My wife and I spent the night at the motel Santa Cruz on a Saturday in May, on what turned out to be the first really nice weekend of the season.
The motel cost $150 for a single king room, for one night, that was a 15 minute walk from the Santa Cruz boardwalk. The staff was very friendly and were happy to let us check our bag, and park our car in their lot, when we arrived at noon, several hours before check-in. All of that was very good.
The room itself was definitely in need of improvement. The furnishings were all very worn and the mattress didn’t provide a particularly comfortable night’s sleep. The shower/tub was in need of cleaning so we didn’t use it. All of that was not so good.
Our plans were to spend the day at the boardwalk and then go out to dinner, and spend very little time in our room, so the fact that it wasn’t a particularly nice room wasn’t that big a deal, although it would’ve been nice if it had been better maintained and more recently refurbished.
Even though the staff was very nice and the location was pretty good, I think next time I would spend an extra $50 just stay somewhere a little nicer/newer.
If it’s the only place left to stay in town, and you don’t have any plans to spend time in room room, other than sleeping, I’d say go for it, but know going in that it has a lot of areas that could use some improvement.