The staff are really friendly and helpful. Check-in time was 3:00 pm but we have a morning flight so we got there around 10:00. The front desk told us to call back at 1:00 to see if we can check in. We head over Fishermann's Wharf and just walked around the city. We went back to the hotel at 1:00 and was able to check-in. The room was clean with coffee maker, refrigerator and fireplace. We didn't really use the fireplace.

We stayed for 3 nights. We booked our flight, hotel and car through expedia so I don't know exactly how much we paid for the hotel room. I know that the price is worth it. We definitely recommend it. It is kind of noisy so if you're sensitive to noise then you might as well find another hotel but as far as service and room plus breakfast, it's great! We will definitely stay there if we get to come back to Monterey.

Granted, I was in Monterey on business not pleasure, but this hotel did nothing to help with relaxation at the end of a long day. I checked in around 3 pm to a parking lot full of construction...which was not mentioned when I made the reservations. Room turned out to be right next to the construction with my bathroom window opening onto the construction itself. Found it very warm in my room when I checked in and found that there was no air conditioning and had to open the windows just to let some breeze in, only to let the construction noise and dust in as well...was told later by a local that air conditioning is not a standard feature anywhere in the Monterey Pennisula area. Hotel hasn't had a good interior overhall in probably 10 years...bed spreads are at least that old. There is a mini fridge, sink and coffee maker in the room however and free wi-fi. Walls are paper thin as I could hear the street from inside my room as well as the neighbors on the other side. Continental breakfast was supposed to be served and ready at 7 am, which I needed as I had to leave for meetings by 7:30. Coffee wasn't put out until well after 7 and only bananas and croissants followed after that--all of which were promptly gobbled up by the construction workers who were loitering in the lobby area before beginning work. I don't know if more was put out later as I had to leave with just a weak cup of coffee to make it to work on time.

We booked at the Sand Dollar Inn as we were meeting friends who were also staying there and recommended it. I checked it out on Tripadvisor (luv you, Tripadvisor!) but was disappointed in the overall experience.

Upon checkin, the clerk was slow (but kinda cute) and seem baffled by the fact there were 3 parties waiting to deal with their issues. Checkout was similar. He was nice enough, but just not "on the ball".

Our room - close to a stairwell, VERY noisy! Beds OK, fridge greatly appreciated, TV just OK, but no vanity space to spread out and do hair/makeup - what little vanity space there was was taken up by a coffee maker. Also, we had to schlepp our luggage up and down 2 sets of awkward stairs (even though it was technically ground level) when a ramp would have been a perfect solution. You'd think someone would have thought of it when they put in what appeared to be relatively new tile work. The heater appeared to have once caught fire (it was chilly in the evening and we turned the heater on) and once the heater ran for a while it gave off a weird smell (like perhaps the carpet was starting to get hot?). It wasn't so cold that we couldn't live w/out the heat, so I just turned it off. The feng shui of the room was all wrong.

The breakfast. What a joke. Not so much the food (standard fare) but they only have 4 tiny tables (I've used airline seat-back trays which were larger) with 2 tiny chairs per table - every morning there was a great deal of jockying for position with at least one or two persons standing, trying to eat. Food was, as reported, standard - nothing special. Everything was away very promptly at 9:00 (9:30? possibly).

We were only there 2 nights, it was clean but I would not make a point of returning there or recommending it. Maybe we just got a bad room on a bad day.

We got a reservation for a room for a night from a local service called resort2me (which is a free service to find hotels in monterey) and also got a 15% discount on it. Great value hotel, very clean, they even allowed us to checkin early (we reached at 1230 and didnt realise that we were too early). The room is decent sized one with a balcony and a nice warm fireplace. The internet connection was pretty good. The only problem we found was the room was a little difficult to reach - too many winding steps and there was water in one place which made the stairs quite slippery. But over all great experience, value for money, close to downtown Monterey (lot of eating places around). close to fishermans wharf. Not the best of places if you want to stay right on the water but around 5-6 blocks from the Bay. Ample parking place in the hotel parking, heated pool.