Homewood Suites by Hilton Santa Maria

First, the good. Front desk, service staff, and manager were friendly and helpful. Nice to have a restaurant and bar on site, which was good. Stayed for three nights with my spouse and two teenagers on a ground level floor. Hotel was busy, but the site is readily accessible off the freeway. We had a room with a washer and dryer, which was awesome. Now, the not-so good. When we arrived, the front desk person advised us the hotel had been renovated seven months earlier and everything was “almost brand new”. Here’s some of the issues we experienced though, despite the newness: 1. The extra door security device, the one that flips out in addition to the deadbolt, was installed in the wrong location with a single screw. So it was not secure and literally twirled around in a circle. And even when it was in place, you could open the door because only an eighth of an inch or so even made contact with the door and it flexed as soon as pressure was put on it. 2. The toilet seat was very loose and wobbling around, which was annoying. 3. Half of the towel bar in the bathroom didn’t even have an attachment to the wall. I think it was stuck on there with some sortof adhesive and came off at the first touch. 4. The flooring is terrible, stained, and dirty. Seems super cheap and obviously hard to clean. 5. There was a dirty rag directly outside our first floor back door, which stayed there all three days. 6. The door to the toilet room was like one that is put in an RV, with a multi inch gap between the top of the door and the frame. There is also no fan in the bathroom that you can turn on, and the combination of those two things makes the space much less private. 7. The shower head is very low pressure and terrible. Takes extra time as a result to get a decent shower. 8. Our freezer was dirty, along with some of the dishes in our room. 9. Somebody in their infinite wisdom, put a motion sensor by the bathroom sink which turns on several bright overhead lights at o’ dark thirty you get up to use the bathroom. Not ideal if you’re trying to go back to sleep after that. 10. The chairs for the table in the lobby area are too tall for the table itself. Pretty much only a child’s legs could fit between the top of the seat and the bottom edge of the table with the chair and its normal position. 11. There was a terrible rattle in the AC unit in the living room, where the teenagers slept. 12. Even though I booked this for four people, there wasn’t bedding for the teenagers when we arrived late at night. 13. For some reason, you cannot proactively even turn on the fan on in either of the air-conditioning units. It turns on and off when it wants to as dictated by the thermostat I assume, but if you’re looking for constant white noise of just a fan, you can’t have it at this hotel. See my earlier comment about the lack of a bathroom fan as well. 14. Lastly, I booked this room directly with Hilton through the app, the Honors member Park and stay package, and was given a “total price for the stay” at booking which did not match what I was charged in the end. To begin with, I was double charged for parking (which the manager removed when I brought it to his attention), and then additional taxes and fees were added on, which should have been listed on the app itself. The manager said he would follow up on this issue, but it shouldn’t happen in the first place in my opinion as these taxes and fees are well-known to each hotel site and the app should be aware of that. In summary, this hotel site needs work and some more thought put into its design and execution. I have another multi day stay booked at this hotel in a few months but honestly, I’m probably going to cancel it because of this experience.

It was clean, spacious room, excellent location, friendly staff and the food was delicious.

Nothing.