2 Warnings for my fellow travelers:

Warning #1 If you are driving at night from Santa Maria or Santa Barbara towards San Luis Obispo...Do not speed on 101. The CHP is handing out tickets mostly between 7-11PM during winter.

Warning #2.- The hotel does not have any signs regarding the breakfast options. At first it appears like a typical open breakfast. After you sit down, a person comes out and asks you if you'd like to drink coffe or Juice. After they bring you the drink, they get your room # and you are billed about $10 per person for an average free breakfast. I feel they should have a sign alerting guests breakfast is not included with the room.

Otherwise, hotel is nice and renovated. Enjoy ample seating at the lobby. Bar and restaurant open fairly late.
Near 101 freeway, Panda Express, gas, Target. Good rest stop, nothing else. Average marriott rooms.

This was really a very nice hotel with well-appointed but smallish rooms and a decent restaurant. However, I could not rate it higher because when we wanted to change our reservation by decreasing our stay by one night, we were told that this hotel had a very strict cancellation policy; i.e. we had to cancel one day before arrival. Because of a stupid mistake on our part, all our reservations going forward had to be changed. We had no trouble with any of the others including the next one, also a Marriott Courtyard, which we could have cancelled up to 6 pm DAY OF ARRIVAL!! We were told in SLO that we could complain to the manager, but she was not going to be onsite until the following day around 10 or 11 when we would be gone!

We have travelled extensively and found, for the most part, the industry standard, for the "chains" to be cancellation day of arrival. It was very inconvenient to say the least, but it was our mistake. We were mislead by their website and did not read the fine print of the confirmation carefully enough. But imagine how we would have felt had their been a really good reason for the cancellation such as illness, traffic, etc. I checked on the internet and found out that there were a number of negative comments about Marriott's cancellation policies. I should also note here that a number of the Marriott properties are franchised and can set up their own rules. I don't know whether this is true for other chains as well. Just beware of all cancellation policies and check your confirmations carefully--especially Marriott's!!!

This was our hub for visiting Hearst Castle. Clean. Excellent staff. Free internet. 24/7 coffee. Lots of parking. Right off the highway. It is a couple of miles to the main drag in Obispo i.e. the Marsh/HIguera area. The only fault was the bed quality: too soft: so I had back pain both mornings.

My stay at this Courtyard was fine. The hotel is easily accessed from the highway and was only a 5-7 minute drive from Cal Poly where I was spending the week. The hotel is probably on the older side and some areas show a little wear and tear. But the lobby is nice and large with lots of seating areas. The restaurant serves a breakfast buffet and dinner, and there's even a small bar area as well. The fitness room was small but still had 2 treadmills plus a couple other machines. The treadmills are also showing their age as one of them was missing the ledge where you can rest a magazine or book while you walk, and the incline feature did not work.
My room was spacious and clean. The first day I checked in, it seemed like housekeeping had gotten distracted halfway through making up my bed, as the little decorative coverlet was draped over the sofa and the pillows were stacked on the bedside table. (?) Not sure what happened there, but the room was clean so I didn't really mind. From my third story window I had a lovely view of the central courtyard area of the hotel and the mountains in the distance... beautiful.
Overall there wasn't anything beyond the normal Courtyard standards for me. But it was a nice hotel with friendly staff and good for the business traveler.