AC Hotel Tucson Downtown

The pool

• Rooftop pool
• Heated
• Open 6am–10pm
• Guests only

Why it's on the list

A straightforward heated rooftop pool in a city that has very few — no grand claims from the operator, and none from us. It is open early to late, it is on the roof, and in Tucson that is enough to be worth knowing about.

The stay

The AC Tucson is the no-drama one — a 136-room AC Hotel that, when it opened in 2017, was the first new hotel built in downtown Tucson in roughly forty years, part of the Rio Nuevo revival right on Congress Street. AC is Marriott's European-minimalist brand, so the look is spare and the signature is the AC Lounge downstairs, all Spanish-style tapas and the brand's gin-and-tonic ritual. The reason it's here is the sixth-floor rooftop pool, downtown and the Santa Catalinas in view — no grand claims, just a real rooftop pool in a city that barely has any. At $$ it's a smart-value base for a Congress Street weekend — book it for the location and the roof.