Hotel San Luis Obispo — Hotel in San Luis Obispo

I stay in hotels for a living and have pretty strong opinions about what makes a good hotel so when I say I’m impressed with a hotel then they’ve done a very good job. I have a few critiques, but they are very minor & would not prevent me from staying here again.

The great:

It’s a smaller hotel, but every room level has an ice machine PLUS flat or sparkling water on tap for your convenience. Amazing. They put bottles of filtered water in your room mini fridge so it’s nice and cold and refillable! They make water access easy and then elevate it.

The rooms are cute, love having a balcony, the roof top bar has great views, some entertainment & lots of seating. I only dined at one restaurant, but the portions were massive & it was really good! They offer live music out by the pool & some nice outdoor seating. Even the stairwell is nicely decorated which is a first. It’s a smaller hotel & there’s only one elevator so many people use the stairs!

The hotel has nice wide hallways, lots of windows and a great location. House keeping comes TWICE a day! 👏🏻

The rooms have lots of lighting and while the lighting control can be annoying when you’re trying to figure them out it is really great to have overhead lighting in a hotel, that’s so rare AND it’s all dimmable! 🙌🏻. They have a great Bluetooth speaker for use in your room (yellow light means it’s on, blue light means it’s off, just to save you some headache).

They have automatic window shades on the windows and complimentary snacks in the drawers, PLUS a nespresso! 👏🏻

I liked all the soaps, the makeup towel, robes & slippers, makeup remover towelettes and the other bathroom amenities that are rare, like facial pads, q-tips and cotton balls!

The not so great:

The hotel can be quiet loud, you can hear people in the hallways if they are “having fun” pretty easily and the street noise can be quiet loud too. Use that awesome boothtooth speaker to play some white noise or whatever you’re into and you’ll be happy as a clam!

The balcony doors have shutters and while I really enjoyed them, as opposed to the typical gross curtains I usually see, I didn’t love them as much at night. I adjusted them as much as I could to block as much light as possible, but I faced the parking garage and those lights don’t have any chill. So pitch black with shutters is not possible like it is with blackout curtains. You also have to line them up juuuust right to make sure there are no peep hole gaps on the side and that the door is completely covered.

The only manual lights are the bedside lamps and it’s not an obvious switch. I spent an epic amount of time trying to figure out which switch turned them off. Finally calling the front desk for help.

The sofa is extremely uncomfortable and it looks like it could be laid flat to become another bed, but oh man that would not be a great bed at all! Hopefully they provide some sort of pad for it! Keep that in mind if you plan to pack it into a room!

The shower (no tub) is designed with the recently popular stationary half door design. That said, they did a real disservice to us when they installed a fixed door and then put the shower operation knob on that far interior wall right under the shower head. You have to reach in and get hit with the cold water while trying to turn the knob all the way to hot. Hopefully you don’t make it too hot or you’ll be scalded while trying to reach in and adjust it to the temp you want. Overall the design feels like it wasn’t thought through with guests in mind.

The gym is adequate, with some good equipment. Bless them for having some sort of leg machine not many hotels do. The automatic lights are annoying when I’m on the corner bike for a long time and they just shut off. I have to stop my ride and get up to get them back on. They have a water fountain in there which feels like a cost savings decision compared to other hotels, but at least it has a water bottle filler attached and it was cold!

Overall, it’s a great hotel operated by a small chain and the...

I spent about ten days at this perfectly located hotel in downtown SLO. I had initially booked two nights but due to a family emergency I extended my stay several times. After a few days, it felt like a home away from home, a respite from the traumatic situation I was going through. It’s a beautiful hotel. The lobby in particular makes a great first impression. We dined at both restaurants at least twice and enjoyed every one of our meals. Ox & Anchor served the best steak I’ve had in years. Our room (double queen with balcony) was comfortable, bright, and clean. I appreciated the minimalistic, uncluttered design. The valets were professional and polite as was all of the other staff I encountered. Management seems to have adopted a “service-forward” approach which I truly appreciate. Two areas for improvement: please upgrade your TVs. Your have minimal channels and only one premium channel. Please upgrade to a system that allows your guests to connect their own devices to the TV and stream movies from their own devices’ apps (Netflix, etc). Not having this was a major disappointment because we were there for so long and we wanted to watch movies together as opposed to on our iPads and smart phones. Properties like Hotel SLO that are 4+ stars and charge premium rates should offer this amenity. Finally, please make sure the front desk team passes down information from one shift to the next. I extended my stay a few times using third party booking sites so I could accumulate credit card miles and points. Each time, I made sure there was availability for my room type and informed the staff in advance that I was going to extend my stay so they could anticipate the incoming reservations and pre-block the new reservation(s) into my current room. There were hiccups twice in regards to this. On one occasion, housekeeping hadn’t been informed that I was a stay-over with a new reservation so they entered my room one morning while I was sleeping. On another occasion, a desk agent called me to ask why my bags were still in the room at 12:30pm. I explained that I had extended my stay the night before via a new reservation, and that I had already spoken to a desk agent about it who had updated my key cards accordingly. The desk agent didn’t believe me. I had to forward the booking confirmation to the front desk. Even then, I was told that the hotel couldn’t accommodate the final night of my stay (which was three nights away) due to being oversold on my room type. I was questioned about which agent I had spoken to the night before so the agent could track the employee down (?). I was told that I would probably have to move rooms on the final night of my stay and that I should call back later in the day to find out if I would have to move. This was stressful for me because my mom is disabled and elderly, and I didn’t want the hassle of packing up and moving for one night. Eventually I told the agent that I wouldn’t move rooms, and they would have to honor the reservation I had booked and for which I had a confirmation. There was still some push-back but in the end, a supervisor must have stepped in and found the missing reservation. We didn’t have to move. The onus shouldn’t be on the guest to resolve a booking issue. Don’t inconvenience an in-house guest (or any guest, for that matter) due to a hotel booking error, particularly someone who has already been in the hotel for over a week. In this instance, the oversold night was three nights away which was more than enough time for desk manager, supervisor, or rooms manager to balance things out to alleviate the oversell situation for one room type on just one night. People cancel reservations all the time. The situation would have worked itself out without having to make me (the guest) move rooms or worry that I would have...

I stayed at Hotel SLO for the first time in February 2025 and had a fantastic experience. The location is excellent; you're in the middle of downtown so you're within walking distance of tons of amazing restaurants and shops. The hotel itself is beautiful- everything is in pristine condition and modern- and the customer service was excellent (special shout out to the guys at valet who were super friendly). We also went to the spa which was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend- tranquil and lovely.

We got a room with a king bed and it was gorgeous, spacious, spotless, but there were definitely a few quirks: -The bathroom was right near the bed, which was odd, and it had a sliding door (not a regular closing door) so it didn't feel like you had a lot of privacy. -Also, regular on/off light switches didn't exist. There was a series of buttons that weren't labeled so you had to randomly press buttons to try and figure out what lights would turn off in the room. This drove me crazy. Sometimes modern isn't always better- I would have preferred a regular switch or dimmer.

Other than that, the room was perfect. You get a jug of free water, coffee/tea, a few snacks, which was a nice perk, and the on-site restaurants are DELICIOUS. We ordered room service from Piadina and went in person to Ox + Anchor, which was sensational. They also have a bar downstairs with live music. Despite the room quirks, I would highly recommend this place for the amazing location, service, dining, and beautiful rooms and hotel. It was a...