Cambria Hotel Burbank Airport — Hotel in Burbank

I enjoyed my stay so much in April that I was happy to finally have another opportunity to stay here.  I, unfortunately, should have left well enough alone.

I checked in late on May 13, 2024, intending to stay for a night.  After getting settled, I wanted to cast a show from my phone to the tv, but it came up someone's personal name. I told the person at the front desk and asked if he could assist me. So, he came up, checked, apologized, and told me that he needed to contact the network provider in the morning to get the issue resolved.  But, I was due to check out in the morning.

In the morning, May 14, 2024, I noticed two suspicious charges on my account. I contacted my bank, and they told me that the hotel wifi was how I ended up with the fraudulent charges.  So, they shut down my debit card.  At that point, I called the hotel and asked to speak with the manager, but she was not available.

The hotel was cashless, so I was stuck at the hotel another day (I extended my stay because I did not want the hotel to think that I was trying to skip out on the bill).

Later that afternoon, I spoke with Mary. After explaining the situation, I asked if I could pay cash, since this was an extenuating circumstance.  But, she said no.  So, I told her that my bank said they were rushing the new debit card, and it would take two days.

When I got back to the hotel, I asked to speak with Mary. She seemed nice and understanding over the phone. In person, she was not nice at all and acted like I was not doing all that I could to resolve the issue.

She kept asking me if I had another card to use, if there was anything else I could do, and she asked me if there was someone who could Zelle the money.  She also asked me if I had cash on me. I could have done it if she had mentioned it when I inquired about other options earlier that day.  I said, "When I asked about cash, I was told that I could not pay that way.  She did not say anything and continued to nonverbally let me know that we would not be able to stay. I was getting very worried, stressed, and distraught because there was absolutely nothing I could do so late in the evening.

I told her that I had to be careful because I was not supposed to be stressed for medical reasons. At that point, I called the Choice Hotels 800 number to see if anyone could help me.

I spoke with Eric, told him my issue, and asked if he could speak with her. I handed her my phone, and she walked out on the patio to speak with him.  After a while, she came back inside and handed me the phone, not saying anything.  Then, Eric told me that I could stay the night.  As he was telling me, Mary was typing on the computer, still not saying anything to me. I told Eric, "Thank you very, very much," and she looks at me and says, "It was not him."  I reply back, "Thank you very much.  I appreciate it!" She then says, "It wasn't me.  I had to call my GM, and he usually does not answer after hours.  He approved it!"  I said, "Well, I am very grateful to him.  I appreciate him very much."  I then told Eric how grateful I was for being willing to try and assist me with this stressful issue.  She looks at me like, "Really?," sighs, rolls her eyes, looks at her employee at the opposite computer at the front desk, and gestures to that other employee like, "I cannot believe this woman." I could not believe she did that right in front of me. That was so unprofessional, immature, and distasteful!

It is unfortunate because it seems to be a nice hotel and I am a Diamond rewards member but I am done with Cambria.

I want to thank Anna (sp?) because she was very professional, customer service oriented, and helpful throughout this entire ordeal and made this entire situation a lot less stressful. I appreciate her, and she should be acknowledged for her great service.

I also want to thank the General Manager for having a heart and helping us that night.  I am very grateful!!!  I dare not think of what would have happened if he had not assisted us.

However, I will never stay...

My daughter and I arrived in the evening time. As I was unpacking and organizing the room, eating dinner in the room, I went to put something in the fridge and noticed it was not cold at all. I called and asked for a maintenance person to come fix it or switch it out. I was told by the front desk agent, there are not maintenance workers overnight. That employee would be in the next day at 9am. I asked if someone could just switch out the fridge instead of a fix and again, was told that no one can do that but the maintenance person. I was quite frustrated by this. How does a hotel not staff at least 1 overnight maintenance worker for guests? I decided that my food would just go to waste and have to throw it away. When attempting to put my daughter to bed at 9pm, our AC system suddenly started rising on its own (neither of us touched it) and all of a sudden hot, smelly hair was coming into the room. I turned it down as low as possible, but hot air was still coming in a few minutes later, so I called the front desk once again. I was told I could switch rooms as there were rooms available. It took me about 45 minutes to unpack and get everything settled and my daughter needed to go to sleep, so this was extremely inconvenient to pack everything back up and move it to another room. I appreciated the option, but was very frustrated that once again, I needed a maintenance person and the hotel does not staff one overnight (9pm at this point). The AC eventually went to cool air as I got my daughter to sleep and contemplated packing up to move us to another room after she was asleep, but, again, decided that would be too much work. The next morning, I was told the maintenance person would check the AC and fridge the next day, but by the time we arrived back the next evening, no work was done at least to the fridge. We still did not have a working fridge. Also, that same night, we got in the elevator and my key was not working, but the elevator closed automatically and went straight up to the 4th floor. We were on the 2nd floor. The elevator then just sat there and would not go down. So we had to exit, find the stairs, and go down 2 floors. We got to our room and my SECOND key would not work as well. We then went to the stairs and climbed down 2 flights again and went to the front desk. The agent fixed them and just said it happens sometimes. We then went back up to our room. The next day, when leaving with all our stuff, the keys stopped working again. Fortunately for us, the elevator automatically went to the main floor and we check out. I appreciated the $50 compensation in food/beverage for the fridge and AC issue. But, I still want to make it a point that this was a frustrating stay. It's upsetting because the hotel was very clean, beautiful, the room was fantastic, and the bartender/server was EXCELLENT, Nataly. She was the best part of our stay. I hope a maintenance worker can be on staff for overnights, so my issues would have been resolved and the stay would have...

Short: I would stay here again.

Longer: Full disclosure, work picked this hotel for me so I didn’t actively chose it myself. Let’s get to it!

I stayed here for maybe 2 weeks or so, it is conveniently located right by the airport in Burbank and nothing else.

The lobby area is quite large, with a big bar and a dining area. More on this later… the staff is super friendly and there’s a little classic hotel convenience stand next to the front desk where you can buy snacks.

There are two elevators so you won’t be waiting too long a ride.

The rooms are bare bones, quite average sized and furnished. The bed is decent, had no complaints getting sleep. I do like to do some morning stretches which for my 6’3” body was a bit tricky in that space, but I figured out an angle that worked.

The bathroom is spacious enough and water pressure is ok. It definitely has that new hotel kinda feel to it. Nothing feels old or run down in any way.

The WiFi does the job and I have no additional comments about that.

In the 6th floor there is a an outdoor patio/deck where you can hang out if you so wish. Pleasant area to hang out in.

The gym/fitness center located on the ground level and is worth a mention. Standard hotel dumbbell ranges tend to be between 5-50 lbs, but this hotel had 5-75 lbs which is awesome for those of us that lift weights because this is a rare luxury you don’t see too often. Other than that there are two treadmills, a pelaton bike, a rowing machine and a cable machine. I had awesome workouts there, relatively speaking.

The bar area is spacious as I mentioned and the bartenders are super friendly. I had dinner there a couple nights and a couple beers, and service was fast and efficient which is really the two metrics I look at. The food is good, as per all hotels, maybe a bit overpriced, but nothing unusual for hotels.

They have breakfast at the hotel and it costs $22 per person for the most underwhelming continental breakfast you would find at a Hampton in, quality in or equivalent. Outrageously overpriced.

Speaking of food, the surrounding area has very few notable spots that are within walking distance. There is a Mexican restaurant around the corner that is amazing, as well as a bar in the parking lot, along with a couple fast food places.

If you have a car or uber, there’s a big shopping center a 5-10 minute drive away.

So here’s how I averaged the stars in my review:

Room: 3. WiFi: 4. Staff: 5. Amenities: 4. Location: 2. Gym: 5. Vibe: 3. Walkability: 1.

Average: 3.375, rounding to 3 stars.

These reviews are just honest impressions relative to other hotels in the same price range around the world. Not looking to provide additional feedback. Not looking for compensation/rewards. I stay in hotels for work probably 260 days out of the year, so I get around to...