We booked at the last minute before we left home and our room was ready when we arrived a few hours later. The counter person was real pleasant and extremely helpful not that I am real demanding but we like extra things for our comfort. We were given our keys and the extra pillows and went to our room. It had 2 large queen size beds, refrigerator, TV, and other supplies. When we left the next day they had a nice continental breakfast and newspaper in the common room, so we stopped and visited before we left for our final foray into the stores. This hotel is just what I like, clean, pleasant employees, and like a second home.

From reading the majority of reports on here about this hotel, I was thinking that we might be getting a bit of a bargain stay, just outside of monterey. Instead, what we got, was a pretty dirty room, (dirty towels, dirty sheets, filthy carpets and walls) The bed comprised of two matresses on top of each other........whats that about???. For the money we paid, I can kind of live with this,,,,,, however, the most worrying part of our stay, was the constant, and I mean constant foot traffic to the room next door to us. Between 7pm, and 11pm there must have been at least 15 visitors walking up, knocking the door, going inside, and then leaving within 2 minutes. This also continued through the night. All seems a bit suspicious to me, especially when the occupants of the room up sticks and leave on our second night at 4 in the morning only to return slamming the doors at 5am.......off out to pick up munchies or maybe a re-supply of drugs. Either way, it left us pretty frightened (enough to push the table and chairs in front of the door, and want to sleep in the bath for fear of guns going off in the next room. This could of course all be above board, but then I could be a very talented typing giraffe too!!!

Econo Lodge Bay Breeze is a very good hotel if you have a rental car because it is about four miles away from downtown Monterey.

If so, the motel is a very good deal for a stay in Monterey with the following ammenities

- Rooms are very spacious and clean with very good equipment such as big TV screen, microwave and bathroom
- staff was very nice
- good possibilities to park your car

Negative is the windy area, especially the windy floor as this is an "open floor".

With Highway 1 shut down because of the fires, we were forced to find a place to stay at 7pm on a Saturday night.. The first hotel off the freeway was Americas Best Value Inn. The place gave me the willies with very questionable people hanging out in front of it.

The second hotel was the Econo Lodge. The man working the desk was very friendly. We got our keys and within 15 minutes the No Vacancy sign was on. For $90 we felt lucky.

The first thing I noticed when we walked up to our room was that the room next door was filled with teenagers having a pot party. Smoke of all kinds was wafting out the window. Not bad if you like that kind of thing, really bad if you are asthmatic and hate that kind of thing. I figured it wasn't a big deal, we'll just put on the A/C and shut our windows.

Well, the room had a thermostat in it that said it would cool the room, but when I turned it, nothing came on. I went to the front desk to ask the clerk about it. He informed me that none of the rooms have A/C, but he was kind enough to grab a huge fan for us to borrow and use in our room. The fan also helped block out noise (which we learned later in the evening).

The room itself was filled with good and bad.

First, the good:
There were decent pieces of art on the walls. I was impressed with the quilted bedspread. They were tasteful, clean and seemed new. The TV was large and could be viewed from the bed and there were plenty of tourist magazines around the room which was a nice touch.

The bad:
The carpets were sticky so I wore my flip flops around the room. There was hair in the tub, so I did a thorough cleaning. One of the pillows smelled like perfume.

The really bad:
It was stuffy in there. I switched on the bathroom fan hoping it would help with the ventilation. Well, the fan took the air that was in the pot party next door and started blasting it into the bathroom. Smoke was blowing in from the ceiling and it was filling up the room fast. So I turned off the bathroom fan and we relied on the tiny window in there for air. I wasn't going to open the front window because it faced all the cars in the parking lot and there was a ton of noise out there from people hanging out.

Overall, I was grateful to get a room at such a late time, but I'll spend a few bucks for something better in the future or try to get there earlier and get an upstairs room. Those rooms seemed quieter and looked like they might have a better view out of the bathroom. Our view was of metal bars and the freeway just beyond it. The breakfast also seemed decent if you have a hungry family to feed. They had lots of cereal and oranges. The friendly clerk also made the place feel very welcoming.