The Milo — Hotel in Santa Barbara

A truly horrible experience. I have never stayed in a room so tiny and so uncomfortable and paid so much. It was skin to highway robbery. I was in Santa Barbara during a very busy weekend for hotels. Hotel Milo charged me $564 a night plus $30 for valet parking. That's almost $600 a night. Even at a markup, I expected at least a comfortable room that met basic standards, but I was gravely wrong.

My room was tiny and dusty. The furniture was in disrepair; the walls were crazy thin; the bed was uncomfortable and old. The worst part was the bathroom. The shower was so small that every time I turned around in there, the wall of the shower was literally in my face. The water pressure of the shower was terrible. There was no good place for the garbage can in the bathroom (again, no space), and when I arrived, the toilet paper was literally dangling into the trash. The sink had almost no counter area and I had to put my toiletries on the furniture near the bed and retrieve them one or two at a time to use in the bathroom.

I have NEVER stayed in a room this small and uncomfortable in the United States. In the Third World, yes, but not in America. Motel Six was charging several hundred bucks for a room for the same night I was in Santa Barbara, and I would've at least gotten a proper hotel room with a proper shower and bathroom there.

It is almost criminal for Hotel Milo to be renting out to guests the room they rented out to me at the price they did.

Years ago, I had stayed at this hotel for business and thoroughly enjoyed it, but that was because I had a room of normal size. The outside of the hotel is lovely and the location is excellent (right by the beach and stores, shops and restaurants). The staff of the hotel is also very friendly and helpful. I had a very late checkin and they were very accommodating.

But none of that is enough to make up for the cost of nearly $600 for an old, rundown, uncomfortable, small room that doesn't meet the basic standards for a U.S. hotel. There was also zero warning during booking regarding just hold old and small the bathroom or shower would be.

I'd suggest anyone who wants to stay in this area stay at the Harbor View Inn, where I've stayed multiple times in the past. It's a block or two away. Don't come...

I will start with what I did like. The hotel was clean , cute, and cozy. Location is great with the pier and so much more within walking distance. We really loved being so close to the beach and the delicious breakfast place next door.

Now the things I did not like... management, price, and lack of AC. Management was clearly not used to younger crowed. Our 5 person group is late 20's going on 30's, and we were treated like children. With the amount we were paying to stay here, it was rather embarrassing and discriminatory. There was one point where we were talking by a fire pit around 10pm on a Saturday night(at a very reasonable volume, even trying to keep it down), something many people were doing till almost midnight the previous night, and the manager said something along the lines of, "If you could stop and be considerate of other people." His tone and mannerisms said it all, he did not like the younger people outside where people could see/hear us. Even after we began to whisper someone came up and turned the fireplace off. Which successfully sent us back to the room, which wouldn't bother me if I hadn't noticed that the previous night they had left them on much later for the wine and dinning of several other groups. On another note, we were woken up around 7am each morning by barking dogs, which wasn't pleasant, but not entirely the hotels fault either. Weird and random, their shower only has a half door that you have to place perfectly if you don't want a lake to cover the bathroom floor. No AC, so expect to leave open your windows if it is cool enough outside. They do have a little fan, but it can only do so much. Parking is 30$ valet only. Also a little dishonest, we purchased the family suite which appeared much larger in the photos on the website. In reality the room is much smaller and it does not have a seating area. Admittedly the bunk beds were a very clever idea, even if they take up the entire room.

My final thoughts are that I believe that this hotel is too pricey for the quality of service we received. With our bill being almost $900.00 for two nights, you would expect to receive much better treatment and customer service. We will look for different accommodations for our future visits to...

Quite pricey for what you get. On the positive side, the valet service and the front desk were good. On the negative side, the rooms are awful!

We had three couples staying at this place, and every one of the three rooms had issues with lighting and climate control. Even the hotel maintenance staff couldn't figure out what wall switch did what or how to turn on the ceiling fan lights.

Our room had terrible lighting - even with every light turned on it was dark and dingy. The maids took away the 99% unused soaps every morning, and one time they left NO soaps and NO sugar packets for the in-room coffee service. There were no hooks anywhere on the walls or doors to hang clothing, and the tiny closet had only a couple of hangers in it. There was basically no drawer space to unpack clothing into. But there was tons of unused wall space that could have been used for chests of drawers, wall hooks, and more lighting.

The shower head LOOKED great - a big square head with lots of water jets. But in practice it sucked because there was not much water pressure, so the numerous holes just dribbled water out and there was no way to increase the pressure. The toilet had a two-stage flusher, one for "big" use and one for small. The big side didn't flush properly, or more accurately had to be flushed 3-5 times to get everything to disappear. We have the exact same toilet at home, and I fixed the flusher on the one in our room in less than ten seconds. You'd think a hotel that's charging $250 a night would be able to do that themselves....

The last negative was that the hot tub was out of order for one of the four nights we were there. Nice tub, though.... when it works. I always think we should get money back when an advertised amenity doesn't work or isn't available... right?

In summary, I felt that Hotel Milo was a cheap hotel trying to act like it's upscale. I would not recommend this place to anyone, except for the location. It's right on the beach and a quick walk to State Street, Stearn's Wharf and the Harbor. Other than that, give...