At 12:23am, a cheery man from Days Inn at the other end of the phone told me that there was a room available and a sudden wave of relief came over me. We rushed to the Days Inn in Santa Monica a bit down the road, checked in and 20 minutes later were snuggled up in bed. Stressed out, tired, but relieved. Let’s rewind on this story.
I had made reservations for Palm Motel a few weeks prior to visiting Santa Monica. I was debating about actually naming this motel, but I thought it would be beneficial to you, dear readers, in case you ever visit Santa Monica and decide to stay there. Don’t.
I’ll skip the dirty details and angry words I used in my Yelp review and go right to this part: I had verbal confirmation from the motel staff that even though we’d be arriving around midnight that someone would indeed be there to check us in. I even called the day before to make sure that everything was in order. They lied.
After being stuck in Bay Area traffic and our trip taking a few hours longer than expected, we rolled in extra tired and extra ready to sleep for hours and hours. But, there was nobody at the motel. I went up to the front desk, which was empty, and ranger the buzzer. I rang it again. Again. And Again. I called the motel – no answer. After a few calls and many buzzes later, I started to cry a little. It was late, we were exhausted and our motel had totally bailed on our reservations.
So I started calling other hotels. I googled up Santa Monica Hotels and started down the list. A few places didn’t answer, and a more said they didn’t have any rooms free. A film festival was in town and many hotels were booked up ages ago. I called 6 places and Days Inns was number 7. To my sweet relief, they actually had a room available and, as you read earlier, we were checked in and I was in pjs within 20 minutes. And, even though I would have rather not have gone through all that, I’m really happy we ended up at the Days Inn. We had this great patio that overlooked the city and I was in love with how the hotel was painted pink.
So that’s how Days Inn recused us from sleeping in our car, on the beach, in Santa Monica, after an 8 hour drive from San Francisco. I’m sure you fellow travelers have all experienced something like this in your life, and for me it served as a good lesson: don’t book with questionable motels. What important travel lesson have you guys learned? Share below!
