Because of TripAdvisor recommendations, we decided to stay at Sierra Suites for 2 nights. Upon arrival I was very impressed with the area and the outside of the hotel. It is fairly new and is in the Rivermark plaza, where there are restaurants, including McDonalds, a Safeway, Blockbuster, and other shopping available. There are also new homes there, so I felt very safe in this area and was glad to have stores close enough to walk to. We arrived early and were given our room with no problem. We were on the 5th floor and our room was extremely clean, but I had thought that it would be bigger. The bed was very comfortable and the kitchenette was a definite plus, and well stocked. The bathroom is small but adequate. There is a chair and sofa in the living room, and the sofa makes into an uncomfortable bed. It was nice to have a TV in the bedroom and living room, since I usually like to read while my husband enjoys TV. The room was a little noisy since it's next to a busy street, and I heard vacuuming out in the hall around 9am on the one morning that I got to sleep in. Twice (we were only there 2 days) we had housekeeping interrupt us. Once she came right in without knocking ("Oh, sorry") and the next day she knocked and wondered if we were ready for housekeeping even though we had the don't disturb sign on the door. She obviously didn't speak English. We told the front desk about this so hopefully they will take steps to make sure this doesn't happen in the future. That has never happened to me before at other hotels. The hotel was modern and clean, no bad smells, but I felt it was overpriced at $123 a night. That is a lot of money for regular working people and I expected more, as I have had at other hotels. For example, bottles of water in the room upon arrival would have been nice. They do have a small snack area by the front desk, but bottled water is $2!! I don't think there's any reason to charge outrageous prices. My husband and I were very thirsty, so we bought them, but I later walked over to Safeway and bought a gallon for .89. There is a fee for local calls, which I think is really tacky. And they have DVDs that you can take to your room to watch, but they charge $4 each. In my book, little things mean a lot, and for the price of the room, I think they could give a few more extras and make you feel you got your money's worth. The free breakfast was fairly good, fruit, muffins, cold cereal, sausage, scrambled eggs, waffles, coffee, juice. If I went to Santa Clara again, I would look for another hotel, more reasonably priced. About three years ago I stayed at the Larkspur Landing in the San Jose area (Campbell), and feel it's about the same as Sierra Suites (though with a smaller breakfast) for a lot less money.