In mid June 2007 my wife and I traveled on Interstate Highway 5 south from Northern California to Southern California to spend time with family. Along the highway in the lower central valley near the town of Coalinga we stopped for the night at Harris Ranch Resort. We had no reservations but were able to acquire a room without problem even though the resort seemed quite busy. Harris Ranch is a huge corporate entity with many farms and ranches stretching across the breadth of the southern San Joaquin valley. The resort itself was really quite lovely with its “California Mission style” architecture, vast garden spaces and dotted with pools and spa pools through out the property. Our room ran us about $135 with our AAA discount and was spacious, clean and loaded with amenities. Adjacent to the hotel was a complex that featured a café, bar, meeting rooms and upscale dinner house. Of course the dinner house featured Harris Ranch products but Harris Ranch beef was the star of the show. We ate at the dinner house and had “bone in rib eye” steaks, garlic mash potatoes, grilled vegetables, garden salad and delicious home made bread followed by a glass of excellent red wine. Our bill was just under $100 including the tip. All in all a good stay at an interesting property, however, there was one problem we should mention. The odor! Just north of the Harris Ranch resort, there is a huge feed lot with hundreds, maybe thousands of head of cattle. In temperatures around the 100 degree mark the smell of cow manure was nearly overwhelming. Other guests we talked to said that at times, when the wind was right, the fecund odor was nearly unbearable.

Despite being little more than a glorified motel, I have to admit that this place presents some compelling reasons. It's a nice stopover point on the road from northern California to LA, with reasonable rates and well-maintained facilities. The actual rooms, while sparsely appointed, feature large, comfortable beds and a completey garish but admittedly comfortable pleather recliner. The grounds, however, rival those of a four-star resort; the landscaping is immaculately well-kept, flowers are beautifully arranged, and a massive array of fountains continually flow. Across the parking lot from the hotel is a dining pavillion with a gift shop and deli counter, bar, formal steak restaurant, and a casual "home-cooking" style restaurant. The food served is decent, while scouring the gift shop is a futile effort. Overall a pleasant stay- would return again a stopover, but not for more than one night.

Wonderful rooms, beautifully decorated, also has a "pet friendly" wing just for pet lovers. Beautiful grounds plus large pool and several spas. Restaurant had great menu/food. Couldn't ask for a better place to stay!

We were driving back home from Disneyland, and the trip was just too long for our young kids to have to do in one day, so we stopped at the Harris Ranch. My husband was able to get a good rate for our room, which was very cute and a nice size (especially coming from our hotel near Disneyland). The shower was nice, they had special oatmeal soap with their monogram on it that was actually quite nice, a little bottle of scope and glycerin soaps and decent coffee for the room coffee maker. We were looking out over the back parking lot, but the view was still pretty good, and the room was everything we could have wanted. The beds were comfortable, the pool looked fantastic, the food in the Ranch Kitchen restaurant was very good if a bit pricey. The smell of cows was there, but not strong enough to really bother anyone. All in all, we will definitely stop here again on our way down to Disney next time. They do sell their beef here, though the prices were way beyond what we would want to spend to cram into our car on the way home from a trip.