Hotel del Coronado — Attraction in Coronado

-Rooms at the View were overall pretty good. One of the rooms we were booked into had stains on the floor/carpeting, another had a broken toilet paper holder, one had a TV that stopped working, and 2 of 4 had mini fridges that did not work. The View’s building is less than 1 year old and had this kind of poor upkeep for $550+ per night rooms. Unacceptable in my book.

-The location was fantastic! Can't beat a hotel room literally steps from the ocean.

-The service was terrible at best. The first night check-in was easy and that is where the good service stopped. I had to check into different rooms the next day due to availability, and there was significant confusion of which rooms I booked. I booked 2 King rooms with an ocean view through their website. The email confirmations don't show anything other than I booked 2 king rooms, which is shady business. When I was checked into my rooms, the person at the desk only stated "king rooms" and didn't specify the "view" type. He also added an additional parking fee without me knowing, even after we confirmed multiple times that we would not be charged twice since we only had 1 car. The rooms I was checked into were not ocean view, and had a view of the side of buildings overlooking the staff back areas/paths. When I texted and called to figure out what the issue was, they told me I didn't originally book ocean view rooms and they don't even have any king rooms with an ocean view. This is where I am certain there was an error on their end as I triple checked when I booked that the rooms were ocean view as this was the entire reason I chose the hotel and specific building. When I asked to be moved to an ocean view room, they said I would be charged an additional $150 for the room and there was only one left. I begrudgingly agreed as I wanted to give my parents a great experience and not have them looking at the side of a building. The situation got worse when I asked for the self-parking gate control to be transferred to a set of keys for my room. This was attempted THREE TIMES and they didn't get it correct until later. My girlfriend and I went to check out a full hour before we wanted to leave assuming it was going to be a complete mess...and it was. The first person asked us how our stay was, and we were honest in stating it was not pleasant for the second day/night. We told her the story, and she got fixated on this $150 up-charge we were told would be added for the ocean view room change that I agreed to, but wasn’t showing in their system. Luckily they have a text chat system that saves the conversations and showed we weren’t lying (as she did not seem to believe us). Eventually she was frustrated and “too confused” as she stated out loud, and gave a loud audible sigh before asking her coworker to take over for her while he was in the middle of helping a different guest. He was not able to find this phantom $150 charge, and instead told us they would do us a favor by not charging us $150 for the upgraded room on checkout! I almost lost my mind. When we started looking over the receipts for the rooms, they told us there was an outstanding balance of 1 cent. I asked how that could be when they were the ones charging my card for the balances. They stated “I don’t know” and gave no further explanation and didn’t even try to figure it out. We also discovered they billed me for an additional self-parking fee during the situation when we asked to have the self-parking key gate control transferred to my room keys. We only noticed this charge after comparing the receipts for the rooms and had to ask for this $55 charge to be removed.

In terms of the disorganization and communication from the hotel, this was the worst experience I’ve ever had at a hotel, and I would never expect something like this from a 4+ star hotel when paying $550+ per night per room. To resolve issues, we had to either go back to the front desk or communicate with them via text or phone a total of 7 times for a...

As a lifelong Coronado Resident with tie family history and ties to the hotel. It has always been a dream to spend my honeymoon night at the Hotel Del. When my husband and I planned our wedding one of the first things we decided on was staying here. We booked our room months in advance and even walked over to the Del to speak with a Front Desk agent to ensure we had the room type we wanted so the day after the wedding family and friends could stop by and enjoy the beauty that is the Del. We also wanted to make sure we had access to the Windsor Cottage for breakfast as that was my family home before the del acquired it. ||Well, instead when we arrived for our honeymoon night we were stuck in a far corner room, with no view and a fire pit that only half lit so you go to breathe in the fumes of natural gas. The room was dark and cold and felt like we were spending over a 1000 dollars a night to stay in a Motel 6 quality room. My husband and I went to bed upset and annoyed as we had take the time to make sure we had the room we had selected. ||After not being able to sleep all night, I woke up and went to the front desk at 7am to see if there was any way we could change. I will admit I was upset and frustrated as this was not the stay we were expecting. I was greeted at the front desk by Kenya, her customer service and ability to help was non existent. I have over 10 years of hotel experience working for multiple large hotel corporations. How she handled us being upset was by far the worst I have ever seen. I asked her if we could move and if there was any availability and that we would even move to a room with queen beds. She told me an additional 800 dollars. I got visibly upset and started to walk away she goes you didn't let me finish.... Um I am sorry you just told me I would be basically paying for an extra night for the room I was told I was going to have. She finally said we would be able to move to an ocean front room with 2 queen beds. I said not ideal for a honeymoon but anything to get out of the dungeon of a room we were in. I then asked if we did have access to the Windsor cottage because the week prior when we went to check on our room, we asked for the cottage and to pay the fee, She said no. I said well can that be added? She was rude again and said it will be 200 I said I was aware and that we would want it. We get the cottage and we get the room change so my husband and I feel like we are ready to go. A few hours pass and my husband goes up to the front desk to see if our new room is ready. He is greeted by ever so kind Kenya again, nope our room isnt ready and we will now will not be getting the room she said she would give us. She said she would be sending us to the shore house or the village but it would be another 500 mind you we did pay 300 for the previous upgrade. So here we are again being asked to pay 800 dollars. Mind you we are frustrated yet again, because from knowing hotel business and customer service 101.. When you have let someone down multiple times you do whatever you can to make it right. Guess that is not apart of the Hotel Del Front Desk training. We ended up moving to the beach village room and it was nice, but it was far later in evening by the time Kenya got it situated and we were able to enjoy it so the upgrade we paid for was a waste. I wish I could say we had the honeymoon stay of our dreams at the del but it was honestly terrible and mainly because of our experience at the front desk. ||We did end up paying for the cottage and that was the only highlight. The staff is amazing and the snacks were delicious. I wont ever stay at the del again and would tell family and friends to refrain from doing so as well. but if I heard of someone staying there id say pay for the cottage you wont be...

I needed to take a few days to write this review and let it sit for a bit, because I wanted to be fair. I can’t recall posting a negative review on a property we've stayed at, but really needed to do this one. Basically I want to set expectations for those wishing to stay at the Del and who perhaps have stayed there before. We visited the hotel about 30 years ago. Very historic, romantic and great service. Cozy bar and the Prince of Wales room was very welcoming. We were aware of a remodel, but not so much Hilton turning this once historic property into a "beach club". We get it! Trying to cater to the new generation(s). What once presented itself as a majestic piece of relaxed, sophisticated history now caters to a very casual crowd as long as they have LOTS of money. This was a visit for a special anniversary. There was/is no cozy bar to enjoy a quiet martini. Very metallic and unwelcoming, at least for us. Employees "uniforms" are now similar to those worn on the Netflix show "The Recruit". Black ops casual wear with baseball caps. And service? Almost completely non-existent. When we arrived there was no welcome/greeting such as "Welcome to the Del! Are you checking in? How can we help?" We had to call twice from our room to correct some items from housekeeping that a guest would assume to be standard given the room rate that varied between approximately $650-$825 each night. We had a view of the gardens and would have enjoyed a room service breakfast, but NO room service even offered. The "Gardens"? Quite nice, but sparse and a little sad when we noticed that there was artificial turf rather than actual lawn. Walking the halls of the hotel and seeing the old photos and listening to songs by Mel Torme and other classics was nice, but actually incongruous since after leaving the hallway and entering the bar we walked into a metal chair on linoleum floor cacophony environment that was quite unpleasant. And prices? Especially in the little “gift/deli” shop? For what you get? Even if someone can afford to pay them that's just a slap in the face. The liquor and wine prices in the shop are laughable. Do yourself a favor and take a short stroll down Orange Avenue to visit the cafe’s, bakeries and shops. Nice restaurants and pubs too. So, basically what we expected and actually received were quite dissimilar. So far apart in fact that during the 4 nights we were there it was difficult to reconcile what we had previously experienced and what we found. Due to this, sadly we were more comfortable when we left the property. I will say that our anniversary dinner on property in the Serea restaurant was quite nice. Everything was delicious and we were treated very well. Our sincere thanks for that. So, now the Del is a "beach club". We wish you well. One final word of advice is that you really seriously need to change the "culture" of your employees (The NY Jets are trying to do that and to us, you are now the NY Jets). Those we met at the desk and some of our servers were quite gracious, but our overall impression (especially from the outset when no one greeted us or made us feel welcome) made us think of the wonderful, personal service we have received on river cruises or at European hotels and how that does not even remotely exist at your property. Times are changing for sure, but please at least try to look back at history and replicate a small part of what the Del once was. At least for those of us who remember those...