Best Western Sonoma Valley Inn & Krug Event Center

Highly renovated version of an older motor lodge. It’s easily walkable to Sonoma Plaza. We had the double queen with balcony, which looks out over the courtyard with a pool and hot tub. The fireplaces are odd — they actually have a Duraflane log in place in the fireplace when you arrive. Someone near us had a fire going (in early July, temp around 60) and there was a minor smoke smell in our room. Also, the position of the fireplace makes it difficult to make use of the pull out sofa, as the pull-out then eliminates pretty much all of the floor space between the balcony and the rest of the room. The HVAC controls are idiosyncratic — our unit had a remote used to operate a wall unit located next to the sofa. I had never seen that sort of system, which appears to be older, predating the conversion to Tapestry. We liked the Nespresso, but other hotels that offer it tend to have explanatory info for the system and the available pods, this property did not. Lots of noise from the pool, though it ended promptly at 10, the pool’s closing time. The courtyard is fairly lush and we liked the hot tub. We paid $200 or so for the night, and that price this is a good value. The room was clean, WiFi worked well.

There was a roach in our room -!: the staff basically said they would check in the morning to see if was a bigger problem. They weren’t even apologetic when they picked it up! Very disappointed! Not what I expect from Hilton.

First of all, the hotel is clean. It is in a location where you may wish to stay. But little things can easily taint your first and lasting impressions. We arrived in the evening tired and looked forward to getting settled in for some rest and relaxation. The first disappointment was finding out that they were changing us $10/day to park. This was not evident when I made the reservation and I don’t like surprises. Is there value in this charge? No. We had just left our Hilton reservation in Napa where they don’t charge for parking and rightfully so. At over $300/night, at a hotel that looks more like a slightly upscale motel, would you expect to pays for outside parking? The next complaint is that there isn’t an elevator. I’m not a spring chicken and haven’t to lug four suitcases plus other stuff up to the second floor while tired was infuriating, thus, you can probably understand my negative tone of this review. There is a couple of bottled waters in the room but you will be charged $2.00 each if you drink them. We travel extensively and can’t recall ever be charged for room water. A small issue, I know, yet, nonetheless, dissatisfying. Finally, as of this writing, there is no microwave in the room. The last two facilities we stayed at on this trip had microwaves. These days, microwaves are pretty much standard appliances in hotel rooms. There is a refrigerator. Way not a microwave?