Central Coast hotel rooms selling out Memorial Day Weekend

Whether it’s four stars or two, Santa Cruz County is expecting hotels to fill-up.

“We cater to the drive market, the San Francisco bay area, central valley,” said Visit Santa Cruz County communications director Christina Glynn. “People want to get out of the heat and onto the beach.”

Starting at $379 a night, the Santa Cruz Dream Inn is nearly sold out for Memorial Day weekend.

“We’re getting really excited for this weekend, it should be pretty busy,” said Dan Smart, director of sales and marketing for the Santa Cruz Dream Inn.

The beachfront hotel said they’ve been booking reservations for families, honeymooners and couples.

“What’s been interesting this year compared to last year is that the booking window has gotten shorter,” said Smart. “Usually we have around a four to six week booking window. We’re coming down to a two to four week booking window.”

The stay at the Aqua Breeze Inn is about $150 dollars. They too only have a few rooms left.

“Things are getting busy,” said Aqua Breeze general manager Kamal Naran. “We’re not quite sold out yet but we should hopefully sale out on all three days.”

For some hotels the Memorial Day business is much appreciated.”

“This year has not been as consistently sunny as last year, so the rain has hurt a few of the weekends,” said Naran. “I think having good weather this weekend will be a great way to balance out the slowness of the last couple of weekends.”

Even though Memorial Day falls on Monday, some hotels said that’s the day rooms will open up.

“Everybody’s got to get back to work,” said Naran.

Officials also expect restaurants and local shops to be busy.