Oceana Inn Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz

When we first walked into the room it was incredibly foul smelling. Like a litter box. It was small, dirty and in very poor condition. We stayed 5 nights and every day our keys would stop working and we had to get them re programmed. The breakfast consisted of stale bread, old cereal and warm orange juice. It was an overall bad experience. And to top it off when we returned home there was an unauthorized $65 charge on my credit card. When I called and asked what it was the manager informed me that the room was authorized for 2 guests, but they saw a third person with us walking in and out of our room. So they decide to charge a 3rd person occupancy fee. (We were visiting a friend from college that was showing us Santa Cruz.) When I said this charge was not authorized and completely ridiculous the manager said I signed a form saying I was responsible for all incidentals. I didn't know having a friend stop by the room for a couple of hours was an incidental?? If you plan to stay here (which I highly discourage) plan on paying random charges a couple days after you check out. The also charged a tourist tax, which is a complete hoax. The hotels appearance reflected the character of the management.......dirty and slimy.

My little sister attends to UCSC and this is the place were I stay. Rooms are clean, comfortable and front office workers are really nice people. I been staying in this Hotel for about 4 times and never had a problem.

Both receptionists were RUDE, come to find out they were the hotel owners. They were disrespectful, and acted like they didn't want to be there or have our business. Unfortunately we were there for a major event and all other places were booked, and they refused to let us out of our reservation without taking the full amount of our money. The room was small, and we did not get the two king beds we reserved. The carpets were so dirty, your feet turned black when you walked barefoot on it. The towels were thin and skimpy and had holes and stains on them. It was the same with the bedding. Their continental breakfast was not fit to feed guests, with their watered down fake orange juice, warm milk, and stale cereal and bread. That's all they had. The room had an unusual odor, like too much cleaning products to mask some other kind of odor. It was so strong it gave me a headache and we had to leave the windows open and the air on at full blast to keep air circulation. When I asked about the odor, the lady hotel owner denied any odor existed at all. The bathroom floor had some kind of a leak. The toilet did not work well and took forever to flush. We asked for a room with two beds since we had our son with us, and they refused. Later on we found out there was a room with two beds available, they just didn't want to give it to us because according to them, we should have booked the reservation with them instead of hotels.com, then they would have been more accomodating. This Travelodge at 525 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz, CA is a horrible place and made our stay miserable. They will never, ever get our business again and next year we will make sure that we, as well as all our members, will stay elsewhere during our yearly event. If you don't care about cleanliness, customer service, proper towels, a working bathroom, or breakfast, then this is your place. But if you want a pleasant stay, then be warned! This is not the place for you.

When we checked in we were greeted with a friendly smile, after checking in we found that it was only 116 for two nights. We had to leave a $100 deposit because we didn't use a credit card. The room was clean, big, and was great. The large king bed was comfy. Close to the boardwalk about a mile and shopping was also close by. Quite hotel. THe only thing that was wrong, when we checked out and went back to get our deposit back they went to check the room. Well the guy comes back and says that there will be a $15 charge for a stain on a towel. WHAT!!! I told him that is makeup it will come out. He said no it wont so we were charged $15. Everything up till that was great. I will go back but I will bring my own towels next time.

As part of our epic road trip through Nevada and California, Santa Cruz travel lodge was a welcome place to recharge the batteries..rooms are a good size, location to the boardwalk is good - all in all a good experience!