Hotel Prices

May 11, 2004 - Ed Prices Hotel Rooms on State Street

So, your Aunt Willamette calls you up out of the blue yesterday. She says that they’re fumigating her house in Manteca next month, and she thought it would be great fun if she and her two young children come visit for a couple of days. You know the drill. They will want to go to the beach, the Mission, and walk down State Street. And, after hours of discussion about where to eat with kids, you will end up with a Barbeque Chicken Pizza at California Pizza Kitchen (even though there is a CPK in Manteca). You only have a one-bedroom apartment, but they want to stay with you to save money. The kids can sleep on the floor and your Aunt will sleep on the couch. But, of course, your mom would kill you if you let your Aunt sleep on the couch, so you will have to let her sleep in your bed and you will take the couch instead. And, there is no doubt that you won’t be able to sleep all night because you will OCD about someone else sleeping in your private bed – touching your sheets, drooling on your pillow. How could anyone stand it?

Well, it sounds like you need to get up some courage and tell your Aunt to “get a room”. You’d be happy to see them and spend some time with them, but it would be better if they had their own place so they could “do their own thing” when you are busy. You already made some plans, didn’t you? And besides, your toilet isn’t working very well. Isn’t that the truth?

Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com got on the phone and found out how much it would cost your Aunt Willamette to stay in a hotel. We called all of the places on State Street from the Wharf to Hollister. First of all, a general but true observation – people from Asia operate many of the hotels on State Street. And even though the voice on the “automated phone answering” service is about as American as Chevrolet, the voice of the live person to whom you eventually speak generally is not. For instance, when we called the Town & Country Inn (2800 State), the clear tones of the electronic voice gave way to an apparently irate woman yelling in a foreign language. It could have been Chinese for “no room at the Inn”.

The Sunset Hotel (3504 State) gave us the impression that they were permanently booked – at least for all-night stays, that is.

Fourteen hotel/motels on State Street were willing-and-able to give us a quote for a standard room with double occupancy on a weekend night in July. The cheapest was the Traveler’s Motel (3222 State) at $69/night. The most expensive was the Hotel Santa Barbara (533 State) at $199/night. For $79/night you can stay at the State Street Hotel near the beach (121 State). However, that is for a “European Style” room with a shared toilet and shower. In other words, if yer-a-peein’ - you’re going down the hall!

The average price of rooms was $136.00 on the nose. We can say without reservation that AgPerson, who guessed $136 exactly for the average and $65 for the cheapest, is the winner of our “Hotels on State Street” contest. AgPerson wins free movie tickets, coffee card, an edhat t-shirt, or some free towels we picked up on our last vacation.

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