Hotel Ibis Monterrey Valle - Monterrey, Nuevo Leon Review

If you're planning a trip to Monterrey and you're watching the budget, check out the rates at the Ibis Valle on the accorhotels.com website. For a long time they were doing $44/night at either the Valle or the Aeropuerto locations. I'm only talking about the Valle location in this review (I generally don't stay near the airport in Monterrey because it's VERY inconvenient to anything of touristic value).

The Ibis Monterrey Valle is located in an upscale section of Monterrey called "Valle Oriente", which includes the colonias of Garza Garcia and San Pedro. These are safe, comfortable neighborhoods, though they are not within walking distance of anything of touristic value, but it's only 10 minutes by taxi (and about a $5 fare) to get downtown, so the Valle location isn't a bad place to hang your hat.

The Ibis itself is physically connected to another Accor property --- the Novotel --- and if you stay at the Ibis you can use the pool at the Novotel.

The Ibis is a budget hotel with barebones rooms and very limited amenities. The beds are platform beds with thin mattresses. The furniture has that ready-to-fall-apart-any-minute look that usually you find only in furniture sold at Wal-Mart. But it's functional and modern, so what it lacks in style it makes up for in cheapskate value.

I don't mind saving a few bucks to stay at the Ibis, and I'll do so when the prices stay under $50. Unfortunately, when the Mexican peso began losing value against the Euro, French-owned Ibis jacked up their rates while every other hotel in Monterrey kept prices pegged to the peso. As a result, the Ibis suddenly started costing more than very nice 4-star rooms over at the Sheraton Ambassador.

Because you can STILL find very good 3-star Centro hotels and even 4-star hotels priced in the $50-70 range, I can *NOT* recommend Ibis when their rates go up. If you price the rooms and see them back down around the $45 level, you get your moneys worth. Any higher and I'd look elsewhere.