I assume your post was directed at @FinsToTheLeft, but I’ll answer for the Safari Inn as well – I suspect you would need to have a reservation there during the peak tourist season. It’s fairly close to Universal Studios and other attractions, to I would guess it fills up with tourists visiting those places.
That is a good point, though. Traditionally, motels were mostly intended as stopovers for people traveling by car, and those people typically wouldn’t have made reservations ahead of time. Hence the neon “[no] vacancy” sign being a common feature of old motels. With many of the remaining classic motels becoming boutique properties, they’re becoming destinations in and of themselves, rather than mere stopovers.
The Safari Inn will be the first from that list for me, but if I travel to anywhere near the others I’ll make a point to stay in them. I wish I had known about the Sundown Inn the last time I was in Morro Bay. They’ve still got some Magic Fingers vibrating beds! I’ve never actually seen one of those in real life.
Does anyone happen to know if the Capri used to be a chain? The Curbed article I posted earlier includes the Capri in San Francisco, and I’m aware of another Capri in Santa Cruz (It’s one of the cheapest places near the Boardwalk, but it gets so-so reviews) that looks to be from the same era, and Lileks lists a Capri in Redding (Appears to be still there, but definitely does NOT look like a place where I’d want to stay).
I have. I was on a varsity sports team, and we were competing out of town. We were booked into a less-than-desirable motel, where the rooms had Magic Fingers vibrating beds. Just for fun, we tried them, and the team’s consensus was, “bleh.”
Morro Bay is full of little motels and inns. Never stayed at the Sundown (I usually rent a condo on the bay) but the Blue Sail Inn is nice and relatively inexpensive.
When I travel, I need a bed, a toilet, a bathtub, and quiet. Like others have said, the outward-facing doors to motels aren’t conducive to quiet, and that’s disregarding any naturally-noisy clientele. Cheap, full-service hotels like Ramada are also noisy, albeit quieter than cheap motels. So I stay at Hampton Inn by default, since it is expensive enough to usually keep out the party crowd, even though it is around the same price as Ramada, which is cheap enough to draw the party crowd.
(On my trip to Mesa Verde, I pitched a tent at Morfield Campground, which is the closest to glamping I’ve been, being like an RV park with a laundromat, small breakfast bar, and store, albeit the store was much larger than the average RV park’s, and the campground had wi-fi. I thought it was pretty humorous to be surfing the web in my tent.)
I’ve been there twice. The first time I camped in the state park. The most recent time I stayed at the Rockview Inn, which was fine, fairly typical budget accommodations (It looked like it was formerly a Travelodge, based on the fact that the phone still said Travelodge on it). But it certainly didn’t have the charm of the Sundown. I love the general vibe of Morro Bay. Such a relaxed little beach town. I will have to get back there one of these days.
But back to Santa Cruz, the Fireside Motel has the best sign in town, IMO even better than the tropical fish sign at the Islander from the Curbed article:
Santa Cruz is full of midcentury motels, which isn’t surprising for a tourist destination. Although they are slowly going away – the last time I was in the area I noticed a row of three old motels had been demolished and replaced by a big modern hotel.
This place is in the town where I grew up, and if memory serves it was built in the early to mid 1990s, which probably makes it from the very tail end of the motel era. Looking at it now it looks kind of like a transitional form in between the classic motel and the current hotel design. There’s a large lobby at the front rather than the small offices the old motels had (I suspect they wanted to include a breakfast area in the lobby), but the rooms are still accessed from the outside, like a classic motel. As I recall it was a Ramada Limited when it opened; now it’s obviously a Quality Inn & Suites.
I’m kind of amused by that newer Holiday Inn Express looming over it in the background, I guess it provides a good comparison to modern hotels.
A fair number of Quality Inns that I have stayed at over the years (and I’ve stayed at quite a few) have that basic design: a relatively large lobby, with tables where you can eat the free breakfast in the morning, but rooms with exterior doors so that you can park right outside your room. Most of them have also been two or maybe three stories, so sometimes you have to climb stairs or take an elevator to get there. It’s slightly more upscale-looking than the traditional roadside motel, but still near the bottom of the Choice Hotels product line.
I’ve stayed in some good motels and some super sketchy motels. My overall advice is if “Rodeway Inn” is in the title, steer away as quickly as possible. I have experience with them in Billings, MT and Seatac, WA. If you want to read some fun reviews, go to Trip Advisor for both those locations. Those reviews are 100% legit except for the few that give good reviews…those people snuggle up with crack pipes or something. I don’t care how cheap they are compared to the competitors, it is NOT WORTH IT!
I was just in Morro Bay on Saturday. Stayed at the Sandpiper Inn, an older no-frills place that was clean and fine for one night. I always stop in at Giovanni’s Fish Market for some smoked albacore…very tasty! If you take the path all the way around to the back side of the rock there’s a neat “rock garden” of sorts where people have piled up scores of cairn-like sculptures.
Montana de Oro is definitely worth a visit. Don’t miss the visitor center’s Spooner Ranch House museum (try to find all the minature cows!) Another cool spot is the Los Osos Oaks Natural Area. The trails take you a couple of groves of gnarly old oaks with a real haunted forest vibe.
I just checked the Quality Inn I stayed in recently (in Brownsville, TX), and it was built sometime between 2007 and 2011. Same layout as you describe: motel-like rooms with a lobby area for breakfast, etc. It started as a Super 8, then became a Texas Inn, then a Quality Inn. It got painted somewhere along the way.
So I think I dispute the premise to some extent, except that the word motel is out of fashion compared to inn.
The Half Moon Motel on Sepulveda in L.A. used to have this sign:
There was also a lounge which seems to have been a fully stocked bar, though I have no idea how often it was used.
Sadly, the property has been remodeled and renamed, and the neon replaced with an illuminated plastic blade sign.
There are three motels along this short block, and at least one of them goes back to the mid 1920s when Sepulveda Boulevard was little more than a country highway.
In 1976 I was 18. My first experience with a motel involved renting a room in Monroeville, PA. I forget the cost, but I took the 90 minute option (versus overnight) and the room came with two cans of beer.
(tangent…)
My family stopped in Tucumcari about twenty years ago in July or August, and as I was filling the gas tank I heard the familiar sound of rustling leaves blowing on a fall day in the Northeast.
But it wasn’t a fall day in the Northeast. And the rustling sound was coming from millions of huge cockroaches skittering across the ground.
I was happy that we were staying on the second floor.
Was that par for the course in Tucumcari or did we luck on Cockroach Week?
(end tangent)
The difference is that resorts tend to have a lot more access control than a motel. Disney’s All-Star and similar resorts for example have gated entrances to the entire complex. The parking lots are also separated from the buildings and the rooms face courtyards and lawns which may have some additional gates and fences. So while the buildings themselves look a lot like motels, their arrangement and access is more like a traditional hotel. Also, since resorts are generally in more tropical environments, there’s not as much concern about thermal performance, and the covered walkways shade the rooms from hot sun.
I’ve stayed at motels that give you a couple beers when you check-in. On one of our last motorcycle trips, we stayed in Riggins, ID on the last night and those two cold yellow beers were a great surprise after a hot day of riding. The route from Enterprise, OR and down and back out of Hell’s Canyon is a great bit of riding.
