"My wife is in Sombrillo Nursing Home. It's the best nursing home in the state. I took care of my wife until I could get her into Sombrillo because I want her in that one. She's very happy. She doesn't remember me or any in the family, but she is laughing, and she has lots of friends there. My daughter went up there last Wednesday and she didn't tell them that she was coming but my wife was clean, her hair was done, her clothes were clean, her bedroom was clean, and her bed was made, and they didn't know she was coming. Sombrillo is good. Sombrillo did not have a case during the pandemic. They shut everything down immediately. They checked all employees before they get in and they put plastic around and away from the building so that you could go and look at your patient. We couldn't get in for a year and a half, and now they're open. My wife has been there for two years now. She is there forever because she doesn't remember anyone. It's the best in the state as far as I'm concerned. They have the same activities as everybody else. They have everything they want to do."

"I toured The Legacy at Santa Fe. The person who toured me has been in the field of memory care herself. So, she was probably the most knowledgeable person about this disease of dementia or Alzheimer's. She was probably one of the only ones in all my tours who could talk to me about the difference between assisted living and memory care. So, it was very good. She gave me a good tour. The rooms were lovely. They were large enough, and I only looked at studios and didn't want to look at anything larger. But they all had a refrigerator, which I was surprised about, a little kitchen sink, and some cabinets, which most places in memory care don't have that kind of thing. They have an alert system that they all wear. These bracelets are kind of like smartwatches, but they're not smartwatches. It's a bracelet everybody wears, the staff and everybody. So, if there's a fall or a problem or something, people are alerted somehow or another. I thought that was a kind of cool thing. It was attractive, and it is a fairly new facility in New Mexico. The dining room looked great. Everything looked good. It would have been my first choice. It's just that it was about $2,000 more than the other facility. The parking looked fine, and it seemed very easy."

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"I toured the Kingston Residence of Santa Fe. The people who toured it were very nice, spent plenty of time with me, and were knowledgeable. We sat down and went through all the details. We toured, and they showed me model rooms and different types of rooms. The rooms are adequate. They're small, but I'm only looking at the studio. I didn't look at one-bedrooms or two bedrooms because I didn't need them. I just needed studio apartments, which are just fine for what we need. The bathrooms were large and well-appointed. The one room I finally picked did not have the kind of bars I wanted around the toilet, and they said they would put those on. It could fit a full-size bed and recliners comfortably. There are no refrigerators or kitchen facilities in Kingston. Others had a small kitchen facility in the room, and this one did not, but that was fine because we wouldn't need it. The rooms were fine. They were clean. Thankfully, no carpet, which I was pleased to see. The dining area is much better than most I've seen. Because the place is older and larger, the dining area, where they have three meals daily, was very well cleaned. Everything was in order, but it didn't look like they used the dining room. I know they didn't because they told me there were enough other little spaces throughout the place for crafts and snacks, little get-togethers, and little painting sessions. It is an old building, and there were lots of maintenance people going around doing things."

"My dad-in-law is doing great in Vista Hermosa. The staff is very caring and very professional. The place is nice and homey. Overall, it just feels good. He's very happy there. Communication is great. I hear from them constantly. The rooms are very nice. They don't spend a lot of time in their rooms, but the rooms are very nice. They have everything that he needs. He said that the food is very good. I just like the feel of it. It feels like he's at home. The reason we chose this place is because my brother's father-in-law had been there, and he was very impressed with the facility. It was also something that we had to do quickly, so we didn't really have time to tour other places. We are very pleased with it."

"I was ready to sign up to go to another place when I went to Las Soleras Senior Living. Immediately there was a difference in just the way I felt. It just seemed more vibrant, more up-to-date, more able-bodied seniors. It's fairly new, it was constructed in 2019, so it has a new, fresh feeling to it. The apartments are very nice, with plenty of space for storage. The sales manager was quite good, but I understand he's left the company at this point. They have lots of different classes, and they have donuts and coffee. They also have scheduled trips in and around the community. There's a chef that comes in and cooks for them, but I forgot how often that was. The food was delicious. It's served restaurant style and cooked to order. I ate one meal there, it was excellent. I was with my daughter and her husband, they had something different than me, and they were very pleased with their meals too. The facility was not completed, they were working on some outside projects."

"It's wonderful here in Ventana De Vida Senior. It's very fair, it's a low-cost community for seniors, and the place is beautiful. They've put in lots and lots of trees and bushes, so it looks really beautiful, and they take good care of it. I'm happy to live here. They've got like a two- or three-year waiting list, and it's only independent living. You have to be independent to live here. They offer food, but it's kind of awful. It's the stuff that they give seniors, but it was cheap. I've eaten there a few times, and when I was finished eating my body would say, "Oh, where's the nutrition?" The staff is good, they're caring, they're intelligent, and they're helpful. They used to offer senior activities until COVID hit. Before COVID, we had lunches, we had movies every week, we had places that you could go to visit things on the bus. They had all the holidays, we would celebrate and have potlucks and stuff. We had bingo and some of my friends and I would play pinochle in the dining hall. Everybody who lives here likes living here."

"La Secoya de El Castillo is a new facility, so everything is brand new, but their sister location has been in business for 50 years, so they seem to know what they're doing. I liked the fact that they were very dog friendly. The person who took me on a tour was very friendly and very knowledgeable. It seemed like a well-managed place. If you want a swimming pool, you could go to their sister community (which is about six blocks away) and ride their shuttle bus that goes back and forth. Onsite, they have an exercise room with a trainer, three interior courtyards that are very nicely landscaped, and a little fenced area where you can take your dogs to play. It is only three blocks from the plaza, but around it is a lot of quiet residential streets where you could walk with yourself or with your dog. Then you've got the whole city of Santa Fe right there, so I liked the location."

"I visited a friend in El Castillo. It's beautiful. They have a couple of swimming pools, they have a lot of activities, they have a happy hour every day, and they have a shuttle service that would take you places. She had invited me to join her in the dining room, this was pre-COVID, but the food was very good, and they had a buffet with a selection of dishes and desserts. It's very nice. The only staff I had any encounter with was the dining staff, and they were very friendly."

"We went to visit a family member at Santa Fe Care Center. My sister-in-law is there, and they've been really good to her. She's been there for almost two years now, and they've taken some really good care of her. They've been very attentive to her needs and everything. The staff members have been really great with her. She has dementia, and sometimes it can really be a challenge because she wants to go home so badly, but there isn't anybody to take care of her there, so that's why she's at that facility. She has a daughter and a son, but they can't be with her 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She needs a lot more care than they can give her, so that's why they put her in the facility. It's very heartbreaking, but they've been good to her there, and she's also made friends. The staff, including the nurses, are really good. If there's a problem, they let my niece know right away. They've been excellent with her. I'm not there most of the time when she eats, but they seem to have a healthy and varied diet. My niece says that their food is always very good, too. They're very clean and everything's very sanitary. They do the rosary, and they have bingo. They have different things, like one day they'll have milkshakes for them and the next time they'll have cake and ice cream or cookies. They're always having something for the residents and always celebrating something."

"My husband was at Casa Real for rehab. They did very well, even though they were short-staffed. They took excellent care of him and got him up and going, so I was impressed with that. The staff was cheerful and upbeat because they had some long-term residents there as well, so they needed to keep an upbeat attitude. The rooms were divided in two and my husband was near the window, so he was cold all the time. They had large rooms that were divided in two and there was a curtain between them. They had two beds, so my husband had a roommate. They leaned heavily toward New Mexico-style food and my husband doesn't like New Mexico-style food, but I thought they were well-prepared meals. I would have enjoyed them if I had been in his place. They had him doing physical therapy and they had occupational therapy as well. Somebody would come around with books from time to time. They were very caring and wanted to make sure that he was doing his exercises, so he could go home. It was a good value for the money."

"I toured Sierra Vista. It's more like the other facility. They don't divide it up. It's all one practical memory care, but a residential place. It's more like a home. Two men toured me, and they were very, very good. It was a very different place. I liked it very much. It's very homey, very small, and has shared rooms, which I wasn't thrilled about. Not all of them were shared rooms, but most of them were shared rooms: two rooms and a bathroom in between, in many cases. The residents were out. They looked clean. I liked it very much, except it was very expensive. They had a little courtyard with goats, chickens, and stuff like that. They planted tomatoes, and it was very lovely. It was an older house. It wasn't jazzy, but it was clean and had lovely paintings on the walls. The kitchen looked a little larger than your kitchen at home. It had kind of like picnic tables, but not picnic benches to sit in, and they sat in chairs. The residents were with staff, doing puzzles or having books open on tables. It's the one they use, those kitchen tables for different things. One lady I met said she does all the cooking, and they had snacks throughout the day. So, it looked like your own kitchen, where if you're sitting there eating, you're watching her cook. It's not in the back somewhere. So, I thought that was an interesting thing. The facility looks a little sleepy, but you could use a coat of paint in some of the rooms, and it was fine."