hope this is a fluke.. maybe he was having a really bad week... or maybe it was that we were only staying one night so he didn't need to make an impression on us. Either way, it was disappointingly opposite of the typical level of service I've had at B&Bs. I will never return, and I feel like my $200 would have better spent elsewhere (aside from all of this, we had the Millay room which came out to $190, and shares a bathroom. My favorite B&B comes out to the same price, has a private bathroom and a hot tub and a functional fireplace and two lazy boys and a bottle of wine and caramel apple pie per night you stay... but whatever, I would have been happy with the price/room if the service was acceptable).
Maybe if we had interacted with someone else this review would have been drastically different. So, take your chances I guess.