I want to get a place for two days in the zona norte. I want to be close to the AB and CC and I also want to see the street girls from my room window. Any suggestion? Safety is a plus but I prefer being close to the action has I plan to sleep with one eye open for those days!!!

Other than a couple of short term SG hotels that trust me, you don't want to stay in overnight much less two days, the only hotel I can think of where you could possibly have a window to SG activity is the Cascades - that hotel will have just a few rooms with outside windows facing the SG alley. Most zona hotel rooms, including Cascades have windows only into interior hallways, but the rooms at the end of the hallway on each floor have street views. So when you check in you will have to specifically ask for such a room and hope that they may have one free. This hotel has 2 entrances and lobbies and at least in times past when I stayed there frequently, each lobby had its own block of rooms for the section of the hotel it served. Thus if you want an alley side room, check in at the desk of the alley entrance (tell Taxista "Callejon Coahuila").

Otherwise, just a few weeks ago I did a complete roundup of zona norte hotels on the Mexico chat board and if you drill down through it I would think it is still there and not too far down.

Thanks, I'm going to take your advice. I'm going to rent a motel in San Ysidro instead and go back and forth to Tijuana. Motel 8 in San Ysidro is only 44 dollars and it's next door to Denny's so how could I beat that!!

That is not my advice - the last advice I would be giving. You must be confused seeing a more recent thread where somebody asked about SY hotels and I responded that there were much better hotels available in TJ but outside of the zona at the same price...about a 10 minute walk from the zona.

Those hotels are Villa de la Zaragoza (see separate Discus thread) and a brand new luxury hotel called Hotel Ticuan which has been offering Hyatt Regency quality luxury rooms for the same price as some of the cheaper hotels in San Ysidro. Both hotels were $55 US the last time I looked including taxes and free parking. Villa de la Zaragoza is more modest then Ticuan, but still nicer by far and a better bargain then anything close to the border in San Ysidro. Beware that at the VZ you must specify that you want a "traditional" room or they will probably put you in a more expensive room. You should also reserve in advance if you go there on a weekend or are going to arrive late. Links for online reservations and numbers available in the thread...and I think 694me posted a link on chat below my post.

In your case, you asked specifically about zona hotels so I directed you to an earlier thread comparing the zona hotels. That is further down on the chat board. Here is my quick review of the better zona hotels cut and pasted from chat:

Most popular monger hotels inside the zona are:

1. Hacienda de Santiago - definitely the newest and nicest but also the furthest from the heart of the action at Revo/Coahuila - across the street from La Tropa. NOT cheap at $40-50 per night depending on the days you're there. Free parking if you drive in.

2. Cascades Hotel - This is the hotel used for short term sessions with many SGs, HK, Miami and LC. Also many overnight rooms including a few jacuzzi suites. Not too horrible a place but noisy and they charge a "joiner fee" for each additional chica who you bring to your room after your first chica each day. No hotel parking.

3. Leyva Hotel - Next to CC but this is NOT the CC hotel. Free parking for hotel guests - they have very cheap rooms - you get what you pay for, and some better rooms for a few more bucks. No joiner fees here or at Hacienda de Santiago (same owner), but not as easy to get chicas to come to these hotels as for Cascades or Coahuila hotels.

4. Hotel Coahuila - this is the AB hotel. New and remodeled rooms are nice but it can be difficult to impossible to get an overnight room on weekends.

Sounds like you are game and looking for lots of action, so you will probably have a better time staying in Cascades or other zona hotel then one of those gloomy inconvenient SY hotels - even if you don't have a view to the outside. That Motel 6 is a hefty walk to the border or you have to drive to a border parking lot and pick up the extra parking fee and if you come back across intoxicated after your time in the zona the SD Police will be prowling around ready to jack you up. I do really enjoy Denny's french toast however.

The best overall bargain for right now is a no-brainer - the new Ticuan which is located in the last remaining vibrant area of Revolucion (Calle 8 between Revo/Constitucion - near Las Pulgas, Sanborns Dept. Store, Caliente Sports Book, special events at the Jai Alai fronton and TJ Tillies (and the annual Tequila Festival starts in a week on this block), Amnesia and Platinum strip clubs, lots of MPs, a few interesting local bars with Karaoke and semi-pro hookers, and right across the street from the central station for TJ's finest). Eventually they will boost their prices but as long as you can live in Hyatt luxury 8 city blocks from the zona norte (10 blocks from AB), you can't beat it staying in a craphouse Motel 6 in SY....but again, I do like that Denny's french toast.

This is going to be my first trip to Tijuana's zona norte so your 411 is very helpful for a newbie like me who hopefully will get my feet wet real soon. Cascades Hotel, looks very promising for me and so does Hotel Coahuila. I'm so glad I found this site everybody here is so helpful with each other , and I'm becoming a smart student with this site information. Thanks Erip, I'm going to take my camera so I'll post pictures of Senoritas real soon!!

What's a nice, safe and cheap hotel near the zona? I may be spending three days down there and would like to find the best value. Any suggestions

Nice and safe does not exist in the Zona...there are a few lesser expensive hotels on Rev like Caesars or Espana. Lots of guys stay in the Zona, but the rooms are not so great and the noise at nights is quite distracting if you want to sleep.

I am not one to ever recommend staying in a zona hotel over the years unless you want to enjoy the adventure of being right in the middle of the insanity that is the zona and it can be fun - now and then anyway. I've often described staying in these hotels as "camping". However, things have changed a little bit with additions and remodels and I would disagree with Sampson as to "nice and safe", but not about the noise. The Cascades at present has seriously upgraded the quality of their overnight rooms - they are in fact "nice" with reliable plumbing, some climate control, and much improved porn-heavy television. Of course great access to chicas from some of the top bars including HK and the SGs. And if the zona is safe enough for visitors which it certainly is, so is the Cascades. "Joiner fees" appear to be history. New master suites with jacuzzi's have been added.

Drawbacks: No parking, lobby entrances up a flight of stairs, and PRICES ARE WAY UP. Yeah, they're now charging about as much as some non-zona luxury hotels. I was shocked to learn that a weekday room can go for $40 and $50 on the weekend.

Singles at the more comfortable Villa de la Zaragoza (Madero between Calle 7 & 8) is less than $40. Hard to believe that the Cascades rooms are actually "nicer" in appearance to the elderly V de Z rooms in their present state, but the V de Z is still more comfortable overall and the rooms much larger.

The luxurious Ticuan on Calle 8 just west of Revo is between $50-60 during the week and $60-68 during the weekend depending on the strength of the peso, and Ticuan is a seriously nice luxury hotel with all the amenities and free parking if you bring your car - but still no pool or gym. Google their website and make online reservations for a discount of about 50 pesos per night.

Both V de Z and Ticuan are 10-15 minute walks or $3 cab rides to the zona norte. Ticuan is my TJ home and my top recommendation. There are even nicer hotels in TJ than Ticuan, but not as convenient to Centro and the zona.

Btw, I believe Hotel Caesar has been updated and remodeled and may be a great value on Revo. If they did as good a job on the hotel as the Palencia celebrity chef family of TJ did on the hotel's famous restaurant (where the Caesar salad was invented), this would be something to look at. The restaurant is nothing less than outstanding! If you order a Caesar Salad here you will never eat one anywhere else again.

I second the Ticuan. Nicest hotel, not too far from the action. Never did bring more than one "guest" per night. If you think about TLN this place is good.

I went to Tijuana for four nights starting on Saturday night where I visited Mermaids for their "All you can Eat" Chica Buffet.

On Sunday night I stayed at the Hacienda de Santiago for a single night and entertained a gaggle of Tijuana walkers. Some of them were told that I had a confirmed reservation for Cascades' Master Suite room #529 called the "Fetish" suite that's equipped with a large Jacuzzi and a two-person sex swing. My quasi-wingman (QW) and I wanted to find out if Cascades would rent a Master Suite to two mongers buddies to use on the same night, so he tagged along with me up the Cascades stairs when it was time to check in after another great Chinese food lunch at Rio Cielo.

On Monday at around 2:30 PM I tried checking into Cascades using my HK VIP gold card for the 50% discount that would allow me to rent their master suites for $50 instead of the $100 rack & internet rate. (Cascades no longer has those $10 differences between their rate rates and internet rates when you make a digital reservation). I'm sending to the administrator a photo taken Monday of Cascades' Desk rack rates. I was all ready to have a great time on that two person swing but the Cascades desk clerk told me they were not going to honor my reservation. The desk guy said that all the Cascades Master Suites were occupado. He said that their was a junior suite that had a Jacuzzi but I said no thanks. I had that switch pulled on me once before and the junior suite was cramped and crappy and not nearly worth it's inflated price compared to what you get in the Master Suites. Next time that I make a reservation for a Master Suite for a Monday or Tuesday through their website reservation system, I won't tip them off that I'm a HK VIP gold card holder like I did this time.

I asked if I could talk to a manager, but before calling up to get his boss, the desk clerk suggests that there might be a big Jacuzzi Suite at a related Hotel property called Rizo de Oro that is located across the street on Coahuila Ave. I agreed to go look at this Jacuzzi Suite (which the clerk was careful to not call a Master Suite) and one of the talcheros escorted QW and I over to the Rizo De Oro. The room had IMHO a better layout than Cascades' Master Suites, but lacked the essential refrigerator I handily use to store butter for popcorn and the cold juice boxes that my regular chica have come to expect. Fortunately they didn't seem to mind drinking room temperature jugos.

This seemed to be the only Jacuzzi Suite in Rizo De Oro's North wing since no other rooms on both stories had two windows or were double in size. Rizo de Oro is really a merging of three different hotel buildings and you access the North wing by stepping up on an elevated pedestrian causeway that steps up and over a narrow street auto alley that separates the North wing from the original four story structure that now serves as its east wing. The seven story tower is located in the east-most corner of the property (closest to La Palmas Restaurant on the next corner).

The Jacuzzi room in Rizo de Oro is the size of a double room (just like the Cascades Master Suites) but it's layout includes two beds instead of one in the Master Suites. The rooms shower, sink, Jacuzzi and enclosed toilet portion fairly effectively separate the two beds from each other despite the fact that no door can be closed to separate one bed area completely from the other bed area. But two beds are always better than one and QW and I felt less gay asking if we could be issued two separate individual room keys than we would have felt making the same request if a single-bed Cascades Master Suite had instead been rented.

They gladly issued us two separate credit card-like room keys for a single 100 pesos deposit. I also gave them three more 100p deposits for the TV remote, A/C remote, and in-room safe key. When I turned all of those items in upon checkout it was like winning the slots in Vegas as my deposit was returned to me in US currency. Getting that $40 in US green represented a 160 pesos profit for nothing!

Did I also mention that the Jacuzzi Suite at Rizo de Oro costs less than a Cascades Master Suite? The weekday rate was $80 a night and with my HK VIP gold card that nice room was only costing me $40 a night on Monday and Tuesday nights. My walkers gals really loved the room and taking Jacuzzi dips. I was having such a great time with this room. And the staff was excellent in letting me run a lot of girls into the room (every time I was taking in two chicas at once I would give the office clerk 10 pesos and tell the office clerk that one of the chicas was for me and the other chica was for QW and off we went with no problemas).

Before the first night was done I decided to stay for an extra day and locked it in when I asked the desk clerk after my first five hours of fucking walkers if the room was available for Tuesday night. By staying the extra night, and complaining to my regulars that I was running low on funds due to the extra day, I was actually able to make some progress on some of my favorita's credito balances..

The only problem with Cascades ignoring my confirmed reservation for the room with the sex swing is that I told a handful of walkers on Sunday and Monday morning that I was specifically checking into rooom #529 at Cascades. And then I wasn't where I was supposed to be. As I started my first cita in the nice Rizo Jacuzzi room I said to Elizabeth that I hoped those pinche officina clerks at cascades get bombarbed with 15 angry chicas looking for me and their Christmas regalo.

Rizo De Oro Prices

Actually the picture is front the front desk of Cascades, displaying their rake rates - which currently are the same rates as what is published on their website (and for making reservations on line). Admin incorrectly stated they were Rizo's rates when Admin posted my picture.

The cost of a single room on Friday and Saturday nights is the same at Rizo de Oro and Cascades at $65 a night, but the weekday rate at Rizo de Oro is less @ $50 a night (or 650 pesos at their current 13X1 Tipo de Cambio.

Rizo de Oro double rooms also cost less @ $60 on weeknights and $70 on Friday and Saturday nights.

Likewise the Master Suite at RdeO is less than Cascades and runs only $80/$110 before discounts.