I've been staying in motels for work almost weekly for the past 6 months and this is the first confirmed bed bug sighting. I saw one, and it was crawling on the pillow. It looked just like the pictures and met the description. We didn't have any bites, and looking through the sheets I didn't find any more. The room smelled like bug spray so they must be trying to control them.

They were changing the name to Days Inn.

I've stayed in this motel many times over the years, and it is fairly decent with a very good location and comfortable amenities. It is usually much less expensive than other local motels. One note - they assured me that the King rooms were larger, but in fact we found out they are smaller than the Queen rooms. The Queen rooms facing Cantwell's Market (which is really good) have an extra chair, a "makeup mirror" and shelf in the hall, a bigger closet, and have a much better layout.

we used to love visiting El Prado Inn - it was homey and funky (the ashes of the long dead pet cat were on the front desk), it felt family owned and run...but above we always felt welcomed.

Not so much this trip. It was apparently sold off and now it looks as if the new owner is 'trying' (not too hard) to give it a boutique feel without much success. The lobby is barren except a couple of chairs, the 'free continental' breakfast was some wrapped up pastries and the warm feel was replaced by sterile chairs and tables.

The gentlemen who staffed the front desk were very unfriendly and it felt as if they really didn't even want to be there.

Sad - we're looking for another 'new favorite' place to stay.

The good news is Santa Barbara (at least the State Street area) seems to be coming back - not as many empty storefronts as during our last visit....the streets were crowded, it appeared many people were shopping and the restaurants were full.

Keep Santa Barbara on your weekend vacation list - just not this property

We arrived on a Wednesday late afternoon on the train. We were able to find the inn fairly easily from the train station after asking a local for directions and taking the 25 cent shuttle up State Street. We had only booked a 5 night stay the day before and the El Prado Inn was one of few hotels with vacancy. We were given our key and made our way to our room; it was a little hot and we noted a damp, musky smell so we decided to open the window to air it out a bit. This is when we noticed the window was faulty. The window opened but the latch was broken and we could not close or lock it back in place. This posed a security issue with leaving our belongings in the room unattended because the window could easily be accessed from the outside. Also, there was no screen in place as the other windows had. After informing the receptionist about the problem we were instructed to wait around as he asked the maintenance guy to check it out. We waited 45 minutes to an hour before we went back down to the desk to see if anyone would show up. We were told the maintenance guy wouldn't be there until tomorrow and another staff member came up right away. He acknowledged the problem and said the only thing he could do was to change our room. We were happy that the problem was dealt with.

The second room had a strong damp and moldy smell also and we realized it was coming out from the bathroom . This was cleared up when we turned on the A/C but was always present in returning. Having the mini fridge was a plus and the bed was comfortable.

The following morning we went down for the complimentary breakfast and were not impressed. It consisted of prepackaged muffins and pastries and a few hot drinks. The rest of our stay we decided to go out for breakfast.

The daily rate for Wi-fi was $5 so we ended up spending that $5 at a Starbucks down the street for free Wi-fi instead.

Housekeeping came daily and did a swift and good job in refreshing the room.

Overall, it was not the best place for the price but was a convenient location to walk to all the local attractions.

We booked this room to go to a local wedding. The room faced a State Street which is very busy. I asked for an inside location overlooking the pool and they only had King size beds and they were all booked for the weekend. The room was fine, the pillows horrible bring your own like we did. Plan on going somewhere for breakfast. They say they have Continental Breakfast but all it was were sweet rolls, coffee and tea. That's it!!
But basic room reasonable