AC Hotel San Jose Downtown — Attraction in San Jose

I have stayed at a number of AC hotels and like the clean and modern decor of these hotels. I have also found the staffs at these hotels to be helpful and engaging. Unfortunately, the AC Hotel San Jose is not a place I can recommend to anyone.

I booked for two nights for a two-king bed "suite" with a premium for the first night (Thursday). I was greeted by a night staffer who was aloof and seemingly disengaged. I had to correct her on a number of items (dealing with the hotel's confusing parking arrangements with a third party parking facility). Once we got to our "suite," it got worse.

The suite (Room no. 231) is a boomerang-shaped room with two king beds. It has a lot of wasted space, not that functional and is rather stark (even for me who like modern styles). The worst of all, the room faces a very busy city street and, above it, a very highway.

As someone who has traveled extensively for business for the past 30 years and who have stayed at many hotels comparable to this place (including other AC hotels located next to city streets elsewhere) , I have to say the noise level in this room was by far the worst. Not sure if the windows are adequately sound-proofed or insulated. I barely slept the first night.

I asked the staff to change the room, but was told that no comparable room was available and that they would have to put me in a "lesser" room elsewhere but at the same price as the two-king suite that I had paid for. I chose to stick it out, which turned out to be a big mistake. The noise turned out to be worse than I had thought as I tried to sleep. For approximately $350 that I was paying, this was one of the worst hotel stays at any price point.

The morning staff in the morning was far more solicitous. They found a comparable suite on a higher floor and gave me keys to that suite early in the morning - which, by the way, likely meant the room was available the night before when I was expressly told that no comparable room was available.

The second suite (731) was more attractive, functional and less noisy due to its location on a higher floor. Nonetheless, the street noise was still there, quite loud. These windows were inadequate to keep the street noise from filtering in.

Overall, the hotel service was fine and it does what its concept sets out to do. I also understand that hotel personnel are human and can have a bad day/night. But, the noise level in rooms facing streets is totally...

Location was fantastic for events at the SAP Center. There is a parking garage adjacent to the hotel for easy parking. The advertised price is $20, but when we got there, they had raised the rate to $30 because of the event at the SAP Center. However, when we paid as we were leaving the next morning, it ended up being only $8. I'll take it!

Check in was a breeze and receptionist was very friendly and helpful. Hotel room was a suite. The entryway was large and strangely empty of anything other than a shelving unit with a small refrigerator and hangers for clothes. The living room area had two chairs, a sofa, and a coffee table in the middle. The bedroom area had two king size beds with a shelf/table in between. There was also a shelf/table on the opposite wall. The gripe I have about the bedroom area is that there is not a nightstand on both sides of the beds. I ended up having to put my drink and devices on the floor. My alternative would have been to get out of the comfy bed to put them on one of the tables and then get up again if I wanted a drink or to check my device. No thank you. There was plenty of room for nightstands on both sides of the beds. At the AC Hotel price point and level of service, that was ridiculous to have to use the floor.

The bathroom was just okay. We had to request extra towels and washcloths since only three of each were provided for the four people registered as being in the room. That was easily requested with the Bonvoy app. The bathroom did not have an auxiliary fan to turn on. Also, it seems to be the trend in hotels to have the shower area only partially shielded from the rest of the bathroom and this bathroom followed that unfortunate trend. Half of the bathroom got soaked even after adjusting the showerhead to reduce splashing. We only stayed there one night, but would not have been able to reuse any of our towels because they all got used to dry the floor and countertops.

We had drinks at the AC Lounge after our event. There were only two bartenders staffing the place. No table service, so there was a long line of people trying to order. Drinks were subpar and were in plastic cups because they seemed to have run out of glasses by the time we were able to order.

While I would possibly stay at the hotel again, I will be looking elsewhere...

Great location, clean and modern rooms, but very sub par customer service.

Staying at Marriotts are usually my go to’s because quality, cleanliness, and service is pretty standard across the board.

However, I was super disappointed with the service at this location. Especially with how late we arrived - nothing was explained to us during check in.

We arrived at the hotel pretty late, around 2am. We parked the car out front to at least get checked in. Really kind agent but really failed in giving any information to us ahead of time.

I asked about parking and she advised us that we would be on the 4th and 5th floor of the parking garage. No big deal.

As we drive up and park, we lug our suitcases, baby, carrier, stroller, and belongings to the elevator … elevator closed at 11pm. Why wasn’t this mentioned to us when we checked in? I would have stayed with the luggage and baby while my husband parked the car.

So we hauled everything down the flights of stairs to come in. She had to let us in and I mentioned “oh the elevator is closed after 11pm.” That piece of information would have been nice to have known.

Get into our room and it’s nice. Comfortable bed and great fluffy pillows. It’s about 3am and I hear loud water gushing. I checked our bathroom and it wasn’t us. I messaged using the Bonvoy app and the agent chatting said “oh that’s normal, it’s our water system.” But the noise was so loud, it took me a while to get to sleep.

Next morning, we left and went about our day paying for garage parking of $25. Upon our return back, there was a gate agent - he asked if we were hotel patrons and gave us a ticket to park the car - he said to keep the ticket and make sure to bring it to the front desk to get validated. Another piece of information we didn’t get upon check in. We probably would have kept paying the $25 every time we came and went since we had no idea.

Breakfast was very sub par. Not worth it. Don’t pay the $25 for it. We would have gone out to eat but we were there for a funeral and needed to grab something before heading there.

Overall, hotel is nice and in a great location but the service is something that I won’t return to this hotel for. Plenty of others...