The Westin Long Beach — Attraction in Long Beach

Went on a trip with my college marching band for the Rose Parade 2025. None of us showed up to this hotel sick in any way, and by the time we left about 1/3 of this band of 200+ people wound up becoming seriously ill. A day or so before we left, we discovered that if you held the sheets up to the light, there was mould inside the sheets, and there was additionally mould on the ceiling of the shower, which I, barely 5’9”, could touch just by standing near it, so it’s not a hard thing to clean. The shower heads themselves were covered in condensation, even after being cleaned by a cleaning person. Additionally, the cleaning people would move things wherever they felt like it. My NyQuil vanished, chargers got unplugged and moved, the bathroom trash bin was taken out of the bathroom and put on the TV stand directly in front of the TV itself. They were supposed to have been prepared for us, as, again, this is a group of 200+ people, but they were sadly very overwhelmed when we appeared together. Thank goodness for the coordinators we had for this entire trip. However, due to their ill preparedness and inaccessible stairwells, about 40 of our bandmates got stuck on the elevators at some point when we’d had an important deadline to make. I tried finding the stairs myself to take them, but this place is set up like a puzzle you were never meant to solve, and the maps aren’t at all helpful. The maps don’t list where the stairs are aside from horrific pictures of what appears to be a shortened ladder, which isn’t even a symbol in the guide and it doesn’t show which way they go, and no clear path to the stairs. The path that I believe led to the stairs read “associates only” which was extremely confusing if that’s where the stairs were. The staff were decent, though the cleaning people started cleaning at like 6pm?? Additionally, I have hyper specific food allergies, and need to ask the ingredients of most things I eat. We were given our own separate food service in the Ocean Ball Room, as 200+ band kids swarming the breakfast area at 6:30am wouldn’t be very practical, and I asked for the ingredients to a cheesecake I was given for a dinner event we had hosted for the band that night. The waiter said he didn’t know the ingredients and would have to ask, and I told him if he could that’d be excellent, and he never returned to tell me the ingredients. Thankfully, I had a small bite to make sure I was good to eat it after having waited for 8 minutes for him to return, even having made eye contact with him as he walked around, and I wasn’t having any reaction. Outside of that I did enjoy the waiters, as they were super friendly to us and very conversational with the band. The door to my room in particular always got stuck when you opened it, and you’d have to force the handle down hard to open it, I even had to put my full body weight on it at some point to get the door unstuck. It’s not that it wouldn’t unlock, it’s that it was stuck. Adding onto the mouldy sheets, a bandmate of mine asked for replacement sheets because theirs were mouldy, and the staff gave them new bedsheets, only for them to also be extremely mouldy. When you look up “mouldy hotel sheets” on Google, most of the results that come up are Westin. As I wasn’t paying for this hotel, I hadn’t seen the price before I came onto this review, but holy it is NOT at all worth that price. The location is nice, there’s bright Christmas lights right across the street, which I’m sure got into some people’s window’s at night, and there’s a good strip of stores and restaurants along this area, but it’s just not at all worth the price listed. Much better off finding a cheaper place, they’ll probably have better quality if I’m being real, even if it’s dirt cheap, that’s how bad this was. I am sick as a dog right now and it’s because they can't properly clean...

Hotel service staff was amazing. They allowed an early check in which was great after a 7hr car ride. They were informative and very helpful during check in and any time we had a question. The main lobby was very pretty and the downstairs bathrooms were very nice.

Bar review: The first night we tried an espresso martini and it was absolutely amazing! The second night we tried another espresso martini and a vodka mule. The espresso martini was not the same as the one the night before. I heard no complaints about the mule from my husband.

The third night I asked for a Washington Apple which is a very common drink I've been ordering for over 10 years and have ordered all around the US during my travels. The bartender had never heard of that drink before but was very determined to get it right. He tried very valiantly to get it right and the end result was not bad but I was more or less eager to get back to my room, he kept calling me Jas which is weird as my name is Jasmine and I don't like my name shortened to Jas but I find it awkward to say anything about it because he was just trying to be friendly. My husband doesn't even call me that. The end drink was good enough to drink and the bartender did try his best but it did end in a $23 drink which is pretty crazy. In case the bar staff reads this here is the recipe:

Equal parts of crown royal whiskey, cranberry, and sour apple puckers. Shake in a tin and pour neat or on the rocks. :) (tip: do not make with crown royal apple and cran as its way too sweet)

Now for the 2 star room review.

This was a bit of a pricey hotel, not bad, but still. For the price I would expect a decent TV with good channel options or something akin to a roku TV so I can watch Netflix or something. Our TV was very blurry and a lot of the TV stations didn't work or were mainly news stations. I'm on vacation and don't need to hear about all of the things going on in our country rn.

I know I checked in early but I would expect the room to be clean or I could have waited if it wasn't. I could have gone to the beach or something. I did say upfront I was fine to wait. The bed skirt had what looked like puke or some other bodily fluid on it and my kids kept finding cheeze it pieces everywhere. We even had to go get them cheeze it's because of their findings.

The room was also a bit small for us.

Plus sides of the room is the view was very nice, ours was facing the facade and we could see the water feature at the theater which was pretty at night.

The room did get hot easily and we had to have the AC turned to 65 to keep the temp hospitable.

Also the location was pretty great! We walked everywhere and didn't use our car at all during our stay. Which brings me to my next comment $44 a day for parking was WILD. I was comparing the pricing to other lots and it was pretty high comparably.

Overall I would stay again if the TV situation was updated but I'd honestly pay more for a hotel room with a better TV because I use TV to decompress and ended up spending my decompression time reading.

Also 12pm check out time...

This hotel is a total disaster. As a longtime Bonvoy member and a frequent visitor to Westin properties, I was pretty shocked and disappointed by our stay. I'll start with the big picture problems and then move to the pettier ones.||The first major problem was our shower. The shower diverter (little thing on the tub faucet) was broken. When you pulled up, the water would trickle through the shower head but continue to pour through the tub faucet. The same thing was true for the hand shower that was available. Because of the flow of water from the tub faucet, the tub would back up terribly during a shower. When we alerted the front desk, they sent someone to fix it who rooted out the drain, but did not touch the diverter, meaning the problem persisted. We also had an issue with the tub stopper which was very old, cracked, and full of mold (see photo), so taking a bath was not an option either.||The second major problem occurred at night. Our room was above a terrace where guests were at an event. They were screaming quite late into the night. At nearly midnight, we called the front desk to ask them to ask the guests to be more quiet and were essentially told that the hotel would not do this. I understand that hosting events is a money maker for the hotel, but doing this at the expense of the overnight guests' sleep seems really unwise. ||The third issue happened on the morning of our check out. At 8 am we went to the lobby to purchase coffee. When we returned to our room, neither of our keys worked. We went to the front desk where they replaced our keys. The replacement keys still did not work. So we got another set of keys (which did not work) and were instructed to wait for security. After sitting outside our room in the floor of the hallway for over 15 minutes, security let us into our room. The keys still did not work, so we had to leave the room instead of enjoying our morning in Long Beach and coming back to the hotel at check out time. No one on the customer service team apologized or made any excuse for this. The security personnel was extremely apologetic, but the lack of a functional door was not his fault.||Other petty issues: No outlets near the bed (not just no USB or USB-C outlets - literally no plug at all); the WiFi is so slow we could not even send an email; the bathroom has no fan and so becomes steamy for hours on end even after running a very short shower. ||I'm so disappointed in this property and not only will I not return, but I will likely not return to other Westin properties if this is how the brand is...