Fairfield Inn & Suites Santa Cruz

Michelle at the front desk was just awesome. We arrived late, and she helped us find a room. She was exceptionally helpful and delightful. The hotel is walking distance from the Natural Bridges State Pk where we saw Monarch Butterflies make their annual migration to the northwest.

The rooms are nice and Santa Cruz is a nice location. But the parking situation is a big problem. Fairfield Inn makes no effort to police the parking lot, and it's the only safe lot in the area. Most nights if you get in after 10 pm, you'll be lucky to find a space. That's because they let contractors park truck/trailers taking up as many as seven spaces. They don't do anything about people blocking the handicapped path, so if you use a wheelchair or cart, be sure to get here early before all the contractors park their trucks and trailers. They could give each customer a parking ticket, and enforce outsiders using the lot, but they don't bother. They don't even ask for a car license plate.

Stayed 2 nights for work. Everything was clean and relatively quiet. Nice furnishing and tech. Breakfast was terrible. Would stay again for work but otherwise no. Seemed a little pricey but its Santa Cruz. Working distance to beach, somewhat seedy area.

This hotel is located about 3 miles from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk area, so it’s not very walkable to the pier or boardwalk. There is a small parking lot at the rear of the hotel, which was almost full at night (not sure where you'd park otherwise). The hotel appears to be newly built, and our 2-queen bed room was reasonably spacious. Everything looked clean and new in our room. We stayed in room #230, which smelled fine (no strong body odors as mentioned by other Google reviewers). However, it was directly above the pool area, so we could hear kids playing until the pool closed at 10 pm. After that, we could still hear people talking, so I recommend asking for a room away from the pool. On the plus side, we didn't hear any traffic noise. The hotel WiFi was very sporadic. I was able to connect in the mornings (77 Mbps down, 36 Mbps up), but it was unreliable in the evenings. So, for our 2-night stay, we couldn’t count on the WiFi. Breakfast was served from 7-10 am on weekends, with a reasonable spread of hot and cold items. The staff did a good job keeping the food stocked and the area clean. One downside of our stay was the dirty carpet in our room. After walking around for a few minutes, the bottom of my socks were black. Same for bare feet, so keep your shoes on! Also, the housekeeping staff never came into our room to take out the trash (I had to contact the front desk twice to have our trash picked up). Finally, the biggest selling point for this hotel is the room rate. Compared to hotels closer to the boardwalk and beach, the rates here are much lower, offering better value for your stay.

Hotels like this Fairfield one are hitting a new LOW. I just received a bill where they charged me to pay with my credit card. Of course, NO ONE told me about this at check-in. If I had known, I would have given them a bag of quarters. I don't know if this is an issue across Marriott group hotels, or it's just that this hotel's owner/operator is particularly dishonest. If they can behave this badly on something like this, then it's clear the hotel should be avoided as a matter of principle. Caveat Emptor!