Three Hotels in Cusco

When it comes to lodging, we’re pretty middle-of-the road.

We’re not looking for the really cheap places where you have to wear boots in the shower and check the beds for vermin. (and forget about camping!) But we aren’t willing to pay top dollar, either (we did enough of that on the cruises).

In Cusco, most of the hotels are designated either 1-star, 2-star, or 3-star. What’s the difference? One star is just a step above backpacker hostel (usually), so we didn’t even look at those. The main difference between 2-star and 3-star seems to be the number of light fixtures and electrical outlets, and most 3-star hotels seem to have other amenities like TV’s, min-safes, and restaurants, too.

I hear that in the busy tourist season, you need to make reservations well in advance, but we found plenty of vacancies during our off-season visit.

In fact, the only hotel reservation we made in advance for Peru was for our first 5 nights at Hotel Niños 2, a 2-star hotel in Cusco. Well, it ended up being 4 nights due to flight delays.

But anyway…on to our review of 3 Cusco hotels…

1. Hotel Niños 2

It’s a nice, small hotel centered around a pretty courtyard, with free wifi and reasonably cheap breakfast and drinks available. We stayed in a quadruple room on the 2nd floor, which was nice and roomy with comfortable beds, but a little lacking in storage space.

There’s plenty of hot water, but only a small heater for the room, which wasn’t really enough to keep it warm at night. It wasn’t very cold during our mid-summer visit, but I’m not sure I’d want to stay here during the winter.

The service is great, with a very helpful and friendly (though not english-speaking) staff.

Niños is a little pricey for a 2-star hotel (our cost per night: $80 USD), but the profits go to an orphanage run by the hotel owners. There’s a school and cafeteria attached to the hotel, and we could see the children coming and going as well as hear them playing during the day.

The only other little complaint we had was the noise – the floors creak a lot, so whenever someone moves in a nearby room, you know it. Anyone wanting to enter has to ring the doorbell to get in, which reverberates through the courtyard and into all the rooms (a bit annoying late at night and in the mornings).

It’s also not the most conveniently located – a bit of a walk to the Plaza de Armas and most of the tourist attractions, but that’s what $1 cabs are for!

Overall I’d recommend this hotel, especially for summer stays, for those who don’t mind a little bit of noise and want to support a good cause. Niños gets it right where it really counts.

As our first 5 days in Cusco drew to a close, we went out looking for another hotel, for the nights before and after our trip to Machu Picchu. So, I made a list of recommended hotels and we set off.

Most of the hotels on our list were in the San Blas neighborhood on the other side of the Plaza de Armas, but we couldn’t find one there with availability that fit our budget. Hmm…maybe we shouldn’t have waited until our last day at Ninos to find another hotel. But, as luck would have it, the second-to-last on our list had a room for us.

2. Hotel Ruinas

This 3-star hotel was a little more expensive than Niños, but the rate included breakfast. So, we decided to go ahead and book it.

We should’ve checked out that last choice. Hotel Ruinas wasn’t a bad place, and it was warmer and a little quieter than Niños – but also a bit dirtier and more run-down. The included breakfast was pretty lame (luckily, Jack’s Cafe is just a block away). Plus, the wireless internet never worked, which is a deal-killer for me, especially at that price range.

Service was great, though – and they took good care of our luggage while we were at Machu Picchu. I think this hotel is trying hard to be a 3-star hotel, but it seems to be trapped in a 2-star hotel’s body. I was so underwhelmed by this place I forgot to take any pictures.

The day after we returned from Machu Picchu, we went out looking for a better place, starting with the bottom of our previous list.

3. Hotel Royal Inka I

If only we’d gone there to begin with: this place was by far the best! Their triple room fit us perfectly, with plenty of storage space. The free wifi worked all the time and the heater actually heated the entire room! Plenty of hot water and comfortable beds, too – and enough electrical outlets to charge all our gadgets at once. Paradise, I tell ya!

It’s conveniently located in the Plaza Regocijo, just a block away from the Plaza de Armas and all the action. Best of all, this was the cheapest place we stayed in Cusco – about $64 per night (after a little haggling). And the included breakfast was actually good, too – with omelettes and eggs cooked to order. (though we still went out for breakfast most of the time)

We ended up spending a total of 7 nights here, before and after our trip to Lake Titicaca. About the only complaint we had was that on a couple of nights there was a lot of late-night noise coming from the street outside, possibly from the hostel up the street. But it seems like that’s pretty hard to avoid in this town.

We’d go back to this hotel in a heartbeat – it’s probably more expensive in the busy season, but worth it. If you ever plan to go to Cusco, I highly recommend it!

Tagged as: Hotels, Peru