Emerald Dolphin Inn

I’ve stayed here multiple times and every time is great. The staff are very friendly and knowledge (especially of the local restaurants, attractions, etc)
I’ve had the privilege of being helped by Kim and Denise (I think I caught her name correctly) and both were great!
The rooms are very clean, fresh, and ready.
I work in hospitality, so I know a bit about hotels, and this one is definitely a diamond in the ruff.

Excellent service and great rooms for the price. My employer put me here for two weeks while waiting on more permanent housing in the area. The front desk staff is AMAZING and super attentive. The housekeeping is GREAT. The pet-​friendly rooms are great; food/​water bowl and a couple treats included!

I wanted to stay here for the weekend but it was fully booked as well as many other places President’s Day Weekend. This review was mainly for the mini golf. My wife and I love mini golf and were so stoked that there was one in town. It is a smaller course with mostly pretty simple holes but it was fun nonetheless. The arcade was pretty cool for small place at a hotel and it had a pool table and air hockey. I would definitely go again. It’s the only place like it in town.
The pictures of the rooms look nice. We had to stay at the Surf Motel across the street which is also dog friendly but one of the dirtiest places I have ever stayed. Very cheap though so you get what you pay for.

Stayed here on a spur of the moment get away. Friendly staff. Very clean rooms. Quiet. The shower was great also which is sometimes hard to find. Nice places to eat near by.

One of the best hotels I have ever been to, and when I went up to Fort Bragg about two years ago, and the service was amazing, I went to the mini golf course, and that was fun, and I definitely recommend this hotel if you coming to stay in Fort Bragg.

Emerald Dolphin Inn — a wonderful and affordable place to stay on the Mendocino Coast. The lobby carried the general things I needed, especially while I was traveling during a cleanse. Thank you! It was super helpful. Our room was clean. I am usually weary of walking barefoot in a carpeted hotel room, but I actually felt quite comfortable there. The TV had a HDMI cable input so I was able to work /​watch on the TV with my laptop. The ocean is a couple minutes away and the local grocery store, Harvest Market, is right across the street. How more convenient can this location be. I would definitely come back to this place. The friendly staff members made it an even more comfortable place to stay. Highly recommend!

we stayed here with family last weekend and were very comfortable. the rooms are clean and the staff are informative and friendly. mini golf and arcade were a big hit with all the kids. close to restaurants, shopping and the beach

We had a party in Ft Bragg earlier last month, with all of our guests coming in from out of town/​out of state. We chose Emerald Dolphin & HIE as the two hotels to recommend to out guests due to their close proximity to our house. My parents stayed here on a Tues thru Sunday that week (i stayed with them 2 nights) my Uncle & Aunt came in on Weds thru Friday, my brother & sister-​in-​law w/​my niece came in on Friday thru Sunday, as did friends & family that took up approximately 5 other rooms that week/​weekend… so I think they occupied about 10 rooms all in all… and everyone seemed very pleased with their stay. The only ‘wierd’ thing to note, is that there are approx 10 to 12 rooms located In a separate bldg across the street from the main building, so if you’re booking more than one room, I recommend making sure they’re all in the same building.
The rooms are not super modern, but VERY clean. Same for the bathroom, it was tiny but CLEAN. The price is AMAZING. And I rarely mention a lobby, but I have to say that they had THE CUTEST items available for purchase in the lobby (like a little gift shop).
Location wise, its great — easily accessible, right off the 1, with restaurants & groceries right accross the street and downtown shops less than 5 minutes away — only downside for me personally was that none of the rooms I went in had an ocean view nor could you hear the ocean at night, but we weren’t paying an ocean view so I wasn’t mad lol.

This place is fantastic, is amazingly clean (inside and out including the restroom and shower).
They allow dogs and give you a treat, bowl, towel and mat for them.
The morning coffee and pastries were also good.
I would expect to pay upwards of $ 300 for a place like this due to the cleanliness.
Thank you and keep up the hard work :)

Great miniature Golf course. One of the best thing about this course was it wasn’t too busy. Maybe because it was out in Fort Brag not a lot of people were playing. It was also located within a hotel, so kind of hard to find. I drove in a couple couple circles trying to find it, even though you could see it from the freeway.
Once you step inside, where you buy your game, there is a game room, with pinball machines and arcades games. It also has a party room in the back, which looks great for younger kids parties .
After we purchased our game, and steeped out on the the course we had had a great time. But I thought many of the courses could have been a little more updated as some of them were just plain putting holes. Also a lot of the foutians that look like they could have had water didn’t.
One one the best things about this course thouse was there was like a huge pond where you would continuously hit your ball into. I maybe hit in there 20 times. Even though my putting game was horrible, this really made the game fun. And then you had to fish your ball out with a long net. !! I would recommend this to anyone with a little spare time on their hands as I did enjoy it.

We reserved this room without seeing the hotel let me tell you the staff was accommodating, the grounds were clean the room was spacious, treasonable, beyond clean, very stylish, bed was very comfortable and it was homey! Highly recommend to anyone traveling to fort Bragg

This place has no air conditioning-​something that is not advertised and a factor you may consider when the weather is warm.
The king size bed was hard and uncomfortable.
The rooms have ONE WINDOW, which is located adjacent to the front door. The only relief from the heat in your room is the small $ 3.00 plastic fan, (with a short power cord) that has been so generously supplied is your room. You can open the window, and place the fan in the sill to attempt ventilation. Here is the good news-​YOU WILL HAVE TO HAVE THE WINDOW AND BLINDS OPEN. All of your new friends and little dogs walk by your open window, and take a look in, be sure to wave back!
The room is shaped like a hallway, with the ONE window (facing the parking lot) and door on the end. It is not an occupant friendly design.
The exorbitant price that this establishment charges seems to be attempted to be offset by the small miniature golf course on site. No thanks. The bed and breakfast rates that you charge have driven me away to anywhere else.

Close to the beach! The front staff has been pretty nice and the rooms are clean. It has nice surroundings!
Reasonably priced except where they want to charge you $ 12 extra for each child each night.
We would stay here again

My wife and I had not traveled in awhile, and were greatly anticipating our road trip up the California coast to Fort Bragg. We love trains, and riding the Skunk Train was something we had planned to do for several years.
In looking through the lodging options, the Emerald Dolphin Inn received the best reviews on multiple websites which we browsed. We were particularly pleased that we were able to purchase our Skunk Train tickets bundled with our room reservations.
We had initially planned to travel in May, but the day after we booked our room, one of the front desk staff called and told us that due to a tunnel collapse, the Skunk Train would not be leaving from Fort Bragg. We would have to drive to Willits. Despite this disappointment, we were very pleased and grateful that we were notified of this and given the option to change our booking to a later date.
THAT is excellent customer service!
When we arrived, the front desk person was very friendly and especially helpful in aiding us with our dining decisions. We had researched a half dozen places in town months in advance, but our Emerald Dolphin Insider gave us the latest skinny, and helped us to avoid a few places which may have been fave raves when they first written about, but had since fallen from favor.
THAT is excellent customer service, too!
Upon entering our room, we discovered to our delight that the raves we had read online were right on the money. The room was spotless. My wife likes things neat, trim and tidy, and she was very pleased. We received another happy surprise when the TV didn’t work. 2 minutes after a call to the front desk, help arrived and the problem was swiftly resolved with the flip of a switch.
Our four night stay was lovely, and coming back to our room at the end of a long day of hiking and sightseeing was always a relief and a pleasure. The Emerald Dolphin Inn is located just outside of downtown Fort Bragg, so it is fairly quiet despite being just off Highway 1.
There is a supermarket just across the highway for snacks & booze, and David’s Restaurant is a great local eatery that has charm and many hearty breakfast options to get you fueled up for another breathtaking stroll along the eye-​popping coastline.
We didn’t try the mini-​golf, but we’ll save that for next time!

I phoned ahead to secure a block of rooms for my group. Everyone made their reservations without any problems. The rooms are nicely sized and beautifully CLEAN with lots of room options (jacuzzi, fireplace, king, queen, etc.). Check-​In was friendly and fast. No complaints, happy group.

Really enjoyed my stay here. close to everything in town. very nice and helpful employees. Had fun at the mini golf course. they also had a arcade.

I’m not writing a review about the inn, I’m waiting a review about the mini golf course. It may seem/​look small, but it is nice. Fun. Loved the borders where there were little pond/​lakes, so that the golf balls wouldn’t fall in as easily.
My only dislike about the course was the lack of starting points at every number. All of the other mini golf courses I’ve been to, have at least three points for you to choose to start from. Makes the game more fair amongst opponents.
Therefore, I don’t think I’d come back here, next time I come up to visit Fort Bragg/​Mendocino.

I gave it a WooHoo-​5 star based on: the price we paid (booked directly through the motel’s webpage), that the beds were comfortable, and that staff was very responsive and helpful.
I was able to get the 3-​day deal, which resulted in a great discount. I’d probably do 4 stars if it were more expensive otherwise. I think most or the better reviews are accurate from what we experienced. The place is a motel, simple, and clean. We found the beds to be comfortable and it was nice to have a little fridge (no microwave). We found only a small hotel shampoo bottle, so we bought shampoo & conditioner at the 99 cents store across the street. Our bathroom was very clean, looked to be freshly caulked in fact, the tub had no mold or anything gross, and there was a nice fan & window for ventilation. We always had very hot water and good water pressure-​note the water must be soft in the area as we found the shampoo to take a while to rinse. Towels and linens were fine.
The motel walls are what they are– not like being in a brand new super insulated hotel. We could hear the people next to us chatting and doing other things… too bad for that gal, but lucky for us it didn’t go on very long! I’m sure they heard us sisters gabbing away (Ok, maybe a little giggling over the sounds next door). Otherwise after dark it was very quiet. We did notice cars zipping down the road to the college nearby in the morning. We were in the units across the street from check-​in.
I found the front desk staff to be very nice and responsive. When we notified the front desk that the children of a large family gathering were beating the crud out of the landscaping in view of their idiot parents while playing ‘piñata-​piñata-​piñata’ (that is what they shouted while breaking branches off of shrubs and bashing the petals off of the camellia bush.) staff quickly responded. Once that family reunion left after 2 days into our stay, the last day was especially enjoyable. If it is ever humanly possible to have an adult side and ‘family’ side of the property that would be awesome. After listening to their constant screaming and playing tag running up & down the stairs, and through the halls during the daylight hours I was starting to feeling strongly that spay & neuter programs should extend to more than just dogs and cats.
What else? Walking distance to good eats. We enjoyed an excellent breakfast at David’s and had great pizza and salad at Pizza Factory too. Also, we bought some of the fragrant lotions they had up at the check-​in counter for sale during check-​out. Overall, I’d for sure come back and just hope we don’t encounter another noisy family reunion.

Great value, clean and great central location. Service was friendly and accommodating. We purchased skunk train tickets through the hotel and enjoyed the ride tremendously. Something different to do in the area.
Some negatives: the bed, fireplace and toilet paper. We purchased a king room with fireplace. The mattress is way too soft and was indented from most people sleeping on one side. Definitely would recommend purchasing a higher quality, firm mattress for guests. The fireplace is electric with fake flames and was very loud when heat was turned on. And, the toilet paper was like sandpaper.
All in all it’s a good deal and was a good experience. But, if you’re looking for luxury this is not the hotel for you.

I really enjoyed my stay here. We got the queen jacuzzi room and there were no big complaints. We’re a little on the germaphobe side and so we ran the jacuzzi for a bit with some soap and water first and saw that the jets were kinda dirty with leftover hair and other particles, but it was easily washed away. We did the same thing with the keurig and the hot water that came out was brown (likely from coffee, duh!), but easily cleaned after the first initial run. Things that can’t be easily cleaned anyway so no blame here.
The queen bed was comfy and the bedding was soft. The front desk was super nice and loved that our stay included a complimentary game of mini golf!