Third-World Lodging in First-World City

Gross motel squats on grade-A location across from the Santa Monica Pier

Sometimes I'm in too much of a hurry for my own good -- like last week, when I needed a last-minute, one-night reservation in Santa Monica. I went online and booked a room for $89 (normally $149, according to the website) at the Pacific Sands Motel. In the online pictures, the place looked simple but OK. I wish that I'd read through previous visitors' reviews on various travel sites before booking there. It is without question the worst dump I've ever stayed in, in the United States -- bar none. I considered taking pictures, but at the time, I didn't think I wanted to document how bad it was. But since I'm still sufficiently irritated to write a post four days after checking out, I wish I had.

If I hadn't arrived in the early evening with just a bit over an hour before a working dinner about a mile away, I wouldn't have stayed. If it hadn't been a Saturday evening, I wouldn't have stayed. If I had a car (I took a shuttle from the airport), I wouldn't have stayed. But I had no time, no car and had seen "No Vacanacy" signs elsewhere nearby, so I was stuck in Room 49 of the Pacific Sands Motel in otherwise-fancy, otherwise-upscale Santa Monica.

My reservation was for a non-smoking room (and the website claims that the place is a 100% non-smoking facility), but I was given smoke-stinky room in the "annex" across the alley from main motel. Not only did it reek of smoke, but the ashtray had not even been cleaned! Neither had much else. The mirrors were streaked. A dirty rug had been laid on top of peeling linoleum that was dirty around the edges. The bathroom was so questionable that I didn't even step into the shower. Crumbling, poorly patched walls added to the seediness. It was just as well that the lighting was dim, because everything would have looked even worse in bright light.

The louvred windows had no solid glass, letting in every street sound, which was considerable. The room was terribly noisy, because the annex backs against busy street with a lot of foot traffic and a bus stop right outside. I think the owners might have picked the desk and chair out of a dumpster. The sink faucet didn't work properly, and the bathroom window was broken. The TV got a handful of channels, and the remote worked only marginally. Even the soap was so cheesy that it didn't foam. The bottom sheet (flat, not fitted) was put directly on top of a stained mattress with no mattress cover, but I suppose that doesn't matter, because if there had been a mattress cover, it would have been stained too.

If I had been traveling in a developing country on a bouncing bus, I'd find this luxurious. Cheap, simple and clean works for me. Cheap, broken and dirty doesn't. Only plusses were the location and free WiFi. They in no way compensated for everything else. I'm giving you the Pacific Sands Motel's address and phone number so that you can avoid this dump: 1515 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, California 90401; 310-395-6133.