My wife and I spent a 3 day weekend in Sonoma wine country in early September. We stayed at the Best Western Plus Wine Country Inn & Suites (formerly the Holiday Inn Express) on Hopper Avenue in Santa Rosa. This has good access to nearby Route 101 without being directly on the highway. It is located north of downtown Santa Rosa making it a great location to explore the Russian River, Dry Creek and Alexander Valley wineries. The Best Western room was comfortable and what you would expect for a chain motel. It does offer a free breakfast off the lobby which included breads, cereal and hot eggs,bacon and waffles. There is an outdoor pool for the warmer weather. The property is surrounded by other development with parking in the rear and the front. I would recommend it if you are looking a mid range places to stay in the area.

We booked the Travelzoo $79 package, which seemed to be a great deal. The breakfast was good and check-in was easy. However, I swear that the Travelzoo ad mentioned a jacuzzi spa and there wasn't one on the property. Also, the pool wasn't open the hours that the front desk person said it was. Sunday after an early breakfast, we went back to our room changes for a swim, only to find the pool still closed until 10am. Our balcony overlooked a garbage dumpster, not nice to look at or smell. Worst of all, our room smelled like smoke and when we called the front desk to request a switch, were told that we couldn't switch and so we had to open doors and windows on a cool November evening to try to air the room out .Can't say I would recommend this and I am not a picky traveler in general.

My wife and I picked this motel primarily because it was dog friendly, and we found we made a good choice.

The motel is near the freeway, but away from the noise. We had a 'suite" - two adjoining rooms, one that had a sofa bed, fridge,microwave and jacuzzi tub - which had been recently remodeled. Although the work was not excellent, we could tell that the rooms had been redone and painted. The rooms were clean, the bath towels good, as were the little soaps, lotions, etc. We were upstairs and had two balconies, one in each room.

There are several fast food places, an Applebees and a gas station across the street, and other amenities nearby. We found the breakfast room to be large and clean; along with the usual pastries etc. they also served eggs and bacon. The staff was friendly and helpful.

We do not expect full service hotel excellence at places like this, but we were perfectly happy and pleasantly surprised with our stay.

The Best Western Plus was the only hotel we with a reasonable rate in the Napa area. The experience started as a disaster, we pulled up to what looked like a roach motel. I have a policy that if you have to drive up to your room, you minus well sleep in the car. But we had a baby in our party so after a frantic failed search for a traditional hotel with availability, we went inside. As we checked in, we reminded the front desk clerk that we called ahead a crib that morning. He said he had no record of that and there were no cribs available. Ok we have hot rock bottom, now it is time for the BW to redeem itself. We opened the door to the room expected to see a crack house, but we were very pleasantly surprised to see a room that would rival a Courtyard or Ramada. The front desk then came through by doing a quick fix on a broken crib and brought a workable model to our room. Overall, the stay was way better than expected when we pulled up. I would prefer to stay in a traditional hotel, but for the money, this is a decent hotel.