Homewood Suites by Hilton San Diego Hotel Circle/SeaWorld Area — Attraction in San Diego

Still staying here at the Homewood Suites as of the time of this writing of the review. Gorgeous place - nicely decorated, lots of open space, especially the high ceiling and openess of the breakfast area leading out to the courtyard. Terrific design. Staff is very, very friendly and nice. The front check-in staff, to even the wait staff in the morning and during the evening social event. 10/10!!!

The room is also well equipped and modernly decorated with a kitchenette, full size fridge, pots and pans, toaster, coffee machine, and a microwave. The pull out sofa bed is not exactly comfortable - slept on better sofa beds, but then they are really a 'sofa' and not intended for long stays.

The swimming pool area is nice, decent size, but not big by any means considering the size of the hotel. Downside is the crazy parking cost - the hotel isn't conveniently located walking distance to anything - so I don't see how people would stay here without arranging for their own ride.

Otherwise, this is a terrific place to stay!

Very impressed with their evening social event with beer, wine, and a main course. Though tonight they ran out of beer at 530pm already.

Fire alarm went off one evening after we were fast asleep. Inquired the front desk the next morning and they said it was because of some guest deciding to make popcorns and aired out the burnt popcorn smell causing the entire building's fire alarm to go off. It is a one-off incident.

Downgraded the star rating as a couple of incidents happened a few days in to our stay: Went out for a long day outing and returned late in the evening to find out that our room was not serviced at all. The DND sign was not hung on the outside. The maid just missed our room completely. After a long day, you just want to jump in the shower and hit the sack. Had to make a call down to the front desk. The lady questioned if I have left the sign on, I said no, and asked me what they can do. I said, we need the room serviced. She said its not possible without an apologetic tone of voice. I told her need towels, shampoos, and soap, she asked how many of each and hung up. 10 minutes later, the items were brought to us. Next morning, I went down to the front desk and asked about the type of compensation we can expect from this inconvenience. Elizabeth was very nice and professional, quickly checked to see what we could do. She said we paid our stay via a 3rd party (expedia), and we aren't using their parking lot facilities, she proposed to give us points in compensation. To which I agreed. Elizabeth was very nice and genuine. Much appreciate her attitude and trying to help than the lady I talked to the previous evening. Kudos to Elizabeth for reversing a awkward and tough situation to a satisfied outcome.

A few days later, I found some strange hair stuck on our supposed clean and unused face cloth. See attached picture. I brought it down to the front desk and presented it to them to see what they would do from a service point of view. It was nasty, but I was more interested to test the staff to see how they would handle the situation. The lady literally just said, oh let me go grab you a new towel right away. I told her I'm not in a rush, my room is 315, and she said we'll get it delivered to your room. And I walked away. Disappointed in her response for not apologizing nor doing anything more to dissolve the situation.

Overall, Homewood Suites is a nice out of the ordinary hotel that is well designed and maintained. It is a hotel that serves more guests during breakfast than many other actual restaurants. The food 'looks' different day-to-day but essentially the same thing. On our last day I just couldn't eat another bite and resorted to only eating bananas and oranges. Front desk staff is friendly, depending on who you get, most of them are nice, but the customer service of the hotel is only as good as the staff assisting you....odds are still in your favor...

Lobby/Common Area: The Business Center only has 2 stations, the printer is inside the cabinet.   You get the output through a slot.

Dining area is spacious and clean, but dark...feels like a lounge.  They played music in the dining area during breakfast... also a first for me.  Very high ceiling.

Public men's room, near the best center.  1 accessible stall with changing station, 1 standard stall, 1 urinal and 2 sinks.  What is confusing is the sign in the standard stall...." wave hand to activate flush"  see photo... There is no sensor.

Common area looked clean and free of trash.

There is coffee behind the front desk.

Outside perimeter Lots of parking, but not free.  Spaces are wide and plenty of room to backup. Note the walkways are stained, most likely from the palm fruits on the property. The planted areas were clean and free of debris.

Staff Front Desk Staff Interestingly, I was notified to see the front desk to get my room, even though I booked the room and it was confirmed by my  Amex Hilton Card.   They had to swipe my card; I have not experienced this before at any Hilton Property since I as far as I can remember.  I booked a king bed suite... What I got was a 2 queen bed suite.  Front desk failed to tell me of this change.  My online booking confirmation shows the correct room but when I got in (see photo).

Housekeeping StaffRequested extra towels and bar soap since the kitchen sink did not have any hand soap.  Staff came up within 10 minutes of the call.  Very fast. The bathroom did not have any hand lotion and there was only 1 bar of hand soap.  The shower had large refillable bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel attached to the back wall.

Food Staff Very friendly and helpful.

Shuttle Driver - N/A

Room 558 Pretty clean.   Carpet is clean.  Bathroom shower had a mild sewage odor. No dust on high services. The kitchen was furnished and all the utensils were there.  Note there are 2 types of coffee makers... a K-Cup on the counter and one that uses pods in the bottom cabinet.  In room coffee was not K-Cups...they were pods.  Non coffee were K-Cups. Ceiling fan in bedroom squeaks when on.

Food Breakfast start times 6AM week days & 7AM Weekends

First time I saw white rice for breakfast.

Breakfast #1 Burrito bar- scrambled eggs, french fries, crispy bacon .  The bacon was really crispy.  First time I ever had french fry for breakfast.

My wife told me there were omelette stations located outside through the double doors... Unfortunately I was there when the breakfast area first opened up so the omelette stations were not ready yet

Gym/Pool Outdoor pool is located on the 2nd floor.  The pool is gated, needing your room key to access.  There is also a BBQ area.  There is a hot tub next to the pool.  The area was clean.  Bathrooms and showers are located nearby.

The Fitness Center is on the 1st Floor near the South Elevator Lobby.  Very roomy and spacious.  Note no water source or restrooms near the fitness center.  Nearest bathroom and water is in the lobby area.

Guest Laundry Located on the First floor by the fitness center.  4 sets of washer and dryer.  $4 per wash and dryer cycle.  No change machine in the laundry room.  Quarters only.

Ice makers Every Floor has an Ice Maker.

Guest Elevators the West Elevator is a bit on the rickety side.  There is a lot of sway when travelling. This is the service elevator with a rear door.

South Elevator is way smoother.  This is a single elevator.  However there is no signage identifying which way is it to the lobby on the first floor.  The South Elevator is where the Guest Laundry and Fitness Center is located.

North Elevator is smooth.  This is a two car elevator.  It is behind the business center.

Each elevator lobby contained a large communal trash can. ...

We were disappointed to see breakfast burritos every single day. The food was very very bland, even the sausage one morning. No fresh fruit blesides apples that tasted like they been frozen and thawd, oranges that were equally gross and impossible to peal and some browning bananas. Breakfast burritos when served OCCASIONALLY should have potatoes which were never on the minimal bar. The one morning that there WERE waffles, they were gross, plain soggy previously frozen eggo waffles. We stay at hotels a fair amount and have never not seen a waffle maker which they strangly swapped for a rice maker with white rice. The food screams "cheap As possible". The"dinners" on sunday-wednesday nights were also just meh. Why have staff hype it up as a dinner when its clearly not. The staff never seemed to know what the dinner was so we could make other accommodations a head of time if we couldn't eat the meat that was being served. On the night of the italian wedding soup, we asked if there was a vegetarian options and the man working the bar told us he could remove the meat chunks. That's not vegetarian. A soup bar like that would have been crazy easy to add a vegetarian soup like a minestrone as well (which following the theme is also cheap). Not enough vegetarian options besides the same sad salad every night. The orange chicken night also had no option for vegetarian options besides plain white rice and sad salad. My child who loves chicken wouldn't touch the orange chicken it was hard to even bite through one piece. Since this menu screams cheap, they could've added some type of refried or black beans to go with the soggy quesadilla for protein. Beans are very cheap and varieties also could've been included next to the sad salads.

Enough with the food, the rooms were mostly clean, the pool and hot tub were nice. When we got to our room the ac has some annoying auto sensor things and we could not get our room to a comfortable temperature. I have health issues which limit the temperature i can handle. The rooms get warm and stuffy despite trying to set it at the lowest setting they allowed which was 66. Our room never dropped below 71 for more than a few minutes. It was very uncomfortable in disregulation in temperature fluctuations. We also had 4 people staying but only 3 towels and when I asked what appeared to be the manager in the hallway for more he said he'd bring them and never did. We didn't find a sponge or soap to wash dishes, no hand soap in the bathroom either, and had to ask multiple times for one. There also weren't enough silverware or plates for the room. The walls are THIN.you can hear people at a normal volume all the way down the hall any time anyone walks by. For having dishwashers in the room the amount of guests that stacked plates in the hallways was pretty crazy.

The ping pong only had 3 paddles so there was no way to play with 4 people like most games, but the balls were completely smashed so it didn't really matter anyways.

OH AND $50 A DAY TO PARK IS INSANITY. we already pay for the hotel and most people are gone all day anyways so we spent $250 to park for 4 nights-5 days.

Overall we like the convenience of the kitcheun but will probably stay somewhere...