My family and I stayed at this hotel because we had earned a free night at a Choice Hotel and this was the one with the least objectionable negative reviews on tripadvisor.com. Keeping in mind that people are more likely to write a review when the experience is negative, I went in with an open mind. For the price of about $70 per night, I expect a safe location but not a lot of frills. In that sense, the hotel is correct. The location is quiet and it is on a hill with a lovely view of an opposing ridge and the neighborhood is very quiet. If you are approaching the hotel from the west (going up the hill), you are very likely to miss the entrance. In order to enter, you have to cross over double yellow lines to illegally enter the turn lane marked for the other direction. Yikes!! Fortunately that road is frequently empty.

Check in was friendly and efficient with Mr. Ken. The room, I'd say was okay. Importantly, the beds were extremely comfortable and clean. The bathroom had old fixtures and some mildew in a few spots but nothing gross. Again, it's a middle of the line hotel. The furniture was solid; only the office chair was stained, but oh well. No fridge in the room, okay. A small thing: they only gave us one bar of soap for the shower and for washing our hands, which was a little gross as well as inconvenient. The cable and wi-fi worked well, which was nice, and there were no problems with smells or stained linens or anything major like that.

The major annoyances had to do with customer service during the stay. At one point I was trying to leave for the day with my family but I had to run back into the room for a minute. The key card wouldn't let me in. Okay, we all know that that can happen. So I went to the front desk to find no one around. I waited for at least 10 minutes, knocked on some doors. . .nothing. Nor any way to call anyone. I had to go back out, find the housekeeping gentleman (who, to be fair, was really nice), and have him get someone out to the front desk. A woman came to the desk -- I believe she has been mentioned here in other reviews -- and said she was checking rooms. I had never been to a hotel where there wasn't always someone at the front desk, and I am no luxury traveler. What if there had been an emergency? There was no official way to call anyone (fortunately the housekeeping gentleman happened to be visible at that time.) She wasn't rude, just distant. Although I was snippy at that point, I just couldn't help it; having no one available at the front desk for long periods of time is just too big a gaffe to ignore.

The other problem with the experience was noise. Not from other guests, but from the air conditioner and the buzzing flourescent lights in the bathroom. We had to turn the tv on pretty loudly to be able to hear it over the A/C din. Fortunately the hotel wasn't crowded that night, or the other guests might have complained about our TV noise.

I wondered if what had happened was a fluke, but when I went down to the lobby for breakfast (which was pretty good, by the way) again, no one was at the desk for the whole time that I was there having breakfast.

The final straw occurred on the last morning we were there. At 7 AM on a Saturday morning I awakened to the sound of chainsaws whirring and a wood chipper devouring branches, not 30 feet from my room, in the middle of the parking lot. In what school of hotel management is early Saturday morning considered a good time slot for having some trees taken down next to the guest rooms? The air conditioner did its yeoman best to drown out the chainsaw noise but going back to sleep was futile. Whatever, we checked out -- again, no one at the desk, but this time Mr. Ken showed up within a couple of minutes. I told him about the chainsaws and he gave a perfunctory apology ("I do apologize for that. . .) but what could he do? That decision shouldn't have been made in the first place, whether in a two-star hotel or a five.

I believe that this hotel is being run by a family, and they are trying to do everything themselves, but I think they need to hire at least one more person to man the front desk. Otherwise, they should have a system installed to alert them when someone is needed at the desk. The front desk help was not rude, but was distant. Fortunately for future travelers, no more tree work needs to be done anytime soon.