Sandyland Reef Inn

Loved our stay at Sandyland Reef. The beautiful hacienda style courtyard had us wondering if James Dean or Frankie Avalon stayed here. I booked a room based only on price. I was very surprised at the low ratings on TripAdvisor. This is a privately owned hotel, so don't compare to the chain hotels. Breakfast was not included, but the savings on lodging more than made up for that. Complimentary coffee provided in the office. Our room was very clean. The only problem we had was parking. Only one parking space per room. My husband and his buddy rode motorcycles, and I was driving truck with a small trailer. Finally configured all vehicles into 2 parking spaces. Would definitely stay here again.

We stayed at the Sandyland Reef Inn two nights (Thur. & Fri.) the last week of Jan. during a short excursion to Santa Barbara. Not wanting to spend an "arm and a leg" on a motel (low priority for us), we flipped a coin to decide between the Sandland Reef or Motel 6 -just down the street. Both had mixed reviews and similar rates (the Sandyland Reef being somewhat cheaper). We got a room at the far interior end of this older, brightly painted motel which was good because of the highway traffic noise. The room/bathroom seemed cleaned upon a cursory inspection when checking in (after a long wait), but later, we noticed an unpleasant odor in the bathroom. We minimized the smell by keeping the bathroom window open during the duration of our stay. (And as there's no fan, the window needs to be opened for showers anyway.) Our room was definitely one in need of both an upgrade and the addition of further amenities. A bathroom towel rack would have been useful and the addition of a side table with table lamp would have been greatly appreciated. As I am intolerant of bright overhead fluorescent or LED lights, I was forced to wear my shades with visor during the evening. On the plus side, the beds were comfortable and the coffee available in the office on Friday morning was actually fairly good. But on Sat. morning, no coffee was provided except for instant coffee and hot water (and there's no microwave in room - so no ability to make one's own coffee). In summary, on the plus side, this motel has good highway access and offers a relatively low nightly rate in comparison to Best Western, Holiday Inn or other similar higher priced motels. It also has a laundry room. However, this reviewer thought that the negatives outweighed the facility's good points - lack of basic amenities, smell in bathroom, highway noise, lack of coffee one morning. Hence the two stars.