Harbor View Inn

User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Excellent hotel for business and pleasure in SB: I've stayed here twice, once for a business trip and the latest for a mini-vacation with my husband. Both times were very memorable. The hotel is very conveniently located to all the amenities - beach, pier, downtown restaurants/shopping (on State St.), and parks. The rooms are awesome. My business trip had a balcony view of the ocean, but you had to lean over sideways to see it. I remember the bathrooms being very posh, very impressive. There was a tub and a separate (huge) shower area with a clear glass door - very classy and modern. (I tend to judge a hotel room by its bathroom.) On my vacation trip, we had the "ocean view balcony" room, which was awesome because our direct view outside the balcony window was the ocean! You couldn't ask for a better view. The rates are very reasonable for the quality of the room and the service, as well as the location. The bathroom of the ocean view room, however, was small and cramped feeling, and not as "posh" as the other room I stayed at before on the business trip. This time there was only one tub/shower area (with plastic curtains) and the decor felt old. One thing I did NOT like was the bugs I saw in the room. I saw a few spiders (one was hanging off the ceiling on its web when we first checked in) and a wierd bug on the curtains. It was just unsettling to see. Maybe other people aren't as squeamish as I am about bugs in modern hotel rooms. I tried their room service on my work trip, and their service is fast and the food is quite tasty. I believe their food is from the adjacent restaurant Eladio's. It is quite pricey, though. But why bother eating in when you can explore all the nice restaurants on State St? Another thing I did not like was that they were doing some sort of renovation to the outside of a building while we were there last week, and they blocked off the entrance to part of the parking lot. That was VERY inconvenient and a bit annoying, as we had to drive around the block and come through a backstreet, and then walk further to get to our room. But at least it's just temporary for the hotel. Lastly, they offer "free Wi-Fi" in the rooms, but when my husband tried to access it, it never worked. The front desk gave us a login and password, but it did not work. They need to fix that. All in all, I highly recommend this hotel to anyone visiting Santa Barbara for a short stay. It's definitely a nice stay for a vacation.

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