El Granada Homestays

This hotel is worth every bit of its 4 star rating and the hotel alone I would rate a 5/5 on Tripadvisor. It has many suites with an absolutely wonderful view of the bay and small airport, especially at night. There are a ton of wonderful photo/facie opportunities from most of the hotel rooms and right across the road from the hotel. However, I dropped one rating point to give the hotel a 4/5 for a few reasons: -- Most of the local restaurants are highly overrated and over-hyped, and on top of that they are massively overcrowded at least 1/2 to 3/4 of the day. -- Most of the local shops are just about the worst mall-like beach tourist-trap shops you'll find anywhere. The first negative alone would be enough to drop 2 points from the Tripadvisor rating, but this hotel luckily has two excellent places to eat and drink right next to it, within 50 feet. One of those is a fish shack called Barbara's Fishtrap, which has vastly better seafood than any other restaurant. The other is Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, which has about a dozen excellent in-house beers available and a fairly full range of restaurant food, including more than just pub food. The exception on the second negative point above is one local shop next to the brewery, which is a nice homey privately-owned shop with interesting small items and clothes. It definitely does not have the typical beach souvenir crap, but items you won't find anywhere else. On the first negative with the local restaurants, you'd expect the in-house restaurant in a 4 star hotel (with room service) to be half-way decent, right? The in-house ”restaurant” is nothing more than a pub with pub food, exactly what the brewery next door is not. It's probably because they can't compete, but still, do something else. We walked in twice, looked around for 5 minutes, and there was nobody there either time, 3pm and 5pm. We just grabbed a menu, looked at it, and it was just random pub food that was likely all microwaved. But the room service for things like wine bottles, glasses, even champagne glasses, was all excellent, living up to any 4 star hotel. Needless to say, this hotel is great for a one-night stay on the weekend or something like that, but there really is very little to do if you stay for more than one night. And, two excellent restaurants gets old fast after two days maximum. Lots of nearby scenery if you're OK with relatively cold beaches like I am, but don't expect more than that and two places to eat.

Booked the Beach House for a solo getaway. Size of room was awesome - plenty of space for just me, and full kitchen was unexpected (two burners plus fridge/mw, and a bunch of dishes & utensils). No counter space (due to the burners), that was a drawback. Also they provide a keurig but my room had no cream or sugar and when I went to the front desk they gave me a cup of half and half! Don't they have little packets? Furniture was a bit worn but the bed was extremely comfortable and the comforter was fluffy & warm. Nice bathroom but again, not so luxurious as the description would have you believe. Booked a partial ocean view, but what I got was a parking lot view with a peek-a-boo of the bay if you stood at the slider and craned your neck. Tons of road noise too. This was disappointing, as I had been hoping to hear ocean waves. If you book this room type, specify the south side of the inn so you are not right by the restaurant next door. Continental breakfast was nice - good choices of pastries, yogurt & hot cereals. No wine reception on Sundays. While the front desk people were courteous & friendly, I felt I had to ask about every little thing. There was no amenity listing in the room or anywhere, so I had to ask: where is breakfast (it was in a meeting room one morning, the lobby another), where is the wine (it was sunday), is the pool heated, what is check-out time. Just felt a little like they assumed you'd know or wouldn't care, as opposed to other places that bend over backwards to be sure you know what they have to set them apart. It was a bit of a walk up to restaurants, which I didn't mind but just be aware. There's a very nice beach walk the other direction, but you're up on a bluff, not exactly on the sand. Next time, I'd go for the full oceanview.

Lovely location and easy to park and walk to the coast

We always like it there. Unfortunately we had a pretty crummy room this time but ie was our fault for accidentally reserving a room with no view or balcony. The other rooms are great. The breakfasts were great and we met some very nice people at the evening happy hour. We'll probably return if the price stays competitive with our other favorite place.