San Joaquin Hotel

I had been staying at the Fresno San Joaquin for years, it used to be great. Clean affordable rooms with breakfast service in the morning. Great! However the family sold out to a Best Western and immediately I could tell something major changed before I got my room. The grounds were always well managed, but today it was completely unkept, dying shrubs, garbage in thrown about. Then I noticed a guy without a shirt standing by his room smoking, he was loaded with prison tats. Later that evening I came back only to be greeted by 4 police cars in the front. The next evening with a few friends visiting me there noticed several drug deals going on in the parking lot and *******. We watched a guy running in with Samsung TV box, it got worse, even our front desk person said, "It's like this every single night! I wanna get out of here!" ....in short, the San Joaquin Hotel in Fresno is no longer the same with their new owners. Best Western have simply trashed a once great family owned hotel. Very sad.

Visited Fresno for the first time for a friend's birthday and their family booked us a stay down the way at San Joaquin because it was close to their house and thought it looked relatively nice from the street..... they were mortified when I showed them the photos of our "suite". I am guessing that the only "housekeeping" done before we arrived is one of the "maids" removing the police tape from our door because it looked like a crime scene inside. Horrifying stains of indeterminate liquids and/or bodily fluids greeted us on every square inch of the carpet. Stains that have clearly NEVER been even attempted to be cleaned. A quick spray of Folex would remove some of it but apparently the cleaning staff has better things to do. Needless to say, we kept our socks on the entire stay. Perhaps most of the lights did not work in the unit which made it dark. The few bulbs that did turn on were bright blue which made us feel like we were having some sort of acid trip. Maybe this was to distract from the filthy carpet? The bathroom sink and shower faucet had clearly never been cleaned and were heavy with water stains. Astonishingly, the linens and towels seemed clean (believe me, we double-checked before touching them. The hotel walkways were equally stained. The next morning we did pass a housekeeping cart which we had to laugh about because we could only assume it was purely decorative to imply that any employee there actually does their job. The few times we passed through the lobby and actually saw anyone at the desk, they were disheveled and turned their gaze to avoid eye contact while maintaining a comical frown. The cherry on top was really when we returned to the parking lot sometime after midnight from the party. Several cars were taking up 2 spaces with some idling with lights on, people talking, and ladies of the night walking about. The scariest part was that one car pulled out of their spot behind us when we pulled in, turned their lights on, and attempted to block us in. My friend and I booked it to our room and locked the door - again - nobody in the empty office. We had many nervous laughs about the third world conditions of San Joaquin Hotel to distract us from how gross and sketchy this place actually is. If you find yourself needing last-minute accommodations in Fresno and this place is your only option, you're better off sleeping under a freeway overpass or in a homeless shelter. Either of which will be cleaner and feel safer. An easy 0/5!