San Luis Obispo Apple Farm

Apple Farm, San Luis Obispo, California, Room 100 Allegedly Flawed (Update August 2016)

Apple Farm, San Luis Obispo, California, Room 100 Allegedly Flawed (Update August 2016)

In our prior review of this hotel and restaurant we gave this place a pretty good review.  I wish to amend that prior review to warn anyone that room 100 on the ground floor is allegedly flawed and here are some of the reasons:

  • The room is next to the elevator.  This is not a big problem because the engineering and construction seems to have contained the noise level pretty low.  I mention it because it adds to the overall sound deficiencies.  People getting on and off the elevator rise the noise level at times.
  • This room is directly under the main entrance and where you go to register at the main desk. The floors are not carpeted and people make a lot of noise with rolling luggage across the floor, elephant walkers and children jumping around.  You would think the traffic in and out of the main entrance to this hotel would subside later in the night but this is impossible to predict.  Noise is the main complaint.  This room is unacceptably noisy due to this principal factor!
  • This room is next to the pool.  About five steps from the doors to this room leading to the pool and you are in it.  The room has a cute little alcove with two chairs and a small table which is perfect for reading.  The noise from the pool does enter this room.  The pool is posted to be closed at 9 pm but people still will stay in the pool area after that time.
  • A back entrance to this partial basement floor is a long passageway that shares the wall with this room so you have people walking along a shared wall from time to time going too and from the pool area.  This passageway sometimes adds to the room noise.
  • A light switch next to the inside front door turn nothing on or off.  Ideally it should turn on some lamp to help you enter the room.
  • The main light switch for the bathroom is on the far wall from the door.  One must enter the dark room, find the switch which is some times blocked by a hanging towel.  That is another mistake, putting a towel holder just above the light switch.
  • The coffee maker is above the refrigerator by the distance of two drawers.  It rests upon a shelf with no power.  The solution for us was to drag the refrigerator out of the closet a few feet to gain access to the power behind it and rest the coffee maker upon the refrigerator.
  • The bathroom sink has one of those high arching inverted “U” shaped water faucet.  I had to swing this faucet to either side of the wash basin to wash my face.  If I did not do this, I was forced to put my face to one side of the sink getting the top of the sink table wet.  It is typically not a good idea to move water faucets like I did.

Summary:  This room is unacceptable due to the noise.  I do not recommend occupying this room.  This rooms is attractive but the company fails to take note of details.

Apple Farm, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America

Apple Farm, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America

Our family loves the Apple Farm Inn located in San Luis Obispo, California.  We have been coming here for years.

Front view of the restaurant to your right and the gift center to your left.
Front view of the restaurant to your right and the gift center to your left. The inn portion requires that you drive into the parking lot behind the buildings you see in this image and enter the hotel behind.

Note: this review is for the hotel and not the motor inn.  We have never stayed at the Apple Farm Trellis Court portion of this property.  We were told that rooms are half the size and only one bed.  They do cost less than the inn.   You are next to the Apple Farm Restaurant.

Apple Farm Trellis Court
This image above shows the Trellis Court portion of the Apple Farm property. Note that the rooms in the court access directly too and from the parking lot. The inn portion of the facility has much larger rooms requiring entry to the main building and each room is off a hallway.
Apple Tree Inn
The Apple Tree Inn is the hotel which we review in this post. The inn sits behind the gift shop and restaurant. You need to drive into the parking lot beside the gift shop to view the inn shown in the image above.

What we like about the Apple Farm Inn:

  • Its location is very good.  It is right off the 101 highway.  You can walk about 20 minutes down Monterrey Street to get to the downtown. There is also a trolley that costs 50 cents one way and stops right in front of this hotel.  There are other restaurants that are not too far away you can walk too.  Caution:  When coming up from the south on the 101 make sure you take the correct off ramp, Monterrey.  We failed once to do this once and because this hotel is at the north extreme of town and where the 101 enters a canyon, there were no roads to turn around for quite a few miles.
  • Rooms are really cute, spacious, clean, comfortable, quiet and not too expensive.  The room air conditioner is very good.  You can set a temperature for the room and we have not found any past AC units to be noisy.  The windows can also be opened for fresh air.  Every room has a gas fireplace which, by the way, does heat up the room.
Room-323
Room 323. Note that the Apple Farm is conducting renovations so this room may look different in the future.
  • Parking is convenient and easy to navigate.
  • There is a very good restaurant on the property.  The menu, service, and ambiance is good.  The food we had here was better than places we ate in town. We noticed that food dishes now have a way higher quality.  The cooks really are doing an excellent job.
  • There is also a gift shop that is quite large.
  • They also sell bakery items for sale.
  • You will get 2 very large chocolate chip cookies when you check in.
  • You get complimentary wine each night (one glass per person) from 3 pm to 7 pm.
  • Each room has two 10 fl oz of Martinelli’s Apple Juice.  Two 500 ml purified waters are provided.  Coffee for the coffee maker is also in the bathroom with the coffee maker.  We use the coffee maker to make tea.  Tea bags of various flavors are offered near the front desk along with small packets of honey.
  • A free local newspaper, the San Luis Obispo Tribune, is just outside your door each morning.
  • Look carefully in the basket holding the juice as you will find some chocolate kisses.
  • In the closet are two rather thick terry cloth bathrobe you can use during your stay.
  • Free WiFi.
  • There is a heated pool and hot tub.
  • Each night from 3:30 pm to 5 pm they feature a different local winery for a wine tasting.  They also offer some simple snacks along with the wine.
  • The hotel lobby rotates different drinks depending upon what part of the day it is.  Morning you can find coffee with cream and sugar.  Evening you may find tea and coffee.

What we do not like:

  • When we make tea in our room and use tap water we noticed large particle floaties.  This typically means the water is not that pure.  The Apple Farm provides two 500 ml free purified drinking water each day for each room.  We use that water and purified water we bring from home to make our tea.  It would be nice for San Luis Obispo to do a better job of filtering their water.

2015 Monterey Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
info@applefarm.com
Phone: 1-800-255-2040 or 805-544-2040
Web site: http://www.applefarm.com/

I would like to thank Gustavo who works at the Apple Farm front desk for proofing the content of this post (April 3, 2015).

August 2016 update for one hotel room #100:  Room 100 Allegedly Flawed

July 7, 2017 update:  The Apple Farm offers a $5 dining credit with their Green Apple Program.  I do not recommend it.  We put the door knob placard out and found that nothing had been done to our room  We did not get apple juice, nor water, nor new towels, nor fresh sheets, etc.  The placard appears to tell room service not to enter to do anything!

Room 209 has a few minor flaws.  The commode does not properly flush.   The activation handle needs to be raised upward after pushing down to activate the flush.  If you fail to do this it never stops flushing, thus wasting lots of water.

The second mistake is the electrical wiring in the bathroom.  The light switch over the sink also turns on the vent over the shower and tub.  The second switch illuminates near the tub only.  The tub light should be married to the exhaust vent.

When I come to this hotel, many of the rooms have sink faucet handles that turn the wrong way, quite odd.

I did not enjoy the guest wine tasting reception held every night, July 7, 2017.  They moved this event to the Garden Room.  This is a much smaller space and lacks enough tables.  I like to bring my study materials such as books or laptop and writing materials and place them on a table to conduct work while drinking their free wine.  The Garden Room was way too small and lacked enough tables in their patio area.