Howard Johnson by Wyndham Marina at Monterey Bay

After five stays over the past four or five years, this will be our last. The first two visits were lovely. We drive from SD and arrived late, but they welcomed us and let us into the store for water and snacks. The last three trips got steadily worse. Oddly, there’s been a large black fly in the room on each of those visits. Not a huge deal, but strange. The noise and smells were awful. On one trip, the guest next door slept with the TV blasting all night, and when it wasn’t that, we could hear his incredibly loud snoring. On our latest stay, we were upstairs among a group that arrived on a bus. They ran between rooms all night, cooking very greasy, smelly meat. Our room reeked, and they were so loud. One man stood outside our room all night and into the next morning, coughing nonstop as if he had a horrible illness. He never went inside. We finally got a few hours of sleep, then woke to that same awful greasy-meat smell throughout the room. We’d requested an end room, and that was initially granted. But we arrived late and needed snacks and water. The person at the gas station store wouldn’t let us in and didn’t speak English. We’d never had anyone refuse to open the doors before. Even when we showed pictures, he couldn’t understand what we wanted, picked the wrong things, or said they were out. Another man asked for an energy drink and got the wrong one after the clerk spent five minutes looking in the beer section. Someone else asked for a gas receipt, and the clerk said he didn’t know how to print one. In the end, the three of us went to 7-11 instead. It was wildly disappointing. There are no cards or games at the gas station, either, for anyone wondering. Maid service was almost nonexistent. When I went to use the restroom after we arrived, the toilet paper was out. I tried the backup roll, but you need a key to replace it. Why would a maid leave the dispenser that low when guests can’t refill it without her key? We checked in on the 24th and out on the 28th, and a maid came by only once, on the 27th. We asked if they could return a little later, but they never came back. Then, three nights into the stay, our supposedly quiet room was anything but. A very loud family was above us, with kids who sounded like they were doing parkour at night and moving furniture in the mornings. If we asked for a quiet room, why not put us on the second floor so nobody was above us? On our last morning they woke us at 7 a.m. and were insanely loud for an hour. We’ve had too many problems. Skip this place.

We decided not to check in, so I can’t say anything about the rooms. The property looked like a very small apartment complex, with white and blue-gray paint. We expected to see the hotel name prominently displayed, but couldn’t find it, apart from an old sign leaning against a side wall that was hard to notice. Check-in was inside a gas station in the parking lot, right in front of the hotel.

The rooms have plenty of space and a small patio where you can sit and enjoy the morning ocean breeze. It’s an older hotel, but the rates are inexpensive, and it’s a convenient spot for a getaway to Monterey.

If something goes wrong at night, you’re on your own because the front desk disappears and leaves the building unattended. They say breakfast is included, but it’s just gas station junk food. Management feels incredibly greedy, too. They promised me a late checkout and then charged a $30-per-hour penalty. I felt they were lying to my face to get an extra buck. Don’t stay here if you don’t want to be ignored and ripped off.