The Sheraton Sonoma County is at the South End of Petaluma and has a marina attached. Easy access from Highway 101, with plenty of parking.

I arrived on the 20th of January and immediately had two problems. Firstly the hotel was absolutely freezing, I know there weren't many guests but anytime you have to sleep in a sweater, its time to turn up the heating! Secondly, I had an old AirCon unit in my room which made a terrible rattling noise, so bad I had to sleep with my noise cancelling earphones in, and I only normally use those on air planes.

Anyway, next morning, I got moved to the next door room, which cured the noise problem, but not the heating problem. That wasn't really resolved until Monday, the next day when more people came in and they switched the heating on.

There was high speed internet, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. I took to hanging around the lift for the best signal, luckily, there are two chairs by the lifts on the ground floor where I could sit quite comfortably, but as a guide, a file I can easily download in 30 minutes at home took 4 days in this hotel!

The rooms were quite nice, very clean and a decent selection of channels for free on the large flat screen TV. They did show signs of needing maintenance though, my curtains were dilapidated and there were lots of scratches in the desk, but overall OK. The bathroom was clean, well kept and though the bath was a little short it was fine. I've given this three perhaps they deserve 4.

Food and room service were excellent, probably the best bit of this hotel and no complaints at all. If you order room service, they add a discretionary 18% tip to the bill, which they assured me go's to your server, so no need to add on any more.

The bar was a black and white contrast depending on the day you go. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday the bar lady is brilliant, very quick, very professional and great service. On the other days, the bar lady is nice and polite but glacially slow, the first night she was on it took me 10 minutes to get one bottle of beer and there were only 4 people in there!! In the end I got so fed up with this snail like service, I bought some beers from the grocery store and had them in my room, (there is a fridge).

On the service side again a game of contrasts. The front desk staff were cold and unwelcoming, I was never really made to feel welcome, despite staying there two weeks. It seemed everything was too much trouble. The housekeeping and maintenance staff were superb, Nothing was too much trouble, the maintenance guy who came to look at my AirCon, arranged for me to move rooms and even helped me, the housekeeping manager kept me informed. Equally the restaurant staff and room service staff were very good, I've already spoken about the bar staff. If it was down to the front desk staff, this hotel would get a 1, but all the other staff pulled the service rating up to a 3.

I would stay there again, for business, but if it was my own money, I wouldn't use it. Unfortunately, there are not many hotels in the vicinity so you may have no choice. If you are going in winter, take an extra sweater just in case and be prepared to wait at the bar during the week. You will have no complaints about the food though.

I was there for a business conference, the organisation and food were very good. The coffee needs to be changed more often sometimes it was cold, but no real complaints and I would recommend this location for a conference.

The location is convenient, 5 minutes to downtown petaluma, 2 minutes to an In and Out, and McDonalds, 1 minute to the freeway.

In conclusion, good, but could easily be very good.