Rio Vista Inn & Suites - Santa Cruz, California

Cindi R.

The Rio Vista is a beautiful Victorian home with several charming rooms close to beach and running paths. The character and charm of the grounds is unmatched! The room and bedding is cozy, crisp and clean, the fireplace heater creates a nice ambience, and the the room has everything you need for a comfortable stay and extremely clean!! Lilly at the desk is welcoming and friendly, I’ll be back!!

Nat S.

Clean with friendly staff, located close to the Boardwalk but also downtown. Plenty of parking. Safe. The staff accompanied my needs and we ended up talking & laughing! The fireplace in the bedroom is such a romantic feature and useful in cold days!

This 1890 mention was restored, including the stain glass and Redwood entry, it looks amazing!

lynnea P.

This place is beautiful but there is no way to contact the staff when you have a room partying all night in what is supposed to be a quaint Victorian inn. We basically paid to get no sleep and listen to the room next door blast music starting at 7am after having been arguing and partying past 1am. I would never stay here again, which is regretful as this is a beautiful place with a great location.

Carrie

Positive: The hotel itself is fantastic amd this was my 3rd stay. I love the location and the building itself. The amenities are very nice. Negative: This particular stay was not pleasant. I reserved a specific room (#6). Upon arrival we were advised the toilet seat was broken and were offered a different room. It was next to the front desk and was very noisy. It was next to an exhaust system.

Alejandra H.

This was hardly a luxury hotel. It was very small. It shows in the pictures they have a fireplace inside the room, our room did not. The bed was hard as a rock. The only good thing was the location walking distance to downtown and the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk.

Julie G.

This place is perfect if you want something nostalgic but modern and that isn't a typical chain hotel. It's about a five minute walk to the boardwalk in one direction and a 5 min walk to downtown in the other direction! We like to walk and explore so it was ideal for us. Parking is on grounds but if you book an annex room, parking is in the front lot and is very difficult to get in/out of.

Ayla Y.

Honestly very quaint and clean place for the price. I saw another review that said there were a ton of bugs so I was very worried since I couldn’t cancel but was happy with the stay. The place has these new keypads but if you type the code in wrong 3 times it locks you out forever. Both my parents and I got locked out since we kept typing the front door code which was the second number on the sheet instead of the first.

Anyways there was some type of malfunction with the door which kept us from our room for >20 minutes and that was really frustrating. There was also never anyone at the desk and a very strong scent of cleaning products when we first walked in so had to crack a window. Also our fireplace didn’t work at first. After the lock debacle I didn’t want to complain about the fireplace - so my boyfriend fixed it and it worked great but it was also just a little annoying. Finally the location had a ton of traffic right by it which we could hear all night, very loud cars blasting music - not the staffs fault who were actually very friendly. So on an even distribution where 2.5 is average I’d say this place is just above average but nothing else.

Pat C.

Charming historic Victorian mansion with modern rooms and amenities 24/7 coffee/tea/soft drinks/water available. Microwave, refrigerator, fireplaces in some rooms. Family run business, host always available. Can walk to beach and pier and amusement park but it’s about 6-7 blocks, easy for us. Downtown shops 1 mile away. Would not recommend for children or for late parties. It’s a quiet place to enjoy. We are particular, but this place measures up.