We arrived after a fairly long flight from Australia to be greeted by the friendly front office girl. So far so good. The place looked clean and inviting (lobby). The fun started when we thought we would pay for our room there and then for the 3 days we were staying. We were using a proper Visa Travel card that is good worldwide where Visa is accepted. Not at this hotel though!! After trying to explain, we gave up and forked out cash for the room plus an extra $50 deposit which left a hole in our traveling reserves.
Ok move on, these things happen. To the room...which was located on the Hollywood Blvd side of the block. This was a big mistake as there is an apartment complex right next door. Our hotel window as about 2 metres from the apartments. The noise ALL night was unbelievable, from drunken parties where you can hear every word being yelled to screaming and people calling for lost cats at 4 in the morning. Then there was the bed and the absolutely disgusting pillows. Very sub standard and very ordinary. The room itself was clean but worn and tired. Crappy shower and all fittings like taps and electrical sockets were loose and old.
The only highlight was the location though which was an easy 2 min walk to the Blvd and all the attractions there. This was perfect. Check out was fun also at 6.00am with a shuttle bus waiting to take us to LAX for our flight. The $50 we left as deposit mysteriously disappeared and the office girl was ringing other staff at their homes to locate it. "Are you sure you paid it" was her initial line of questioning. After nearly 25 minutes of argument and cutting into our airport travel time we got our money and hit the road. So our advise is give this place a wide berth and look elsewhere. Pretty ordinary hotel experience for such an iconic area.
hotel reviews