El Mirador Hotel

Not bad for the money. Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) has many beautiful resorts (with high prices to match) and has some cheap run down joints that are not scenic, clean or desirable to an American tourist. Hotel Mirador provides a decent place at a decent price. Lots of good points and a few short comings:
The Good:
The hotel is immediately right on the beach. Outside they have community BBQ grills, picnic tables, a palapa for shade, and a modest swimming pool. El Mirador appears to be only about 5 years old and is maintained better than most properties. The grounds are kept clean (no graffiti, no cigarette butts, no trash). The room itself is nothing fancy, modest, but clean with ok beds, towels, soaps, tiny TV, little refrigerator and plumbing that worked well. (Commenting on bath plumbing my seem odd but I have had many inexpensive Mexico hotels where the bathroom didn’t appear clean enough, or water pressure in shower was low, or shower temperature varied from burn you hot to cold, or toilet was lame, this place had none of those issues). This hotel is within walking distance of a few non-upscale bars and restaurants which was interesting to me but they were certainly nothing special. I had the opportunity to meet the owner who is a very nice mature dude from Phoenix. He takes interest in keeping the place maintained and very much cares for both the property and guests.
The not so great:
This is a 4-story hotel with one slow elevator. I ended up on top floor but really didn’t mind as I called it exercise running to the car and back. Some would find this a problem. The walls between rooms allow sound to travel so if you have neighbors who are anything less than very quite they will disturb you. It is hard to tell who the real clientele are here. I saw friendly families of Mexican nationals, I saw people from Phoenix who were there to party hard, young people, old people, nice people, odd people but there certainly didn’t seem to be a consistent demographic of those you would be sharing the your temporary home with. There was an older Mexican couple at the front desk when I checked in (not the owners) who were not mean but certainly not nice either. They were just going through the process and did nothing to welcome me other than execute and hand me a key. The immediate neighborhood includes a number of trailer parks. The area in general seems neither terrible or great (both of which you can find in other parts of town).
Overall:
Not a mistake to check into El Mirador. This is clean place, on the beach, nice owner all at a reasonable price. You get all that you pay for, yet it falls short of a caliber of property that my wife or more well to do friends might expect. I will be back and happy with Hotel Mirador, but only when the budget and expectations of who I am traveling with is appropriate to this neighborhood and class of property.