Alta Cienega Motel

I called to make a reservation and the woman answers with «yeah»
I ask if it was the motel and she said «yeah»
I asked if she had a two bed available and she said «yeah»
I asked how much and she said «98» and hung up
When I get there she tells me that she doesn’t have a two bed and and I told her I just called and she said she did and she said «ok I have one»
I filled out the paperwork and went to pay and she rudely tells me «cash only go to atm «even though there is no sign to tell you cash only. I went and got cash and came back in ten minutes and she said «$ 130» i asked how it went from 98 to 130 and she said «plus tax» I told her the tax on 98 is not 32 and she said «ok 120» and I said no and calculated the tax on my calculator and showed her and she was like «ok 110» to which I said that was still too high but whatever.
And now my room smells like pee!
If I weren’t so desperate to find a place tonight there’s no way I would be staying here!

My experience here was not that bad stayed two nights. I used
. the total for two nights was around $ 194. The parking was only $ 8 a night. I had asked for the Jim room in my booking request but we ended up in room 18 instead. I did not encounter nor have any issues with questionable characters as some of the reviews have mentioned. I found the place to be very quiet. Sure its a bit run down and dingy, but overall we were happy. The location is perfect a short walk to the Rainbow, The Whiskey, the Comedy store, Barney’s Beanery, etc. there is also a CVS and a 7 – 11 close by. I would def stay here again.

I must confess that I was surprised at how clean the rooms actually. Still adorned with fixtures from the 60’s the basic required needs from a motel room were sufficiently met. However, the lack of bedbugs and of course the friendly crab, did not mask plain meanness of the owners wife. Fresh off the boat from India, this woman was so mad at the world as it soon became apparent, she needed no assistance throwing our well packed luggage mto have a normal conversation with any I could see that she has been rode hard and lout up wet, on a number of occasions. Could this be the root of her evilness. Telling m of RS
Apo was. If the Owners /​Managers.

I was prepared to have one of the grossest staying experience ever, but it wasn’t like that. I don’t know if that depends on the room you’re in or the previous guests or the neighbours or whatever, but my experience here is decent.
We choose this motel to get the chance to stay in room 32, but we didn’t know if we were going to be there until the very last minute. That’s because when we tried to call during the previous weeks nobody ever answered. Luckily we had specified our desire during the online booking, so they received our request and gave us room 32 keys (…well, with $ 46 more for 2 nights. At the end the bill was higher than necessary for a motel like this, but at least we had free parking always available. We tried to stay positive!).
If you deliberately chose room 32, you have to be prepared to where you’re going to be/​sleep/​relax/​shower. The room is unique, and it actually smells a little bit like old/​smoke, but after all it’s decent. We stayed there 2 nights, and it’s probably the most we could stand before starting to be annoyed by that place’s defects. The window doesn’t work very well and the view is right on Santa Monica Blvd: that means noise and fresh air all night long. But you know what? We were so exhausted from visiting LA and walking in the nearby (the position of the motel is FANTASTIC — I’ve been in LA before but this was the first time I was actually able to really live it, even for just a couple of days!) that we slept perfectly both nights. The bed is actually pretty comfortable! The shower is another negative point, since it seems pretty old and I had some issues in switching from hot to cold — but still, if you have a little bit of ability to adapt you have nothing to worry. Being in Jim Morrison’s favourite room has been a great moment, I’m glad we took the risk.

This place is really disgusting. My boyfriend and I stayed here 1 night, and I didn’t even want to do that. Everyone mentions that no refunds are given, and that remains to be true. The room is small, gross, and outdated to say the least. I could hear my next door neighbors activities like the were right next to me. Do you want to hear hookers, transvestites, and transients get drunk/​high, exchange sex for money, and not get any sleep at all? Well, you have found the right place! I really felt as if anything could have happened. I didn’t feel safe at all. I stayed somewhere else for the duration of my stay. I happily overpaid at another hotel. Next time I will go with airbnb instead. DO NOT STAY HERE

I really enjoy staying here every time I visit West Hollywood. It’s located in the heart of safe West Hollywood. What more could you ask for? They keep the rooms very clean, include cable TV, and are close to bus lines, great restaurants, Trader Joe’s, and more! You can walk around the area early in the morning and know you’re safe. The price is also great.

Possibly the strangest hotel experience to date. I was given room 32, famous as the sometime residence of musician/​junkie Jim Morrison, who’s following over the 41 years since his death have cover the room and graffiti unlike any I could ever expect to see. The bed was so disgusting I was certain the scabies and bedbugs had created a race of super bedbugs. Don’t go to this hotel in other words. But if you do Cedars isn’t far away.

After you check in and pay, they tell you no parking spaces left, find your own parking, wtf. Isnt thwt what youre paying for. This is what happened to a freind who is a regular there.
He ended up payin exttra at a motel down the street to park there… He is too nice to argue, if it was me, welll, this would have been a different story. Fucking thieves,.
Beware people, dont let them get away with this kinda shit in weho.

When I get the itch to immerse myself in the feeling of white guilt, I sometimes read motel reviews by my fellow caucasians for their freaked-​out hyperbole about abject filth, presumed junkies, supposed hookers, tiny scratchy bath towels, «weird people», and fretting over communicability of STDs by merely sitting on a bed. There’s plenty of that hysteria here in these 1-​star reviews where some kernels of truth are conflated into keyed-​up kerfluffles that cast more light on the sheltered lives of these reviewers who think this place is so revoltingly bad.
I booked the Alta Cienega on
(«Booking dot, alright whatever… I guess!») where it has only been reviewed by a few recent customers since joining as an affiliate. Its reviews there are skewed by Booking.com’s rating metrics which favor a scungy dungeon in a great neighborhood over a spotlessly clean motel across the street from a busy airport but exceeding customer expectations with unusually luxuriant bath towels, sleep-​number beds, and free continental breakfast with fresh-​squeezed/​not-​from-​concentrate orange juice and Greek yogurt. Thanks to the fantastically high rating customers have awarded the Alta Cienega for its location, its rating average reaches 5.7, putting it in the «good» range. With only 24 hours before our roadtrip departure time, it was the only motel within 4 miles of this location under $ 100 besides a couple budget chain places in the Valley. At $ 67 before fees, it seemed like a great bargain. The novelty value of the Jim Morrison room nudged me further toward clicking «BOOK IT NOW».
My feelings now are mixed about it. On the first of our 3 nights, I was a little bit dismayed at the crumbs on the laminate floor in Room 17, the totally stripped hot water knob in the bathroom sink, the poor pressure of the cold water in the sink, the precarious table lamp, and the useless 2^nd TV remote which tuned in PBS on 4 different channels and nothing else. Our feet felt gross after walking a few paces on the floor, so we just threw the comforter down and used it like a carpet runner in the short hall to the bathroom.
On the following morning, I negotiated with the manager to get special attention to the crummy floor and the lack of a 2^nd towel. I had to cross her language barrier to convey my request, and then she had to cross another language barrier to the huddled, harried cleaning lady, but the room was decently clean if not altogether spotless upon our return after dinner to change clothes and freshen up between a day of serious record collecting and a night of thrashing and hobnobbing at that night’s garagepunk show. The manager also agreed to unlock the Morrison room which was filled with tribute graffiti from fans, but rather anticlimactic. I got a chuckle out of seeing some of Jim’s least worthy poetry (not that any of his lyrics actually stand alone as anything approaching decent poetry (even if «dead rat» and «top hat» do indeed rhyme!)) transcribed so reverently in Sharpie ink.
Is it the worst place ever? Not by a long shot. If the Alta Cienega was on Union Avenue in Bakersfield, Motel Drive in Fresno, MacArthur Blvd in Oakland, or East Fremont Street in Vegas, it would likely be the best place to stay. Even in L.A., there are entire swaths comprising half a dozen zip codes where no motel is half as decent as this. Would I stay there again? Probably not. Would I rather stay at the Rodeway Inn in Rampart Village for $ 20 more? Probably yes. But that’s just me.
Would it be conceivable that the Alta Cienega might even be recommendable under the right circumstances? Absolutely! If you value this particular location for the lowest possible price, this is it. It won’t ace a white glove test even after you ask them to clean it better for you, but after they took care of the floors, it was definitely livable. It’s kinda noisy with all the fast traffic on three sides of you, but after a short while, I was able to fall into a restful sleep as the traffic sounds began to swirl like ocean waves over the voice of Peter Thomas narrating back-to-back-to-back-etc.-etc. episodes of «Forensic Files» on CNNHN. I could hear no evidence of hot hooker action going on, nor could I see any evidence of long-​term loafers, drifters, weirdos, or halfway-down-‘n’-outters. All the cars in the parking lot were of recent vintages of Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW and wore license plates from states such as Oregon, Washington, Ohio, and New Jersey. The neighboring couple spoke in unmistakable Aussie accents. The clientele were mostly travelers.
The parking lot is a notably tight squeeze and costs $ 8 for the privilege of parking. No parking pass is awarded, but I guess they don’t oversell the privilege because there was always exactly one space for our Subaru even when I arrived late after the show and a shame-​inducing gutbomb post-​midnight chili-​burger binge at Tommy’s.

If I could choose zero stars I would. The place is gross, I bought anti bacterial wipes and wiped the whole place down before we touched anything. The one that cleaned the remote came out brown. We didn’t even take a shower because there was mold in the tile. The bathroom faucet drizzled water. Luckily the sheets seemed clean or I would have just left and lose out on $ 79. The door was sketchy, we packed the table and chairs by the door afraid of someone breaking in. I would never stay here or adviser anyone to stay here. There’s not even a plug in the bathroom.

My gosh … it is worse than they say!!!
I decided to check in for a night in order to get a little Doors history and sleep where Jim Morrison slept for a night. This might be one of the dirtiest and grimiest motels I have ever stayed at. They literally could film an episode of Breaking Bad here if they needed a seedy meth lab motel.
First of all, transvestites and hookers love this place. And I am talking about Mr. T in a blonde wig looking transvestites. Probably because of the cheap rooms. But most of the people you see sliding in and out of rooms here are NOT the people you want to be sleeping next door to. I did not feel safe at all here and almost checked out after it got dark and went to another hotel.
For the price, I cannot complain … I knew what I was getting into. Valet parking at nicer places a few streets over costs ¹⁄₃ as much as a room does here.
The Jim Morrison room is covered with graffiti. Every inch of it. The room seriously smells like a combination of cigarette butts and a natural gas leak (I am not kidding … there has to be some kind of gas leak here, which can’t be too safe because it smells that people are chain smoking inside the room). There are notes everywhere about ‘Me and my girlfriend fucked right here’ accompanied by arrows. There is a lengthy and clear history of everyone who ever jerked off in the shower written in Sharpie under the shower head, which is more like a fire hose.
I think one could get an STD just by laying in the bed. A few people knocked on the door during the day asking to see the room. I was just glad it wasn’t a tweeker meth head … so I let them peek in. The owners were not happy about this because one of the people whom I let in told me they tried to charge her $ 20 to see the room plus $ 10 extra (cash only) to write her name on the wall. When I told them I was staying in the room they looked at me with a befuddled, ‘you’d actually sleep here???’ look.
I have to admit, I have stayed at some pretty divey spots. And some pretty nice spots. This one takes the cake though. Jim Morrison didn’t care about much of anything except finding the bottom of a bottle of whiskey when he lived here. Maybe that is the secret to the Alta Cienega Motel. The coolest part of this motel is that it probably hasn’t changed much AT ALL since the 1960s/​1970s since Morrison lived here. It seriously is almost preserved in time and aside from the dates on the graffiti, you could literally be staying at a hotel in 1968 when you stay here.
Scary, dirty, grimey and with the world’s shadiest owners … if you can get through a night here, you can say you are actually a TRUE Doors fan.

Don’t know what I was expecting for the price. I was expecting it to be gross and run down. It was worse. So thankful I brought my own blankets and pillows. The room smelled like a mixture of rotten socks, an old beer can with used chewing tobacco inside and the lovely chemically gorgeous febreeze (an attempt to remedy the filth I guess) the ceiling of the shower was covered in black mold. It’s been almost a week since the stay and I’m still gagging.

Let me start off by saying that the only reason why I had to stay at this motel was for a good friends birthday… And by the way, when I say good friend, I mean that he’s a damn good friend for me to have actually put up with this place. Originally we were booked a suite at the Ramada but since we were only in town for one night of drinking at the gay bars, my friend decided that he would rather downgrade and save a few extra dollars. I didn’t want to kill his birthday fun so I agreed to suck it up and stay at this place with him.
Walking into the motel room, I realized that not only was it a downgrade… It was one hell of a downgrade! I honestly felt like I would contract some type of STD just by being there. I felt like the room was a set for a horror movie and we were the cast waiting to be offed by some psychotic murderer. We booked two rooms with two double beds for six people and we were only able to get one room with the double beds. They ran out of rooms with double beds and had to make our second room a single king bed. We decided that since it was our friends birthday we would give him and his guy some privacy, which meant that four of us would have to share the room with two beds. Normally I wouldn’t mind cramming a big group of friends in one room, but this room made it difficult. Yes, the room had two beds BUT one was was a full size and the other bed was a twin! It gets worse though. The bathroom had mold on the walls and the carpet looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in weeks. The bed sheets looked so dirty that I was afraid to lay in them. The only reason that I was able to sleep was because I was drunk. Our room didn’t even have a phone to call the front desk. I was so disgusted by everything in that room. I’m thankful that I read reviews for the place before I came because I was able to buy some disinfectant spray! I sprayed every inch of that room including the carpets (if you ever stay at this place I suggest you do the same).
The only reason why this place deserves one star is because of the location. It’s about a five minute walk away from the gay bars (cantina, mickeys, rage, etc.). Other than that, I think this place should just get shut down or at least remodeled and fixed up.

So, I loooove seedy motels. I love them so much. My sister and I recently went to good ol’ Hollyweird and I suggested we stay in WeHo (West Hollywood) and stay in a seedy motel.
West Hollywood has been almost completely gentrified. This particular location was within walking distance of a lot of great places.
We arrived late (like 2:30 AM) and the parking lot (which holds about 10 cars, if even) was completely full. My sister booked the room so she hopped out and waited a few minutes for a gentleman to come out. He instructed me to back up my car in a non-​existing space. (Thankfully no scratches or bumps occurred). He told my sister that it was $ 10 a day for parking — she didn’t have cash, so we never paid that. Don’t fall for this.
The room was so seedy! It had a casino type of carpeting (heavily patterned and weird repeating designs) and there were knock off art works in crooked frames on the wall. A mirror was sitting on the dresser and there was a big, fat tv!
The bathroom was small and both my sister and I felt the need to wear flip flops in the shower. No soap or shampoos were provided (as a season traveler, I was sure to stock up).
The AC worked in our room, but all the buttons were torn off. Our options were warm and musky or freezer status. We let that baby blow and had a cuddle fest.
The walls were thin, no other guests bothered us. It was a perfectly seedy place.
On a side note, the turn into this place can be a pain, I got honked at and was given the finger when I turned onto La Cienega from Santa Monica Blvd.

Yay I found a new inexpensive place to stay when I visit West Hollywood. I had always stayed at the Holloway Motel down the street, but its gotten so dilapidated and filthy I was forced to seek out an alternative. I’m glad I did. This place is so much better in every aspect.
The rooms feature new carpet, new beds, new curtains, and updated bathrooms. For the price, this is a great deal in the area.
The air conditioner in my room was quite old but worked fine, and the water pressure in the bathroom was very low. But other than that I have no complaints.
It was also pretty quiet at night, Its set back off the road so traffic noise is minimized.
I would recommend this Motel to friends looking for an inexpensive clean place to stay. Just be aware this is a Motel not Hotel and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

My husband and I stayed at the Alta Cienega Motel for one reason only. To stay in Room 32, the Jim Morrison Room. I called a week ahead to reserve a night, and since I was flexible it didn’t really matter which night we stayed. Was surprised I was able to get in on a Friday rather than the middle of the week, but it worked for us. They wouldn’t take our credit card number over the phone to reserve the room, just said it was reserved for us, no problem. This made me nervous since I wanted the room but I decided if someone else was in it I would try to crash their party for a peek at the room. I called again the Friday morning of our check in to tell them we were on the way and they said yes, we have your reservation.
First of all, the motel is on a really busy intersection, so if you arrive from the wrong direction you might have to drive around the block and make a few u-​turns to get to it. Oh, tourists and your (our) fancy driving skills. They had our reservation and check-​in was smooth even with some language issues. Old school check in with having to fill out a form, and the lovely walk up window. No going through the door. (But I was going to see THE DOOR!)
I only saw inside one room and that is Room 32. If you are going for the Jim Room then, in my opinion, the $ 94.00 was worth it. The walls, and, well, EVERY surface is covered with fan writings. Bring your Sharpie marker and add your tribute.
The bathroom floor was new and the bed seemed newer and was clean. The TV worked. The room is a smoking room which normally I would never accept, but in this case I didn’t care. The shower is stall style and small. My husband used it but I hate those things. He said it was fine. I also wouldn’t let him turn the AC unit on. It really needed vacuuming (it was filthy) and I didn’t want any strange things blowing into the room. And it was about 100 degrees out. I was a little disappointed that no Jim fans knocked on the door wanting to see the room :-) The location is good to walk to all the Jim haunts, and close to clubs.
To wrap up — I felt safe here (with my husband), didn’t see any people hanging around, we were nice checking in and to housekeeping so they were nice to us.
Oh, and I got a Room 32 key chain and it cost me $ 5.00. Cool souvenir. Took a couple tries as the wife didn’t know where they were, but I wasn’t leaving without one :-)

Roughly $ 100 to stay here, you can spend it much better somewhere else. Tiny, dirty rooms with air conditioning units that don’t work. Unfriendly staff, and seedy clientele. Jim Morrison lived here awhile back in the 60’s which is cool, but it’s gone downhill pretty bad since then.

After road tripping thousands of miles in the US, cross-​country from LA to NYC in ’09 and down the West Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles this summer, I have stayed at more motels, inns and hotels than I can count. The standard has always been decent … NOT SO at the Alta Cienega Motel in LA!
We checked in yesterday and got room 29. It has weird thick carpeting (the kind your feet sink into when you walk), the «white» towels were full of stains and I even found a handful of long brown hairs among the towels as well. The bed sheets are stained and the brown-​ish covers are full of scratches and big holes. There’s even a cigarette burn hole in one of them!?! The AC is very loud and the WiFi painfully slow.
We’re three people staying in the room with one single and one queen-​size bed, so I asked the receptionist (who I believe is also the manager/​owner) for a third sheet. He refused to give me one, offering no explanation!
My travel mates and I are not exactly picky about the places we stay. We don’t have super high expectations or anything like that. But I would not recommend this place in a million years.

It’s a dive. Have no illusions — it’s a dive! I stayed in Jim’s #32 room yesterday, and to my shock and amazement, Bessy, the owner, actually remembered me, and who I was with last year. She’s tough nut to crack, so be nice to her, and she’ll be nice to you. Not the best people policy, but whatever.
Jim’s room — blech, wretch, nasty, but so historical, and a living, breathing shrine. Book it if you’re a fan of The Doors or JDM.

Rechid!