Hotel Paradox Santa Cruz

March 03, 2020

After leaving the Westin Versa Napa I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco, stopping at the waterfront and Fisherman's Wharf for a long walk. After I drove on down to Santa Cruz and the Hotel Paradox. The hotel is a stylish renovated motel style property with all room doors opening onto hallways and walkways.

      I was greeted by very friendly front desk staff, though no room upgrade was on offer. There is cheap valet parking at $18 or self-parking for $15. A very dog friendly property, the quoted $75 dog fee was lowered to $50. There were doggy poo bags at all of the property exits as well.

      As a Titanium amenity I was given a breakfast voucher and a $10 food and beverage credit, but they just let me take whatever I wanted from the pantry.

      There is a nice outdoor pool on the back side of hotel with ample seating and sunshine.

      The property has smallish motel style rooms but renovated very well. My room was adjoining with the room next door and the property was full with fellow Canadians from Bombardier on site for a retreat so it was quite busy.

       It was not the easiest walk at first along Ocean to get to the historic downtown and waterfront, so on the return I came through the nicer river walk and the park behind the hotel. The waterfront wharf was nice and not overly developed, and the town itself is an interesting mix of a hippie town with some aging drunk hippies and university students from UC Santa Cruz all mingling around the bars. The historic downtown was very cute as well, and of course the Boardwalk with roller coasters and rides is a must see.

In the morning after we did the walk to the water and through the historic downtown I had a workout in the good gym before a great breakfast at the trendy restaurant. Overall a great property and stay, the only downside was that it was not a little closer to the Boardwalk area.