We planned a trip to Solvang, but my wife wanted to leave a day early and stay by the beach. I found this hotel online which was cheap and the reviews said it was newly renovated. I booked it as we were only going to stay 1 night and the reviews were not bad.
Check-in: VERY easy. I talked to the owner who was friendly and let us know about the usual highlights and rules about the hotel (checkout, free wifi, free Continental breakfast). The owner mentioned we missed the huge Spring Break crowd of the last 2 weeks. I guess Southern CA has their Spring Break at a different time than ours. The whole town was booked the 2 weeks prior to us coming.
Room: we stayed on the 2nd floor which we could see a sliver of ocean. The 2 beds were Tempurpedic which gave everyone (2 boys, wife and I) a great night rest. The fridge was bigger than the usual tiny hotel fridge. Microwave was nice and clean. The bathroom and room overall looked freshly painted and upgraded recently.
Location: It took us 5 minutes on a slow walk to the beach and 7 minutes from the pier and the main area for eating/shopping. There were 2 benches on the balcony above the pool. This is a great place to sit, watch the sunset and for us, have dinner from Splash.
Shower drain: The drain was slow. The owner actually came up to our room to inspect it. He said because we came from the beach the sand in the drain is what caused the slow drain. The drain was slow before we showered (as we were waiting for the water to warm up). I've never had this problem at any other hotel by the beach.
Continental Breakfast: Apples, milk, yogurt, cereal, danish, muffins, coffee, orange and apple juice were ready from 8-10am.
We left some clothes in the room and didn't realize it until we unpacked in Solvang. We called and had to wait until the next day to talk to the maid staff. We called the next day at 10am and the maid staff was already washing the found clothes. They kept our clothes until we picked them up on the way back home later in the week.
Overall, not a bad experience except for the shower drain. I don't like standing is water while taking a shower.