Hyatt Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara

Me and my husband went there for our honeymoon. I found it on the internet and it looked great. When we got there we could not believe it was the same place. It was just average. The lobby is average. The rooms are average. The pictures on the internet are very deceiving. They even put us in a room that had scaffolding in the window. Yep, nice view. Later that night we kept hearing a thump thump sound...turns out they put us next to an exit door that had a ramp. Even later we heard what sounded to be an award ceremony...it was right across the hall and was extremely loud. Finally we had to get mad and ask for another room. After all that, they gave us a room in the next building. So there we were in the middle of the freezing night changing rooms. We finally start to fall asleep only to realize they put us in a room right next door to a metal stairwell. Those idiots! Is that what you get for $220 a night...a small average room with a plastic toilet seat?

Great location. Rooms were old, dirty, musty-smelling, in need up maintenance (plumbing) and new bedding. Drapes were stained, pillows smelled of men's aftershave. Mattress was well-worn. Toilet was from 1980s. Not recommended.

My family and I just visited the Hotel this past month. On the internet, the hotel looks grand but in reality it isn't. It looks like any other nonluxury hotel. The hotel has its good and bad points and here they are: Good Points: * The hotel staff is friendly from the receptionist to the bellman. * The location is very good; just across the street from East Beach and the SB Zoo. * The bus stop for the electric shuttle is in front of the hotel on Cabrillo. * Parking is free. * Ice machines are conveniently located in all buildings. * The rooms have a small fridge and microwave so we can bring our own food, drinks and snacks. * The swimming pool is pretty clean and has plenty of towels and places to sit. * The beds are nice. The mattresses were firm and had nice pillows and linens. * A newspaper is delivered every morning. Bad Points: * The rooms are rather small for the expensive price. * The cleanliness of the room was not very good. I found hairs, that were not mine or my kids, on the bathroom floor and in the tub. * The carpet was dark and felt kind of damp. * The rooms are not well lit, even when we turned on all the lamps. * The only thing complimentary is the parking. There were two water bottles on the table in the room that did not have a sign stating, that if we drank them we would have to pay $5 for each bottle and they charged me for them. * There are not a lot of channels to choose from on their cable service and pay per view movies are a whopping $14.99 each. * The hotel is the farthest one from State St. It is not within walking distance. You must drive or take the shuttle. * Staff is not very well informed of where places are located. I asked three staff members to direct me to Bank of America and no one knew where it was. This forced me to set out in my car in an unknown neighborhood and I was pulled over for making a turn where I wasn't supposed to and got a ticket. BEWARE of SB COPS. They are unforgiving. BTW, the bank is on State Street and Canon Perdido. * Not all ocean front rooms have a nice view of the ocean. I was taken to a room that had an enclosed balcony and only had a partial ocean view with a better view of falling screen and the rooftop. I requested a nicer view, but the room was in the next building, was far from the swimming pool and was smaller in size. However, I sacrificed size for an open balcony and a nicer water view. * When I called to contest the extra charge for the unmarked water that I thought was complimentary, the receptionist took my name and number and told me a manager would call me back and the he/she never did. Beware of extra charges. * There are spiders in the rooms. On my last night in the hotel, I got up to check on my daughter who was in the 2nd bed and when I leaned in to pull the covers over her I saw an enormous black spider on her pillow. I quickly picked her up and frantically killed it on the middle of the bed. Needless to say, I slept with the light on to watch for other spiders. The night before I killed two smaller spiders, but this one was huge. * The balcony is very small and needs a good scrubbing. The floor is very dirty that it feels sticky. * The balcony furniture was oversized, dirty, broken and made of plastic. Not fitting for an expensive hotel. * The drapes were also dirty. * The walls look rustic. * I had less than half a roll of toilet paper left on the roll and the housekeeper did not leave an extra roll. I had to stop by the front desk to request one. Overall, the hotel was not the nicest I've been to. The rooms could be cleaner and lighter and more beautiful for the price. Management could be more responsive when a guest calls to make a complaint. I saw other nicer hotels in the area such as the Fess Parker Doubletree Hotel and the Oceana Hotel. I will look into those next time. You can decide if you want to stay here based on my experience. Good Luck with those spiders.

They sent me to my room at check-in with key-cards that did not work so I'm standing in the hallway with all my bags waiting for them to come open the room, the front desk clerk has me on hold on my cell phone the whole time and never even comes back to the phone. then after check-out the next day they put a charge of $250.00 on my card because they said it smelled like smoke , oh well , I don't smoke so figure it out , maybe it was one of your employees ! I'm now having to dispute this charge with my bank, what a pain. very dissatisfied the with place. My company has held their christmas parties there over the years , but I will recomend that we do not do it again. I will also let all of my customers and friends in the area and elsewhere know of this experience.

The hotel room per night is $279 with AAA discount. It doesn't offer continental breakfast and the rate is too high compares to Casa Del Mar and other near by hotels that at least offered continental breakfast. The hotel is not right on the beach like you've seen on the internet. You would have to cross a busy traffic street to get to the beach. Because of the noisy traffic street, the room is too noisy if you opened the windows/doors to get natural ocean breeze air and it's too humid and stuffy if you closed the windows/doors. There is no place to hang towles in the bathroom. The towles were dirty with black stained....yuck!

I was delighted with the property & staff and great location. The rooms have all been renovated and are very comforable with amazing ocean views. The staff was polite and professional. Prior to my visit I was a bit aprehensive after reading some other negative reviews, and I'm glad I took my friends advice and ignored the negative comments. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PROPERTY!!!

I liked the price, the location, and the down-to-earth friendly staff. I used to stay at a the Montecito Inn, but it was getting tired and noisy. Found this hotel on internet. They had a great deal where I got $25 gas cards every night I stayed. I stayed 4 nights. $100 in gas...free breakfast every day..very comfortable bed, large flat screen TV. I thought the food was very good (they have a new restaurant, Bistro). I watched the game in the bar while my wife had a massage. She said it's the best massage she's every had. We will be coming back here soon. I think our rate was around $170 per night which included the gas card & breakfast for 2. For Santa Barbara, you can't find a better deal.

Our room service food was raw and the only reason they picked up the tray of dirty dishes from a late night snack was because we ordered breakfast. Our breakfast dishes sat outside our room until 6 p.m. Saturday night and were only picked up after we called and asked if that was a normal practice. The Bell Boys were a group of guys that seemed more content with watching guests fumble with their horrendous parking gates rather than simply push a button to open the gates (which they were able to do). My first experience with them was the night I checked in. As I was walking out of the lobby, the door closing behind me, I was startled by a loud "boom" and the door swinging back open barely missing me. This due to one of these gentlemen having had punched the door (literally) to open it (bad day?). He then proceeded to man his post, sour face and all, and watch me have to get out of my car twice to open the gate. I could go on about these guys but I won't. Bottom line is that parking at Mar Monte was ridiculous-Don't be fooled. After taking a luke warm at best shower the next morning we called to ask if there was something wrong with the hot water. As it turned out our hot water heater was turned off for the brilliant reason of "I don't know". Granted this problem was fixed promptly it is still something that shouldn't happen much less without an explanation. Between everything mentioned above as well as the gigantic spider I discovered as I was packing up to leave and the exposed corner (broken floor molding) my girlfriend cut her toe open on I don't think we would ever consider staying here again. The pictures are NOT accurate and truly give the illusion of staying somewhere far nicer than what you drive up to. There are a number of hotels right behind Mar Monte that I recommend everyone checking out before putting yourself through what Mar Monte claims to offer yet fails to deliver on. The one and only bright spot of this debacle was Holly at the front desk. I had spoken to her a couple times prior to check in and she was always friendly and service minded. After sharing with her some of my issues with the location upon check out she took care of my room service charges and apologized profusely. It is walking distance to the Zoo and across the street form the ocean but so is Motel 6 so weigh your options.

DON'T STAY HERE!!!! The pictures that they have on their website are NOT THE ROOMS!!!. They have upgraded only TWO of the rooms in the hotel, and taken pictures of those. The rooms look NOTHING like the photos and definitely do NOT have the flat screen TVs they advertise. We arrived at 10pm on a Friday night after having booked 6 weeks prior. I booked online through the hotel's own website and called immediately to confirm. In the notes at that time it was put that we would be arriving between 10 and 11pm the day of check-in. Additionally, I called the Tuesday before the Friday AND Friday morning. We were booked for a King size ocean view room. When we arrived they put us in a run down, unattractive 2 queen size bed room. When we complained, they said that we had been booked for that all along and would not accommodate us. As i had confirmed only 12 hours earlier, I knew that they had given away our room and were lying. In addition to false advertising, they gave away our room then lied. AND Argued. Way to ruin a birthday weekend. NEVER go there!!!!

The Mar Monte Hotel, once a well-managed Sheraton, has been privately owned for several years and has fallen into a state of disrepair and apathy. The management is rude and inattentive; if you have any kind of problem with your room or any other aspect of your accomodation (and, trust me, you will - my wife and I encountered everything from plumbing problems to the permeating stench of cigarette smoke), you can count on getting the brush-off in the most alienating manner immaginable. When I spoke to the Director of Sales (the hotel manager herself sees people "by appointment only") he flat-out told me that he didn't care about the hotel's reputation or its guests' expereince. No wonder other reviewers have described this place as "a sinking ship." This place is so bad that my wife and I left after only three hours. We checked into another Santa Barbara hotel that was much closer to restaurants and Santa Barbara's downtown, was less expensive, and had staff and management that took pride in providing excellent service. With so many hotels in Santa Barbara, do yourselves a favor and avoid this Titanic of a hotel.