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Stinson Beach Motel
- Price Range:
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$$
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"This place is absolutely beautiful. Looks very similar to the Presidio, but the inside of the buildings are not even comparable. We stayed…" read more »
3 reviews for Stinson Beach Motel
I had a very similar experience to one of the other reviewers, I've never stayed here because when I went to take a look at the place I found the manager to be totally insane.
I'm planning my wedding and we're having our reception across the street from the hotel so I thought this place would be perfect. When Frodo (yes, Frodo) answered my knock on the door he was all sweaty and seemed agitated, he explained that he was working out and "That's the trouble when you live where you work..." I explained that I was having my wedding up there and he said, "Why would anyone want to get married here, we're a small town and we can't handle that much traffic especially in the summer" He went on to tell me that he doesn't like renting rooms to wedding people because they aren't from the Bay Area and he prefers repeat customers. I explained that I live here and have friends who might not want to make the drive back to San Francisco after the wedding. He slightly changed his attitude and said, oh ok, that's different. But he still seemed annoyed about wedding guests staying there.
Long story short this guy struck me as totally insane, he was jogging in place the entire time we talked and kept saying he needed to get back to his "workout" yet he kept talking and talking. He completely discouraged me from patronizing his business and also went on and on about how he has to charge a lot for his rooms even though they're really small, because of the location. And he's right, the rooms are tiny and not at all impressive.
I'm going to discourage my wedding guests from staying here. Very bizarre guy that Frodo.
Wow. First off, I should say that I haven't stayed here, but I was going to. My telephone interaction with the manager was what made me change my mind.
I had looked around on the internet for a cheap place to stay in Stinson Beach. There are a few, but this one seemed to be cheapest. The pictures of the cottages on the motel's website are cute, there's a garden; in other words, it looked exactly like the no-frills kind of joint I was looking for.
Before calling, I checked to see if there were any reviews posted anywhere. I found two, one on TripAdvisor and one on Yahoo Travel. Both were extremely negative. One was complaining about lack of amenities and the manager's bad attitude, and one was complaining about an infestation of spiders. Despite all that, I thought I'd give it a shot anyway, because the price was right and I'm not too fussy.
So I called the motel. The manager answered, and we started the reservation process. But I wanted to mention the negative reviews to him-- both were from 1-2 years ago-- to give him a chance to address the complaints, to tell me things had been rectified, to reassure me, or whatever. At that point, I didn't really care that much-- I was still going to book the place.
I want to stress here that I was really mellow about bringing it up, and that I was in no way attacking him or raising my voice or being a jerk or ANYTHING. Just, "Hey, man, thought you should know there are a couple of negative reviews floating around out there-- did you know that? What do you think about that?" That sort of thing.
First he completely denied that the reviews were about the Stinson Beach Motel. He was like, "Oh, those couldn't have been about us. Maybe it was about next door." Finally, when I had convinced him that the reviews were indeed about his motel, he started getting really agitated and raising his voice, telling me it was uncool of me to bring that up, and what did I want him to do about it, and why are you asking me this? And I was like, "Well, it says here on your website that if we have any questions to feel free to ask the manager, Frodo. So I'm asking." (I'm not even kidding, apparently that's his name.)
So he was just getting really defensive and increasingly hostile, and actually wanting me to justify why I had looked up reviews of his motel! I was like, "Buddy, look, don't kill the messenger; when you're about to spend some money on a non-refundable product that you know nothing about, you look around for a little information, right? I'm just bringing it to your attention." He then proceeded to say something like, "Well, maybe you need to-- you know, sometimes it's in the *way* you say something..." And I just had to stop him there-- I was like, "Okay, dude, I don't need to be lectured on my communication style by you, okay?"
It just went on and on. I was pretty much in disbelief the whole time. So, if you're still reading, unless you want to engage in the not-so-gentle art of verbal combat with a motel manager named Frodo on your lovely getaway-from-the-ratrace weekend, you might want to give this place a miss. I'm heading down to San Benito House in Half Moon Bay, instead, where they feed you breakfast and they don't yell at you on the reservation line. I'll let you know how it turns out.
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The rooms are clean. The foliage is as nice as it looks on their website (at least it was when I was there in the spring and summer). The manager is weird, but harmless (Frodo). And, it's a perfectly acceptable place to spend a mini-vacation.
I'd stay at Ocean Court or Sandpiper before here...but, SB Motel is WAY better than the B&B next door (Redwood Haus).