If you're in San Diego to see the Padres, this Marriott is where you want to stay. If you're here for a convention at the convention center, it's a short and pleasant walk. Beyond that, the hotel has its good and bad points. First, the good points: this hotel is at the edge of the Gaslamp district. There are endless restaurants, bars, shopping, or whatever touristy diversion you could want. Second, there's Colleen (hope I remember that right) at the front desk. If you have a problem, she'll fix it. It's also a very quiet hotel unless you have noisy neighbors like I did on 1 of 3 nights. Unlike the Hyatt, you'll never hear the trolley because it doesn't run next to the hotel and that's a good thing unless you plan on using it. There's a coffee maker, a hair dryer, and all of the usual toiletries. Hot water came up pretty fast except on the day when I got up at 4AM to catch an early flight. Then it took a few minutes for the shower to get up to temperature.
Not everything was perfect and I found more problems than I would have expected in a hotel that's so highly rated here. First, realize that all of the hotel's rooms were not created equal. The first room they gave me was on the 9th floor. It looked like a basement apartment because the windows started halfway up the wall, and the glass was frosted so you couldn't see out of the room. Fortunately the windows opened far enough for me to see what they were hiding and it was a roof with some kind of equipment on it. Maybe they weren't noisy air conditioning compressors that I saw, but I didn't want to find out. I went back to the lobby and got switched to room 1701 with a view of Petco park that was just like the ones in the traveler photos here.
Another problem is that you can't get to your room without using your key card in the elevator to allow access to the guest floors. It's a nice security feature but when you get into the elevator with both hands full of luggage, it's a bit silly. There's a bar on the roof that's open to the public and at night they block off one of the four elevators for roof access only. There's always a crowd in the way, the three other elevators become busier and slower than ever, etc. And this is when it's not baseball season. The roof bar looks down on the stadium so during a game this elevator situation can't be fun for guests in the lobby. I think the roof bar is probably a good reason to avoid staying on the top floor, but that's just a guess.
Finally there's the high speed internet access. First you have to call downstairs. Then you have to tell them if you want wireless or an ethernet connection. After you say "Wireless", they tell you that you'll need to give your credit card number to some company that you've never heard of. And if you want to use a cable to connect, the charge can go on your bill. Once you try to use it, you go through a screen that basically says "Your only choice is 24 hours of broadband. What would you like to choose?" You have to do this every 24 hours or you can skip a day if you'd like. Upon checkout you'll discover that after you pick the 24 hour "option", you get billed for this automatically every day until you check out. One good thing is that along with the internet, you also get free domestic calls, local or long distance. I'm not sure how much people actually use the phone in their room for long distance calls, but it seems like a reasonable way to call home once you realize it's free. The system doesn't seem to be well thought out. I think they'd make more money if the rooms were $3/night more and there was free wifi, but I'm not in the hotel business. I just stay in hotels.
Overall, I had a good time at the Marriott. It wasn't as nice of a hotel at the Hyatt and there were ar too many small problems, but this would be my number one pick if I was in town to see the Padres.
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