I recently stayed at this motel while in the area for a meeting.

Pros:
Clean room, microwave, refrigerator, comfortable bed, cable TV, pool, close to Whole Foods, Safeway, Starbucks and Cal Train. I had an inside room by the pool and it was so quiet I could hear my ears ring.

Cons:
The air freshener or cleaning products they use are a STRONG floral scent and it was overwhelming. The breakfast included isn't much of a meal. It is more of a snack, but they did have bananas and apples. The check-in system is antiquated...i.e. they don't appear to have a computer system and you have to hand write your check-in information. I haven't had to do that in YEARS!

The motel is older, but the neighborhood appears to be safe. It is adequate for what I needed...a clean, safe place to stay, but probably not for more than one night here and there. I *might* stay here again, mostly because of proximity to my monthly meeting and Whole Foods.

I would say it more of a 2 1/2 star motel. The biggest negative being that horrible floral smell in the room.

Our stay at the America's Best Inn met our expectations. The room was clean and large enough, and the beds were comfortable. We did have breakfast, which was fine, with a choice of cereals, danish, and toast with juice and coffee: nothing special, but certainly adequate. The price for the room was reasonable. The receptionist at the desk was not particularly friendly, but did his job. We did have a minor problem in that the alarm clock and lamp over the beds were not plugged in when we arrived. Given that the outlet was a bit hard to reach, we were pleased when someone came and fixed the problem. I would rate this motel somewhere between average and very good.

Do not stay here if you want to sleep. It is 1:48 a.m. and the air conditioner in the window ranges from quiet to extremely loud. Just as you adjust to one level of sound, it takes off to the next until the vibration of the motor becomes an annoying roar. Everything else about the place is fine, but what is the point of paying for a room when you can't sleep?

So we had an interesting stay here. We arrived here because I found generally good reviews from TA but made the stupid mistake of not making reservations. So when I walked in and told them I needed 4 nights, the staff immediately told me it was going to be difficult. Doh!

Some thoughts on the staff. The staff is run by what appears to be an Indian family and they have some unusual business practices. For starters, all the booking was handled with pencil and paper - not electronically on a computer. I'm not sure if their systems were temporarily down or not but this was pretty odd. This made them come off like they were more unorganized. Also, the general way that they interacting with the customers would make some people think they were rude and didn't care about you. But after staying there for 4 nights, I can vouch for their hospitality - even if it was a bit different than what most American's are used to.

So what happened was that weekend we came was apparently the same weekend as a school graduation in the area. So our first night we were in a non-smoking room (we don't smoke) but because of how crowded it was, our next night we were forced to move to a smoking room. Again, the staff worked with us (even though we had to discuss this with them longer than we wanted) and made sure the room was as clean as it could be. This included putting a very expensive machine in our room while we were gone to capture all the smoke odor. When we arrived later in the evening, you could hardly smell the smoke. The last 2 nights we were able to move back to a non-smoking room, which was nice. All of this moving would have been avoided if I would have made reservations. Other hotels wouldn't have even worked with us but they were friendly enough to try their best and it worked out in the end.

About the hotel itself. It's in a great location (about halfway between San Fran and Santa Cruz). Redwood City is a very nice city as well with a downtown area not even a couple blocks from this hotel. Rooms were very clean and you had all the usual accommodations you would expect from a hotel like this. Breakfast was simple but good enough. Considering all of that, one would think their rates are very high, but in fact they were very reasonable at about $75/night.

All in all, I would recommend this hotel to anyone visiting the area, but you have to realize the staff aren't like most American hotel staff. But even though they may come off as rude, they really are nice people.