Motel 6 Soledad, CA

2 on a road trip . Room very clean; very sparsely furnished.

Pros: Very comfortable beds. Our rooms were clean. The heating worked well. It was quiet. It has a swimming pool. The floor is not carpeted, an advantage. The rooms had a refrigerator and a microwave oven. Cons: As you'd expect at a Motel 6, the amenities are minimal. There's no place to hang a jacket. The bathroom lacked shampoo. The in-room lighting isn't optimal, but it isn't terrible either.

This Motel 6 is so odd. It has some very nice parts. When I first opened the door I was impressed. It looked clean (it is), with modern, new, updated furniture and features (very large new mirror that is backlit, marble shower walls, new modern sink and faucet, and more). The mattresses are firm, but more comfortable than I expect at a motel. They seem to be some type of foam/memory foam. I paid for the more expensive room so that we could have a fridge and microwave. Both are fine. Now, here is why I wouldn’t stay here again: although the furnishings are new and modern, they are odd and mismatched. The two bedside lamps are very different (one very tall and circular, the other shorter and a rectangle). Although we have a room with two queen beds, the room seems to be built for a king sized bed, as there is an outlet directly in the middle of the wall above the head of each bed. This means I can’t easily charge my phone while I’m on the bed. The dresser, although nice looking, is a weird trapezoid shape that juts into the room (I literally can’t figure out what one would use something like this for, or where). The beds are tall (yay!) and have these attractive black walls under them so nothing can go under the bed. Great, it looks good. They are made of metal, and we are constantly kicking them. They clang and sound like if you were to kick a filing cabinet. When you are on the bed, if you move too much, you can hear them vibrating. If you are a light sleeper, this might keep/wake you up. The TV is small (maybe 30” or so?), and uses DIRECTV. We couldn’t get the remote to work. The man in front came to our room and showed us that there is a black wire that the remote goes to, and the black wire needs to sit in front of the box so that the remote will work. There are blackout curtains (yay!) but they are too long and cover the heater/AC. There are no sheer curtains, so when we are in the room we either are on display for anyone walking by, or have blackout curtains closed and rely on fluorescent/LED lights. Bottom line: if it is late at night, you’re driving, and you just need somewhere to lay your head, it’s fine. If you actually need somewhere to stay while you’re here, don’t bother. We’re here for 3 nights, and I can’t wait to leave.

I used to stay here often when it was the Valley Harvest Inn. It was running down, but still clean and comfortable. But since it became a Motel 6, I have serious doubts. They have improved the property, and it's still comfortable and quiet. But I've had to ask for a coffee maker, coffee and simple drinking cups for my room on the last two stays (July and September). In fact, the coffee maker they finally put in my room earlier in September after I asked for it was broken and flooded all over the table it was placed on. I had to wait until the Windmill Restaurant opened in the morning to get coffee. The staff seemed clueless, like I was from Mars. I'm still giving it three stars since they've definitely made a lot of improvements, but I'm not at all sure that my next review will be as generous.