Where we stayed in California - Pacific Grove, Santa Cruz & San Francisco

We are home from our big Californian Trip so this blog post is all about where we stayed over the two weeks.

The first hotel we stayed in was close to San Francisco Airport.  It was the La Quinta Inn on the El Camino Real and we chose it because we just needed to get a room close to the airport for one night after the long flight to SF.  We were pleasantly surprised by this hotel (which was a good thing because I had booked it for our last night too!) as we didn't expect too much because it was an airport hotel.  

The room was good and there was a nice pool and gym in this hotel. For breakfast there was was  hot food which included eggs, bacon and waffles along with yoghurts, cereals and breads (which I stayed away from but Ciaran enjoyed the carbs!)

The second place we stayed in was a Bed & Breakfast called the Martine Inn which was in Pacific Grove.

This was the amazing view from the dining room every morning - we even saw a whale in the bay over breakfast!!

 Every evening there was a cocktail hour with wine and hot hor d'oevres served every evening which was a nice touch.

The Inn owner has a collection of MG's in the garage out back.  My twin sister owned a 1967 MG (read about it here) so I was really interested in checking all of these babies out!

 We stayed in the Pineapple Room.  All of the rooms are full of antique furniture.  Our room was on the smaller side (perhaps the smallest in the Inn) and the only issue I had was that it was filled with really massive furniture and space was at a premium - perhaps one or two items could be removed or replaced with smaller furniture.

Check out the old school phone in our room.  I rang a local restaurant and I can tell you it really felt I was making a phone call as I pressed those clunky buttons!!

And then it was on to the Casablanca Inn in Santa Cruz. 

I loved this place......anywhere you can walk on to the beach in a few steps is fine by me!!

We had a lovely room with a king size bed and a little kitchenette. 

This was the incredible view from our little balcony - it was so special to wake up to a beach view. 

 Honestly I didn't get up to a whole lot in either beach location apart from chilling on the beach and walking the area.

Check out my bargain beach blanket. We went to buy beach towels in Pacific Grove and they were all sold out because of Labor Weekend.  We didn't want to go to another shop so I suggested we buy blankets.  We paid $3.99 for the blankets and $2.99 for the mat when I got back to the counter the lady who was helping us look for towels remarked how smart we were that we found an alternative.  She also said that we had saved money as the towels were $11.99!  :-) 

After Santa Cruz we moved on to San Francisco where we were booked in to the Adagio Hotel on Geary St.  This was a nice little boutique hotel.  The lobby was especially nice and the rooms had been tastefully refurbed.  The only issue I had with this place was that they didn't offer free WiFi in the bedrooms only in the lobby. I'm so over hotels charging for WiFi - what do you think?  On the other hand, there was free coffee available in the lobby which I very much enjoyed!

We had hoped to stay in the Adagio for our last night in San Francisco but the huge Dreamforce Conference was on in SF and the price of a room jumped to about 700 dollars!!  Whoah!  

We booked in to the La Quinta and got a shuttle from the Adagio on Tuesday evening to San Francisco Airport and then got a free shuttle to the La Quinta from the airport.  The next morning we returned to the airport by shuttle too and were on our way back to Ireland!

We were very happy with all of the places we stayed (they were all very different) and we would happily recommend them to anyone.