I stayed at the Hyatt House across the tracks from EMY in May 2023, while returning from my nephew's wedding in Monterey. Originally, Amtrak had booked me on a Thruway bus from Salinas at about 2-3 AM, with a several hour wait for the train, but I realized this was crazy (no hotel for the evening, or book a room for the night, check out at about 1 AM and get a cab or Uber of Lyft to Salinas at oh-dark-thirty...) I changed my reservation to ride coach the previous afternoon from Salinas to EMY on the Starlight, stay in the Hyatt and have a civilized dinner and breakfast before leaving on the Zephyr (my original reservation.) There is an elevator from the station to the parking garage above it, a pedestrian bridge from the second or third level of the garage across the tracks to a tower in the middle of the Hyatt parking lot, and a second elevator. It was a fairly long walk across the mostly empty parking lot from the tower to the hotel entrance, and not well-signed, and the CS was a little late getting in, and the closest door to the station was locked for the evening, and I spent some time hauling my luggage around the wrong way until I found the right way into the hotel, so it all could have been much better if they just put up a sign that said "Hotel Entrance" with an arrow. But there wasn't anyone around, threatening or not. In the morning, since I knew the way, it was all much easier. And there were other people walking over to the station in the morning.
In retrospect, this was a much better option than the original bus, but I think I would have been better off taking the CS to Sacramento or Martinez and catching the Zephyr there. Less of a rush in the morning, I would have had an hour or two more sleep! The hotel was fine but moderately expensive. A hotel in SAC or MTZ or one of the other stops where the Starlight and Zephyr follow the same route probably would have been just as nice but significantly cheaper. I didn't have any time for local exploration, so the actual location didn't matter, as long as it was a place where I could transfer between trains.