California dreamin' at Days Inn (Days Inn Santa Monica (California, USA))

Member Name: kevin121

Product:	Days Inn Santa Monica (California, USA)
Date:	27/12/08 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well located; reasonably priced rooms; large beds

Disadvantages: Not much in the way of hotel facilities

On my last trip to the US, we had decided to take a fly-drive around California. We wanted to pre-book some of the accomodation prior to leaving so when we planned an itinerary of 'must do' things, we would have a vague idea of whereabouts we'd need to be on any specific date. Accomodation in Los Angeles was one such location we wanted to prebook. We'd narrowed down our search area to Santa Monica, given that most of the other 'touristy' neighbourhoods in greater LA would be either too expensive (Bel Air, Malibu) or seedy and cheap (Hollywood). The criteria when narrowing down the choices of hotels in Santa Monica was that it should have customer parking, be in a central location and have reasonably priced rooms. This left us mostly with the larger chain motels, of which there is a glut in this part of LA. There were plenty which were advertised as being within easy walking distance of the pacific coast, but I didn't feel they were worth the inflated price as we mainly wanted a base from which to explore, rather than an all singing all dancing resort. We came to choose this motel because it ticked all our boxes. It also had a choice of room sizes, from suites to what they call single kingsized bedrooms.


~ The location ~

The Days Inn Santa Monica is situated on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Stanford Street, with the pedestrian entrance being in the Boulevard. If like us, you're driving here, you have to drive past the motel and turn into Stanford Street and then make a right into the motel car park. There are about ten spaces here, with plenty of others underground. The Santa Monica Boulevard seemed to be one of the busiest roads in the area, with this particular Days Inn being very well situated. Travel about 2 miles south on this road and you hit the beach, travel inland and it leads you through Beverley Hills and on to Hollywood. If like me, you make a hash of map-reading, this road is a navigator's dream.


~ On arrival ~

This is a low-level building in keeping with the locality, and only has a total of 68 bedrooms spread out on three floors. What clinched it for me with this hotel was it's pinkness. The outside décor is probably more suited to Miami's Art Deco area, and some might say it looks gaudy but I thought the pink paint suited the area perfectly. You can enter the motel either via the pedestrian entrance or via the car park, and once inside, we found the lobby to be very clean, with a nice marble floor. We were checked in by a helpful young lady who gave us the room passes and explained when breakfast was available, before we headed towards the lift for our room.


~ The Room ~

Inside, the room was reasonably sized, with two double beds, some little bedside tables and a chair. The standard amenities, being a hairdryer, a satellite television (albeit, not a new flat screen one) and small kettle were also present. Overall, I would say that the room looked clean and the bedlinen looked clean and fresh. Our room was on the second floor and faced out onto Stanford Street so didn't really catch any of the traffic noise there might be in the rooms at the front of the motel.

The bathroom was again clean with two small and two large fresh white towels to hand. The bath itself was a good size length and there was plenty of room around the basin's vanity unit to spread out my toiletries.

~ The facilities ~

In the morning we found the little breakfast area to the side of the lobby, which comprised half a dozen chairs and a few little tables. Breakfast was a choice of sugary cereals, some fruit, bread for toasting and a selection of juices as well as coffee and milk. The piece de resistance for me had to be the pastries, as this was the only place we stayed on this trip which served Krispy Kreme doughnuts and I was duly impressed. If you've never tried one, they have to be tasted to be believed.

They advertise as having Wifi access available but we didn't make use of this, so can't comment. The only other facility here was the small gym, which we didn't try out. The hotel doesn't have it's own restaurant but we didn't mind as there is such a large choice of eateries around the Third Street Promenade area.

We booked the room directly with the motel via the Days Inn website (http://netopiadesigncenter.com/smdaysinn/hotelhom e/) and paid $145 for the room between the two of us.

Overall, considering it's good location and the price of similar accomodation nearby, I would say that that was a reasonable price to pay.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A compact hotel very well situated