We arrived at the hotel after a day of driving our new college student up to the university and moving her into the dorm. We arrived late and exhausted. The desk clerk was apparently new. He told us our room was upstairs. After carrying our bags upstairs and looking around, we finally found the room, downstairs and in the back. When we entered the room there was a chemical odor that I felt in my throat. Then when we got into bed, it turned out that the mattress was soggy! Apparently, housekeeping had had to clean something off of the mattress, and had just made it up while still wet! It was so late and all hotels were full because of move in day-I thought I would just pile towells on top of the wet spot and it would be okay. I ended up having the worst sleep ever-I could not get comfortable and woke up many times in the night with my pajama bottoms soaked from the wet. In the morning my husband asked the person at the desk for more towells to shower with since we had used all towells to cover the mattress. They told him there were no extra towells available. We ended up drying off on the bedcover! I reported the problem to the desk clerk in the morning so they would be sure to tell housekeeping never to do that again. The desk clerk seemed completely unconcerned and never even apologized for the experience. Overall, a horrible night and I would never stay here again.

Big room, huge bed, free wifi, parking near the room, large breakfast and a free USA TODAY in the morning. Relatively inexpensive. A great find that I'll be returning to on my next Santa Cruz visits.

We decided to extend our vacation at the last minute to go to the beach. We decided on Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and started looking for a hotel. Of course being peak season, everything was expensive. Not wanting to take our chances with Priceline, I decided to book something that got decent reviews on Trip Advisor.

I found this hotel and after checking prices on other hotels and after I saw that I could save an additional % by going through Costco travel, I was sold.

Although I thought the price was pretty high for what were were getting, it started seeming to be a good deal as I continued to compare.

The room was on the small side, but adequate for what we needed. The refrigerator and microwave were nice to have for our family and for making sandwiches the next day. We didn't use it much except for sleeping.

I was more impressed by the value the next day when I went down to breakfast to see that the included FREE breakfast went beyond cereal and stale danishes to waffles, eggs, sausage, yogurt, bagels, fruit and more. We loaded up on breakfast which was a great savings for our large family. Also, I chatted with another mother of a young child and they had come last minute as well. They picked our hotel because of the breakfast since the other hotels in the area didn't have anything comparable. They paid $80 more than we did by booking "at the door."

The downside was the free WiFi. I was able to get it on my iPhone, but the password they gave me didn't work on our laptop. It was not a "network key" and when we called, the staff was not helpful or knowledgeable about getting anything to work. But, for one night, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Close to the 101 Fwy (but not noisy) and only a few miles from the Boardwalk, we were happy with our stay here.

With Best Western, you expect a certain standard: at least the basics with everything functioning properly. This VERY small hotel doesn't quite measure up. The rooms are old, although clean. My room was back in a corner, down a dark outside corridor. I made sure my door was bolted with the night lock on whenever I was in the room. The hotel is on a busy road, and you can hear the traffic all night long, plus you hear ANY guests that are outside in the walkway. The walls are thin. This hotel boasts of a hot tub. It is just a small plastic tub in a small fenced area off the parking lot. It wasn't even half full of water, and it wasn't hot, just tepid. The jets didn't work properly. The staff did not seem knowledgable about the Santa Cruz area, although they were pleasant. The good thing is the beds are VERY VERY comfortable. Continental breakfast is included, but includes mini muffins, only white bread for toast, and packaged sweet rolls like the kind you get in a vending machine. Just not up to BW standards.