Santa Cruz · Hotel shortlist
The best hotels on the beach in Santa Cruz
Hana Okada The Low Countries
These are my five favourites in Santa Cruz, out of the 89 that qualified. I read what other travellers scored them before I picked, so the order follows the guests, 4.8895125 down to 4.5.
Spruce Beach Cottage - Walk to beach is the one I would book myself.
Highest rated of the five
Spruce Beach Cottage - Walk to beach
★★★★★4.8895125 from 554 reviews
Spruce Beach Cottage - Walk to beach comes out on top of this list, and not narrowly: 4.8895125 from 554 guest reviews is a score that holds up at that volume, which is the whole test here. A perfect ten from nine people does not beat it.
It is found under the beach and around $538 a night on the dates we checked.
89 hotels in Santa Cruz qualified for this list and five made it. 1440 Multiversity is the one I would book if the first is full.
All five, ranked
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1
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2 -
3 -
4Stairway to Treetop Heaven LOWER | 1bd | Hot Tub!
★★★★★4.8499994 from 218 reviews
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5Bella Notte
★★★★★4.8 from 130 reviews
- Parking
- Kitchen
- Pet friendly
- Kid friendly
- Air conditioning
- Accessible
How this list was put together
89 Santa Cruz hotels qualify for this list. We ranked them on guest rating, then on class, and took the top five.
Two things decide these lists. The first is my own time in the city: every hotel on this page is one I have stayed in, walked into and looked at, or gone back to check. That is where the shortlist starts, and it is why some well reviewed places are not on it.
The second is the numbers, and those are what set the order. The rating and review count come from the big travel sites, pooled through Google, so a score here reflects Expedia, Booking, Hotels.com and the rest together rather than any one of them. I also read the review breakdown by topic, which is where the figures on service, breakfast and location come from. Hotels with fewer than forty reviews are left out altogether, because a rating that thin is not a rating. No more than two come from one neighbourhood.
What I do not do is move anyone up the order. The ranking is the guest score, highest first, and nobody pays to be on the list.
Distances are straight lines from published coordinates, so the real walk is a little longer. Amenities are as recorded by Google Hotels and can change without notice. Rates are an indicative nightly figure for a midweek autumn stay, not a quote. Check the booking page before you commit.
Hana Okada The Low Countries
Plans trips around bridges and old infrastructure. Thirty-one named bridges in 14 countries, each photographed, with sketches kept in numbered notebooks.
Trip Grapevine earns a commission on bookings made through the links on this page. It costs you nothing, and it does not change the order of the list, which is set by the measurements above.