Well, it's a 3 star hotel, but it's not a 3 star major chain hotel. Big difference. The room was clean, furniture looked brand new and bathroom was spotless. Other than that, we would never stay here again. Reason: when we travel, we like to use the hotel and the amenities. We don't stay at hotels just to sleep there and leave. If we want to do that, we would stay at a much cheaper 3 star location away from this area, such as the comfort suites in carpinteria. Location means everything to us when we are on vacation. Living in Los Angeles, we are so used to driving and driving. When we travel, we like to unpack and just take casual walks to where we want to go. This hotel is off the beaten path.
It takes a lot of walking to stay here without driving. It is only one and a half blocks to the beach, but it is a very far walk with young kids. Once you get to the beach, to get to the sea is like walking another block. A couple of times we just took our car to the beach instead because it was easier. Defeats the purpose for us of "paying to stay" at a beach hotel. And then there were the hotel's amenities: to put it nicely, the pool area reminded us of a motel 6. It's a concrete rectangle, very stoic in appearance, with a few chaise lounges without much shade. The jacuzzi had 2 workable jets out of 6 or 7. Every time the jets were turned on, the worst noise came out of the equipment area, very unbearable, with a screeching high pitch similar to a fire alarm. There were three vending machines on property. This was very important considering that there was no restaurant or food establishment close by. The vending machine for bottled water had a sign that said, "sold out." And then there were no pool towels. When we asked where we could get one, a woman informed us that we needed to ask at the front desk. We traipsed over to the front desk and were each given one towel - that's it, one towel for each. The towels were very, very thin. Continental breakfast produced coffee, tea and orange juice with cold, day old bagels, croissants and some other type of pastry.
Very basic hotel, not worth the price. Better bet to stay away from the area and drive in.