Our final stop in New Mexico after two months there was the city of Deming. Deming isn’t really a destination in and of itself (sorry Deming!), but we chose it for a couple of reasons.
First, the Hampton Inn Deming was excellent value when using points – more about that in the ‘Cost’ section below. Second, it put us within a two hour drive of a bunch of stuff that we wanted to visit in the southwestern part of New Mexico. It seemed like we’d have long drives whether we stayed in Deming, Truth or Consequences, Las Cruces or Ruidoso, so the great value hotel swung things for us.
The hotel ended up being an excellent choice as it was even better than we’d been expecting. The staff members were all fantastic and they had a great breakfast compared to what a lot of other hotels have been offering during COVID. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Hampton Inn Deming.
Check-In
Our stay started off well as Marcus was very friendly when checking us in. We had to complete a pet form as we travel with our dog Truffles, but there wasn’t a pet fee.
Marcus also offered us some snacks as a welcome amenity due to my Diamond status with Hilton – you can see the options in the photo above. Even though we’d just visited PistachioLand on our way to the hotel and picked up a bunch of differently flavored pistachios, we picked the garlic and green chili pistachios and a couple of cans of Diet Coke. The garlic and green chili pistachios were delicious; if those sound good to you, they were from Heart of the Desert in Alamogordo, NM.
Bedroom
It seems like the Hampton Inn Deming only has two room types – some with a king bed and some with two queens (they don’t seem to have any one bedroom suites unfortunately).
We’d booked a room with a king bed and were given room 233. When entering the room the bathroom was immediately on the right, with the bedroom straight ahead and round to the right.
The king bed was very comfortable, with the blackout curtains working well to help keep the room dark at night. Both sides of the bed had power outlets available, with the right side having an extension with three power outlets and two USB ports available.
At the foot of the bed was a bench which was handy as it made it easier for Truffles to get herself up on the bed.
On the opposite side of the room was the TV, microwave, mini fridge and a couple of small dresser drawers. The dresser situation was the room’s biggest downside as there were very few places to put your clothes. I ended up leaving most of my clothes in my suitcase and put what I needed in the small drawer in the bedside table, stashing the rest of my clothes in the cubby hole below that, leaving Shae the dresser drawers beneath the TV.
On the positive side, the Hampton Inn Deming has DIRECTV which included a wide selection of channels.
The left side of the room had a desk and office chair, along with an armchair but no sofa. There was no coffee table or side table next to the armchair, so that’s something that would’ve been nice to have.
Our room had a nice view of the mountains in the distance.
The room had an open closet with an iron, ironing board, luggage rack and an extra blanket.
Another slight downside of our room was its location. It was at one end of the hotel near the stairwell which wasn’t a problem in and of itself. In fact, it was handy being down one end as it meant it was easy taking Truffles out by walking down one flight of stairs.
The problem was the fact that the exterior door always slammed shut extremely loudly. It seemed like a lot of guests used that side door to enter and exit the hotel, so there was a lot of slamming throughout the day.
Bathroom
The bathroom had a good-sized countertop as part of the vanity, with the toilet behind a partition.
Our room had a walk-in shower rather than a bathtub with shower. The water pressure of the shower was good, so no complaints there.
Breakfast
The breakfast at the Hampton Inn Deming was great. For starters, it was available until 10am which was awesome as it meant I didn’t have to get up early to get it! They also had a surprisingly good selection of breakfast items compared to what most other hotels we’ve stayed at during COVID have offered.
Every morning there were 2-3 hot options, along with pancakes. In addition to that there was oatmeal, cereal, granola bars, yogurt, bread, bagels, mini cakes, fruit and more.
Although you picked up all the pre-packaged items yourself, the hot items were served for you. The hot options rotated each day with different types of eggs, breakfast meats, potatoes, etc. They were served in to-go boxes which meant we could easily take them back up to our room to eat rather than eating in the breakfast area.
Amenities
The Hampton Inn Deming has a number of amenities for guests to use. They have an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool, although this was closed at the time due to COVID-related restrictions put in place by New Mexico’s governor.
The fitness room was open though and had several pieces of equipment and weights.
If you need to do any laundry during your stay, there are washing machines and dryers. Somewhat strangely, there were four dryers but only two washing machines, with one of those washing machines being out of order during our stay. It cost $2 per load for the washing machine and $1.50 per load for the dryers which is reasonable enough.
I had to print off a couple of things during our stay, so it was helpful having a business center with a couple of computers and a printer for guests to use.
If you need any snacks, microwaveable meals or drinks during your stay, there’s a pantry area behind the front desk where you can pick some up.
Outside of the swimming pool area was a little bit of outdoor seating with a grill. That area was behind a metal fence with a locked gate, so I don’t know if that space is only available when the pool is open.
There was additional seating space in the lobby/breakfast area, along with a tea and coffee station which seemed to be available 24/7.
It won’t make a difference for most people, but a minor quibble for us is that the hotel didn’t have regular hotel luggage carts. Instead, they had airport-style carts.
For people traveling with just a few cases that won’t make any difference. We travel full-time though and bring in pretty much everything from our car; it was therefore a little harder moving everything in and out on these small carts, so we had to do an additional journey to what you see in the photo below.
Pet Policy
As mentioned earlier in the review, the Hampton Inn Deming is a pet-friendly hotel. They allow dogs up to 25 lbs and there’s no pet fee. Keep an eye out when entering the hotel as they have a water bowl and treats for dogs which was a nice touch.
The hotel has quite a few grassy areas around the property where your dog can do their business.
Deming has a surprisingly nice dog park with separate sections for small and large dogs, so we took Truffles there once or twice to have a run around. There were lots of trees in the dog park which I’m sure is greatly appreciated during summer in New Mexico.
The hotel is also only a mile from Pit Park. Pit Park was once a gravel pit, but they’ve started transforming it into more of a recreation area with walking paths, picnic tables, pavilion, amphitheater and even a pond where you can go fishing. It’s therefore also a great place to take your dog for a walk.
COVID-19
As with all of Hilton’s brands we’ve stayed at during COVID, our room had a seal on our door confirming no one had entered since housekeeping.
The TV remote had presumably been sanitized and placed in a bag, plus they provided a couple of additional hand sanitizing wipes in our room.
There were hand sanitizing stations and plastic barriers set up at the front desk. The front desk and housekeeping staff were also good with mask wearing.
Service
Service at the Hampton Inn Deming was very good and even better than we expected. Marcus and Robert in particular were extremely friendly, as was the lady who served breakfast most mornings (I didn’t catch her name I’m afraid).
As another little anecdote, the afternoon we checked in I was heading back out to our car to get the rest of our stuff and an employee was coming through the entrance at the same time. It seemed like she was just coming in to start her shift, but she gave a warm greeting. It’s not much, but staff at some hotels will blank you as you walk in and out, so the fact that she said hello before her shift had even started suggests that the hotel has a good staff culture compared to some places.
Wi-Fi
The speed of the hotel’s internet was always good. I think we had to reconnect every 24 hours which is always a little annoying, but I might be wrong about that requirement (I didn’t make a note of that, so I’m working off my memory).
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is at 3pm and check-out is at 11am. I had a Zoom meeting the day we checked out, so we asked for a late checkout as I have Diamond status. They were only able to accommodate a 12pm checkout because of the hours their housekeeping staff work, so that’s something to bear in mind if you think you might need a later checkout than that. Thankfully my meeting finished early and so this didn’t end up being an issue.
Location
The Hampton Inn Deming is located just off I-10, so it’s a good place to stop if you’re traveling between Arizona and New Mexico or west Texas. It’s only a couple of miles from downtown Deming where there’s a Walmart, restaurants, a museum and more.
D.H. Lescombes Winery is only a few miles off to the east. It used to be known as St Clair Winery and is New Mexico’s largest winery. Don’t trust Google Maps’ directions though; for some reason it kept trying to have us drive several miles beyond the winery, only to turn back and drive back down the same road. If you visit the winery, keep an eye out on your left as there’s an opening in the median where you can get to the winery without adding 10 miles to your journey!
Deming is also within about two hours of White Sands National Park, Truth or Consequences, Catwalk Recreation Area, Mogollon Ghost Town, Gila Cliff Dwellings, Silver City, Las Cruces and more, as well as only being 30 minutes from City of Rocks State Park.
Parking
It’s free to park at the hotel and there are plenty of spaces at both the front and rear of the property.
Cost
I mentioned at the start of the review that we booked our stay at the Hampton Inn Deming because it was such good value when using points. That’s because they only charge 10,000 points per night which makes it one of the last remaining Hilton properties in the US charging so few points.
If you have any kind of status with Hilton, you get every 5th night free on award stays (for reference, you can get Silver status with the no annual fee Hilton Amex card, so earning status doesn’t require staying any nights or having to cost you anything). We stayed ten nights which means we got both the 5th and 10th nights free, making the total cost only 80,000 points or an average of 8,000 points per night. That’s ludicrously good value considering it’s a decent hotel with friendly staff and a proper breakfast during COVID.
If we’d paid cash for our stay it would’ve cost $100.79 per night including tax. That’s certainly not a bad price, but redeeming points was even better value as it meant we got 1.26 cpp (cents per point) of value by using points which is 2-3x the value you can normally expect to get from Hilton Honors points.
It gets even better than that though. At the time of our stay Hilton was running a promotion called Points Unlimited. That offered 2,000 bonus points per stay as well as 5,000 bonus points for every five nights you stayed during the promotion period, with both paid and award stays counting. Our ten night stay therefore earned us 12,000 bonus points – the 2,000 per stay and two sets of 5,000 points for the two sets of five nights. On top of those bonus points I earned an extra 10,000 bonus points as a Milestone Reward which Hilton awards when you stay a certain number of nights each year.
That made our net cost 58,000 points for the stay or 5,800 points per night – that’s effectively 1.74cpp of value.
Final Thoughts
The Hampton Inn Deming ended up being a great place to stay for our last ten days in New Mexico. The staff was great, the breakfast was one of the best offerings we’ve had during COVID and it was fantastic value when using points.
There were a few minor things that could’ve been improved (not much dresser space, no side table in the room and the loudly slamming exit door), but I’d have no hesitation staying here again if we need somewhere to stay in southwest New Mexico.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Hampton Inn Deming four paws out of four – pawfect! There was no pet fee which was great, there were enough grassy areas, a dog park somewhat nearby and she got a lot of attention from the hotel staff – all her best things!
Our Rating
Room = 4.0 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.5 / 5
Food = 4.8 / 5
Location = 4.3 / 5
Service = 4.9 / 5
Dealing With COVID-19 (A new – hopefully temporary – category for our hotel reviews) = 4.6 / 5
Overall Value = 4.8 / 5
Total = 4.56/5
Address
Hampton Inn, 3751 E Cedar St, Deming, NM 88030
[…] staying at the Hampton Inn Deming, Shae was chatting to Robert at the front desk and he recommended that we check out Catwalk […]