We spent a few days at the Hotel Ranola as part of a long weekend getaway. We certainly found the hotel to be interesting and different, although not always in a good way.

The hotel is a former old three-story apartment building, and you can tell. We reserved one of the suites, and it reminded me of an old one-bedroom apartment that many of my friends used to have when we were in our 20s. The suite certainly was spacious as far as a typical hotel room goes, complete with a full living room and a full-service kitchen. It appeared that they left most of the old apartment fixtures and features as is, which gives it some charm I guess. But I still mostly felt like I was staying in an old apartment and not a hotel, complete with a cramped bathroom with an old combination tub/shower, window air-conditioners and creaky old wooden floors. But the room has been spruced up a bit with some modern furniture and artwork, a flat-screen TV and wifi Internet (which worked only intermittently, I should add).

The biggest problem I had with the Ranola was the noise. I tend to be sensitive to noise when I sleep, and the noise at the Ranola prevented me from getting a good night's sleep while we were there. Our suite was on the first floor on the side of the building that faces directly onto Ringling Blvd., which is a busy street with loud traffic at all hours of the day and night. To make matters worse, kids on skateboards seem to like going back and forth endlessly in front of the building, and we were awakened by skateboarders around 2 a.m. one morning. The air conditioners were also quite noisy, and one of them made loud dripping sounds all night long (I think it was dripping outside onto some kind of hard metal below). So if noise is a concern for you, I'd recommend that you request a room in the back side of the hotel (the side that is opposite of Ringling Blvd.) on the second or third floor.

I guess the best thing about the Ranola was its location. You are within easy walking distance of a lot of nice restaurants, shops, galleries and a few theaters along Main Street or on one of the many side streets off Main Street, and it's a quick drive over to St. Armand's Circle and the beaches. We also enjoyed walking to the nice downtown Farmers Market that is held every Saturday at Main St. & Lemon Ave. The downtown Sarasota area seems to be starting to come alive, and it is certainly a nice alternative to the toursity St. Armand's Circle area or the even more touristy beach resorts.

And if you want to stay in downtown Sarasota, your options seem to be pretty limited right now. There's the Ritz-Carlton on the very high end and some cheap motels on the very low end, but few nice alternatives in the middle. The Ranola fits that middle niche, so for that reason alone I guess I might recommend the hotel with some caveats. I don't think we'd stay there again, but if you want to stay downtown and are looking for a middle-of-the-road option I'd feel OK about recommending the Ranola - as long as you're comfortable with the drawbacks and cautions I've mentioned here.