This is a no-frills hotel that has a bed bathroom and rooms are realitively quiet. and also have covered parking which is very beneficial case it's raining but overall it was great and I would stay again. Was the cheapest we could find.

We arrived around midnight to an area that was completely sold out. The owner took full advantage of that and charged us $170 for a 1/2 star, at best, motel. The outside was cute in the dark. The inside was shabby. We would have asked for our money back and gone a little further south except when we arrived in the motel office the guy was conveniently on the phone saying he "only had one room left and it was $170 and he could not wait an hour". He "obviously" was selling us the last room and as he'd turned down a customer for us would not be obliged to refund our money if we complained after we saw the room. A pretty good scam and we were suckered. After we left the next day I called to find the actual room rate was $55.

Our stay at the Mission Bell Motel was very nice. We stayed in one of the newly refurbished rooms. The owner is very personable. The location is centrally located: close to the mall and within a few minutes to the beach.

I pulled into this motel becuse it looked like the motels I remembered from my childhood. Each room with it's own covered parking area, that southern California architecture was the draw. The manager was firly high pressure in his sales when I balked at the price, $129/night. He walked me to the room to show me the value I would be getting. Red flags for me, that I ignored because of the charm of the structure, were that it seemed to be populated with people living there, rather than staying overnight there. Men wandering the parking area in their pajamas smoking and talking to other residents. I agreed to the price because it was a weekend and I was tired. The room was clean and the bathroom had just been renovated. It lacked air conditioning and I was worried about leaving the windows open because of the other residents. The kitchenette lacked a coffee maker but the manager found one somewhere and brought it to the room. It was not clean, but functional after washing it out. I was awoke at about 2:30 by loud banging in the room next door and a loud arguement that lasted over an hour. I slept little and left early. The manager takes pride in his establishment as evidenced by the cleanliness and general appearance of the motel. He was sweeping the drive when we checked out. I think he is trying to keep the place going by taking in renters. I would not stay again.