I booked this hotel based on the Trip Advisor's ratings and I found this hotel to be extremely over-rated. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary after several years of marriage and were looking for something different and romantic as my wife would say. I am an appraiser by profession, so I may be a little more critical in my observations. If you like a noisy beach location then this is your place. The hotel is on the beach boardwalk and lies between two feeder streets that lead to the beach. It has underground parking which is another $20 for each night. Considering the amount of beach traffic you really have no other alternative, but to pay the extra $20 for parking so factor that into your costs. We asked for a partial ocean view to take advantage of the beach location and yet to be a little more economical then the very expensive beach front location, but one had to be on the balcony to see the partial view. What was really annoying is that you were directly facing one of the streets I refer to. If you don't mind being bothered at 6 AM by people arriving at the beach then your OK, but like us, we like the slider or window ajar to get fresh air during the night when sleeping. There is late and early traffic on the streets and since the hotel is only 3 stories high you are going to be relatively close to the noisy streets regardless of which floor you are on. We were on the 2nd floor. One noise that could have been avoided is the hotel Help early in the morning. I didn't understand a word they said, but all I know is that there was one hotel worker that appeared to be in charge of the others and she was doing a lot of yelling to her subordinates in the hallway. The doors were not well insulated and we did complain to the hotel about their Help being too loud in the early mornings. The rooms were appointed rather comfortably, however, the large frame beds did make it more difficult to enter the beds, especially if you have small children or older adults who will find it difficult to climb into and out of the beds. Even exiting the beds we were hitting our shins, because the frames came up so high from the floor. Like many hotels, these beds had colorful tropical bed spreads that I would never sit on or lay on and it is obvious these bed spreads are not washed on a daily basis like the sheets are changed. The floors seemed clean and they did provide new slippers, but the slippers were one size fits all and if you wear an 11 shoe like I do then forget it. The bathroom was OK. Only one sink and the water pressure was normal. The bath tub is enclosed with a double glass doors with seals at the bottom of the doors that did not seal and if you took a shower there was more than just a pool of standing water when you exited. We had to use several towels to soak up the water and we also reported this to the hotel, because we thought it would create mold and moisture problems in the walls. The room had other features, like a small refrigerator, microwave, a small wet bar and a big screen TV. There was a hair dryer, a lighted magnifying mirror and ironing equipment. They did provide terrycloth robes that were available for purchase. One feature they did have that was upscale and that my wife enjoyed was the Gilchrist and Soames body bath soaps and cremes. On the other hand, however, what may be a little embarrassing if you are sharing a room with non-intimate guest is using the bathroom. The bath fan was too small and inadequate to ventilate the bathroom odors that penetrated to the entire room immediately. This is a design flaw in the original construction. There is no restaurant in the building, but they do provide a continental breakfast from 6:30 to 10:00 AM. in the exit room to the pool area. There is also Starbucks coffee provided all day that were in dispensors near the pool area. One evening they did have some complimentary inexpensive wines available for tasting in the late afternoon near the pool/patio area. There is a considerable amount of local shopping stores and small fast food local-owned and chain restaurants , but if you want any real fine dining you will need a vehicle to travel up to La Jolla, which is the adjacent city, which is approximately 5 miles north. Our partial ocean view room was $330 and tax was $41.25, parking $20 for a total of $391.25 per night. This price in my opinion is far too much for the accommodations that we had and for that reason and the others mentioned above this hotel is over-rated with Trip Advisor.
hotel reviews