Victoria Express Guadalajara

This was my 4th stay at this hotel in 2008. All of the other stays have been great with the exception of the wireless connection speed. This trip I traveled with a co-worker and requested the hotel to place on the 1st or 2nd floor so that we could have a better connection to the wireless and for our rooms to be very close to each other (we were going to have to work on a lot of projects in the evenings while not in our office in Guadalajara). The did put one of the rooms on the 1st floor and the connection was great, but the other room was on the 5th floor (non existent connection...). Every evening I was promised that I would be moved to the 1st floor with no luck until the 3rd day. In the room on the 5th floor, I received an unrequested wake-up call at 5:00 AM (as you probably know, in Mexico no one goes to work until 9AM so this was way too early for me to have to get up...). Once I was finally moved to the 1st floor, the first night in that room, the smoke detector in my room started beeping at midnight. My coworker's smoke alarm did the same the next night. In both cases, we called the front desk immediately and the problem was resolved within 30 minutes each time. We had never experienced these problems in the past with this hotel - with the exception of the wireless connection problem, and I will stay again. But I strongly suggest to call the hotel to request the 1st or 2nd floor rooms if you need the wireless connection and keep calling them daily until you arrive to check-in to make sure they follow through with this request. The hotel is nice and is very clean. Staff is great. If they do not speak English, they usually know enough to help you with whatever you need. Restuarant food is decent and room service staff is very prompt. I have stayed in another hotel in Guadalajara - the restuarant was better, but the service and rooms are much better at Victoria Express.

The hotel itself is very nice and clean. However, it is far from most of the activity in the city, and cab fare will really get you. Also, when we checked in we had already paid for the entire stay, and they charged us twice. When we realized this and told them, they insisted that the refund be given in pesos! It took quite a bit to get them to finally agree to credit the credit card. Unbelievable since it was ebtirely their mistake.