Hotel is located above PapaJoe’s restaurant. The staff at the reception was friendly and spoke English. The hotel has a modern lift, accessed through the restaurant. It is not run down.
Our 2-bed room was medium sized and clean. It was not noisy even though we were above the restaurant. It was equipped with mini-bar, safe and TV with CNN.
The attached toilet was medium sized, clean and hot water worked efficiently.
The beds were comfortable and firm.
Breakfast buffet: Coffee/Tea, hard rolls, cereal, jams.
View: Our room faced other buildings.
Surrounding: 5-minute walk to supermarket/departmental store. 10-minute walk to covered car park up a gentle slope. Restaurants and shops at door step. The main churches (Grossmunster, Fraumunster, St Peter’s Church) and Zurich Lake all within 6 – 12 minutes walk.
Limitation: hotel is not near train station. It also does not have its own car park. You will need to park your car at Hohe Promenade car park and drag your luggage to the hotel (gentle slope and half the journey on cobble stone streets). The parking charges is steep at CHF40 per 24-hours.

We were really pleased with the Hotel California Zurich. Check in was a breeze with the lovely, friendly Michele at the desk who very kindly explained everything we needed to know about the hotel. The room seemed newly renovated with a great comfortable bed and nice big bath to soak in. The room was very clean and peaceful overnight (we stayed for 3 nights) and breakfast was good too, as much as we could eat, hot & cold. The location was excellent, right near the river, tram stops, restaurants, shops etc. We made our way with heavy bags from the train station via tram easily using the instructions given to us by the hotel. Free internet station in the lobby certainly was handy.

It's slightly tacky, with Eagles lyrics printed everywhere, but has character and certainly can't be accused of being bland. There is an American restaurant on the ground floor which is run by the same people as the hotel, so if you go in after about 3pm chances are noone will be at reception. You have to dial through on the phone, but the staff are always there quickly and ready to help you with anything. The room we stayed in was very comfortable, an older but decent, functional bathroom (good shower), cable tv, nice pillows (the only time in Europe I got good pillows!) and plenty of literature on Zurich. The hotel's strong points are it's location - brilliant, in the old town, very beautiful area, close to the Niederdofstrasse where there is great shopping, restaurants and bars. Despite this the hotel was very quiet. Also a short walk to the station, Banhofstrasse and all major sights. Another strong pont - free internet access for guests. Very handy. Last strong point - great staff, the manager was just wonderful and really helped us out. We had a problem with an injury and had to talk to travel insurance ppl, airlines, doctors and travel agents and she was fantastic in trying to help us sort it out. I'd definitely stay there again, though check ----- to get better rates.