Quote: We arrived at the Best Western Plus Gateway at Santa Monica after an 11 hour flight but luckily the hotel was really easy to find and the free self-parking was well signposted and was directly under the hotel.

We were greeted quickly and pleasantly at reception and were dealt with very efficiently and within minutes we had our key and were on our way to our room on the top floor.

The corridors are painted in a very dull beige and green colour scheme with brown and green carpet which looked terribly dated but they were clean which was important to me. The hotel is completely non-smoking which also meant that there was no lingering stale cigarette smoke in the corridors.

Our room looked brighter than the corridor with beige walls and bright orange throws on the beds but once these were removed it did look a bit dull. The room was an average size with two queen beds. It also had a fridge, coffee maker (which strangely is stored in the bathroom) and a safe.

The bathroom was plain with a sink set in a worktop but with no storage and not a lot of places for towels either. Considering that there were four of us booked in to the room I felt that there were not very many towels, 2 bath towels and two hand towels. The only mirror in the room was in the bathroom and since the extractor didn’t work well this was steamed up as soon as anyone had a shower so this wasn’t very convenient.

The hotel offers free wireless internet access in the rooms which I thought was good as many of the more expensive hotels still seem to be charging.

Once we went to bed we found that the beds were exceptionally comfortable. I don’t usually sleep well on my first night in a new hotel but I slept like a log here which shows how lovely the beds were. Unfortunately the walls were quite thin so we could hear the guests in the next room as well as lots of plumbing noises.

The Air-conditioning unit was a little bit noisy but it was very easy to work and it cooled the room very quickly.

We found that the house-keeping in the hotel was a bit poor. We had our towels replaced daily but they never replaced the cardboard disposable cups that we had used to make tea or the clear disposable cups that we had used for milk. The throws were never returned to the beds. The milk, coffee and tea were never topped up and it didn’t look like the carpet was hovered either during our 3 night stay. We ended up having to "acquire" cups etc. from the maid’s trolley when we saw it in the corridors!

Unfortunately this hotel does not have a pool and is a good mile plus walk from the beach. There is a sun deck around the top floor which actually offered quite nice seating and views over the town. The hotel does offer a shuttle that runs hourly but this has to be booked, it is free with a recommended tip of $1 per person. We didn’t use this but I heard people say that it was a good service and that the driver was nice.

The hotel offers Room service from the iHOP which is in the same building. We didn’t use the room service but we did try the iHOP for breakfast early one morning and found the staff very friendly and the food nice.

Overall this hotel served our needs. It was a great base or exploring LA without having to be amongst the hustle and bustle. It was plain but generally clean and it was comfortable and offered a good night’s sleep and if we were in the area again we may well use it again.