My grown daughter and I spent 3 nights at the Carousel Beach Inn. It is a decent, clean, middle of the road motel. It is a good location, we like to walk and we could walk to the wharf, West Cliff Drive path and downtown.
There were a few issues, but other than the squeaky bed, they weren't really the motel's fault. The wi-fi was down, we were told it was restored after our first night, but we were never able to connect. Also, the tv in our room did not work, the signal kept breaking up, we thought it was related to the wi-fi issue. We were credited 10% of our bill when I mentioned it at check out. One night we had a screaming baby next door that woke us up and the following night there was a party, but after I called the front desk they shut them down quickly.
I'll be traveling to Santa Cruz quite a bit in the future, but will not go back to Carousel Beach Inn.