Sonesta Simply Suites Silicon Valley - Santa Clara — Hotel in Santa Clara

I frequent hotels for work (about 1-2 weeks per month), but the Sonesta Simply Suites Silicon Valley Hotel is by far the worst I have experienced in the Santa Clara area. I booked my 6-night trip through Chase Travel Rewards for $724.44 which included $109.44 for hotel taxes/fees. I also brought my dog and paid a $75 pet fee. These fees were expected, but what was not expected was the $7.50 a night parking fee. In addition to the parking fee, I was also charged $8.78 for state and city taxes, even though I had already prepaid $109.44 in taxes/fees. When I asked for an itemized receipt upon check out, I was told that the printer was broken and that I would receive one via email around noon (an hour after checkout at 11AM).

By the way, there is free street parking around the parking lot of the complex the hotel is located in. Additionally, there is a CalTrain parking lot next door to the hotel that is only $5.50 for 24 hours, so this parking fee charged by the hotel felt like a complete rip-off.

The room itself was clean, but it had a musty smell to it upon arrival as you can see was mentioned in other reviews. While the room was showing it's age & use, it had a little coffee maker, microwave, dishwasher, and a 2 burner electric stove. The room I was in was located on the side opposite the parking lot on the first floor. It was quite noisy. I could hear trains late into the night and people walking around upstairs.

You will also commonly find people smoking on the bench directly in front of the hotel entrance that has a sign stating no smoking should occurs within 30 feet. Ha!

Overall, I had a terrible experience at the Sonesta Simply Suites Silicon Valley Hotel. The hidden fees and lack of transparency made me feel like I was being taken advantage of. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone and really wish I read the reviews before booking this hotel. It is really situations like this that had made the AirBNB business expand so fast.

The entire purpose of me writing this review is that I see that the hotel reads all of the reviews. I hope they change their practices and work more on customer satisfaction instead of nickel & diming the customers (which has been mentioned in more than one review). I will addend this review with the response from the hotel regarding the double dipping of the taxes taking place. I am also more than happy to provide the receipts of my stay if it would help anyone prevent unexpected fees.

UPDATE: I submitted a complaint to corporate Sonesta which got forwarded to the assistant general manager, Carlos Donald, of this location. He said I was at fault for the parking charge because it was listed on Priceline's website. (I didn't book through Priceline though. I booked through Chase travel. The information is not the same between the two sites.) Moreover, I asked why did I have to pay taxes twice. This is the verbatim response from Carlos, "Pet fees are taxed in the city of Santa Clara. Some hotels have it already included with the rate. Some hotels do not. It is up to each individual hotel or their chain. On how they wish to proceed with that." So they the option to include the taxes within the pet fees you pay; but, they would rather nickel and dime the customer and make them pay extra fees on top of the extra fees they are...

Me and my friend stayed for more than a week at the hotel and didn’t have a problem except for one and a CONSISTENT one. The place had a total of 3 carts only which would not be a problem if the hotel had a decent system of monitoring which guests are using then and keeping them in their room afterwards. (Obviously guests should not do that but I can’t complain about other guests as much as to the hotel because it’s their responsibility.) Given also that the hotel encourages long-term stays here with the availability of cooking inside the room, you would assume that most of the guests would have a lot of stuff/luggages/boxes to go through checking in or out, hence the NEED for the carts.||||I even looked for a cart myself in every floor as suggested by one of the front desk clerk given that they were busy but the last straw for us was the incident upon check out. I went down more than an hour before check out time to get a cart because I knew it was hard to get one and didn’t want any late check out fees. There were no available carts, i checked again in every floor and went back down again. One of the clerks was kind enough to SAY (just say) that if one is available, someone would bring one to our room. Check out time came and no one came, we called only to find out, nobody was notified and nobody is coming and the carts are gone again. We asked them how are we suppose to bring down our stuff because we had not only luggages but some boxes that were not able to bring down ourselves without a cart. After a few minutes, the manager (Jeffer was his name i think) came and just presented us with a DIRTY LAUNDRY CART to use, all he said was “this is the only cart available” NO APOLOGIES, NO OFFER OF ASSISTANCE, NO ANYTHING! and he just left rudely.||||We were pissed off but we had to leave so just used it and after a few minutes having our stuff downstairs, ONE of the carts came! And another few minutes again, TWO of the carts were already available! One of the front desk clerk, Barry, was kind enough to offer water to me and my friend because he noticed how pissed off and tired we were. He also apologized and empathize of how this should have not happened. ||||Pictures of the DIRTY...

This hotel was a mix of good and bad, overall I don’t think I’ll be coming back. The front desk staff were nice, the towels are great, the location is pretty convenient, and the WiFi wasn’t terrible but that is the end of the positives from my stay. Now for the bad: This place is in serious need of a thorough cleaning and maintenance. The first room I was given had a tub faucet that wouldn’t shut off and actually had a pencil sized stream going when I checked in and they didn’t have maintenance there to fix it so I needed to change rooms. Mistakes happen, that’s understandable, but it ended up being part of a larger trend. The light fixtures in both rooms this time as well as the room I stayed in previously were rusted and it just doesn’t seem like this place is getting enough maintenance on the rooms.As far as cleanliness, the first room wasn’t bad, but the second room was terrible. Dirt on the floor what I will have to assume was nasal ejecta on the bathroom walls, mold or mildew beside the tub, dirty glasses upon checking, the end tables were filthy, and the cleaning staff didn’t even touch the bed one of the days. They only provided two of each kind of silverware and dish but didn’t wash them either. I’ve stayed at many places with kitchen suites and I’ve never seen someplace so stingy with the cutlery. Price wise, this place is in the middle of the range for the South Bay, but I’ve been in motel 6’s that we’re better maintained and cost a third as much. About half of the furniture and amenities were very dated or worn past repair. I didn’t end up getting a picture of it, but the chair in both rooms had the corners and seams worn completely through, one room had a vcr, and the phones look like they’re from about 2000.

Needless to say, the next time I’m in the bay for work I’ll be staying...