Carlsbad by the Sea Hotel — Hotel in Carlsbad

I am far from a complainer if you look at all my other google posts, but this hotel stay made me sit down and find the time to post this review. I reserved this hotel due to a local wedding I was attending. This hotel is centrally located to several amenities in the area so I seemed like the smart location to choose. First complaint I had was, I paid extra for a pool side room but when I arrived at the room it was positioned on the back side of the pool side rooms currently under construction. We had no view of the pool what so ever which didnt matter because the hot tub was closed for service/construction anyhow. The clerk told me they were booked for the weekend at check in when I requested a better room. Upon entering our room we could hear and see construction going on all around our room. The hotel was under major renovations with no up front notification us reserving rooms. We kept an open mind and tried to ignore this oversight by the hotel. Once in the room it smelled musty and the bathroom smelled like urine. We looked closely around the toilet and everything looked somewhat clean but we couldnt get that smell out of our noses so from that point we never walked barefoot bathroom. I used the room iron and ironing board both of which looked like they were 20 years old and horrible on clothing. The iron leaked water the entire time it was sat upright and after requesting a second iron from the front desk the second one did the same. We received a room with two queen beds because a king was not avail. When I sat on the first of the two beds it was like sitting on a bale of hay (hard and stiff) this sent a shock up my spine and i instantly said no freaking way Im sleeping on this one. I sat on the second bed and it was super springy and not a comfortable springy, but we'll take that over the bale of hay. During our first nights sleep the room got up to 80 degrees and we both stayed on top of the covers the entire night sweating. I could not get the cold air to kick in no matter what I did with the thermostat. The next morning I went to the front desk to ask for another room or to have the AC fixed somehow on a saturday. The desk lady calmly said what would you like the room temperature set to. With a confused look on my face, (thinking does this woman actually think I dont know how to work an AC thermostat, like every other hotel in the nation) I said "70 please." When we returned to the room later that day before the wedding the AC was now working fine and holding at 68 degrees. My girl said this is great for now, but Ill need it warmer a few degrees when we go to bed. I agreed and told her dont sweat it (like we did all night the day before) we know the room gets plenty hot lol. *Don't forget construction is still running strong on saturday to our dismay. * We stayed out super late the night of the wedding and returned to the room to find it was still holding at 68 degrees. We settled in for a good nights sleep and I adjusted the AC to 72 to keep the wife happy. At 2 am my wife woke me up and said its way to cold and I could see she had two jackets over her while she was under all the covers. I looked at the thermostat and now it was registering 65 degrees. No matter how I adjusted it from COLD to HOT to just the FAN the heater would not come on and the vent kept blowing cold A/C air. I love sleeping with any type of air on for white noise and circulation, but I had to shut the system off completely to stop the cold air from blowing on us. 8am on Sunday morning (thinking we were going to sleep in and enjoy the final day of our weekend get away) construction kicked in right on time and woke us up. We rolled over and looked at each other and said no freaking way construction workers work sundays too!!!!!! The workers were painting the rooms across from our front door and all we could hear for the next 2 hours while we showered and packed was air compressors refilling and paint sprayers pumping paint. Our worst visit and stay at a hotel to date. Wont be back wont suggest it to our...

At first glance I was very pleased with this motel. The landscaping is nice and pool appears nicely maintained. Room was clean and bed was comfortable. But lots of things they can improve on. Mostly minor inconveniences, but there were a lot of them which made for a bit of a poor experience.

First issue was checking in. It went smoothly overall but they said they had been needing to contact me due to a change they made with our reservation. Because we booked through Legoland Vacations they were not given any of our contact info. Fortunately they actually upgraded our room but all I could think was.. what if there was a real issue and we arrived to no room… they had no way of contacting us. Seems like poor planning with the Legoland contract. So I understand not necessarily their fault.

As we settled into the room, none of the electrical items would turn on (tv, microwave, mini fridge). I had to check the plugs in the back, and all three are plugged into an extension cord. Fridges and microwaves take a lot of energy so not sure they should be on an extension cord… anyways I swapped the plug into a different outlet and everything turned on. Seems like something that should have been noticed at some point before our arrival.. but again not a huge deal.

At one point my husband accidentally spilled his red drink on our bed, so the following morning I called to request our room service (you have to request it, it is not automatic) and when we returned the following evening there were still red spots on the sheets. So they made the bed but didn’t change the sheets.

They also only provided three shower towels, in a 2-queen bedroom. So should the minimum be 4? They also didn’t replace the shampoo and conditioner. So out of the 4 of us, only one of us got to shower twice before the shampoo was out.

I attempted to use the laundry services to dry my husband’s pants. I didn’t have any change on hand so I downloaded the app that was advertised and pre-paid the minimum $15 onto the app. Then, the app couldn’t connect to the machines. After several failed attempts, I just had to eat the $15 and my husband kept his wet pants.

The food setup also felt a bit inconvenient. The Windmill Food Hall looks like it’s connected to the motel but it’s really not. There’s no connecting door to the back so you have to walk all the way around, there’s very minimal breakfast options, and they all close at 9pm. So if you’re a late arrival to check in good luck finding food nearby (other than Taco Bell across the street). We did enjoy breakfast across the opposite street at Rubys Diner, which was good.

The pool appeared nice and well maintained but was INCREDIBLY salty. I would have preferred over-chlorinated than the nasty salty taste. They then ran out of towels in the pool area so we had to use our 3 shower towels from our room.

We also utilized the shuttle service to Legoland. The ride there was easy going, but it was a pain in the a** trying to get someone to answer the lobby phone when calling for the return shuttle. Shuttle only runs until 6:30, so at 6:00 I called the hotel lobby 7 times before someone finally answered the phone. We got on the shuttle okay but I was low key panicking we wouldn’t get someone to answer before 6:30.

Overall we still had a great vacation. Just a lot of room for...

Arrive 10/10 - 5:15pm, room isn't ready, after front desk contacts housekeeping still with no answer, they put us in a different room at 5:30pm.  Check in is at 4pm mind you!!!  Took 40min total just to check in!

Enter room - smells MUSTY as ever!!!!  Kick the AC down low to try to combat that and start diffusing essential oils.  Notice dog food on the floor next to the fridge, but I just signed something that says no animals allowed.  Must not be enforced I guess?  Use the bathroom and go to wash my hands....NO SOAP!  I'm not thinking Covid cleaning actually occurs here!!!!  When we return to our room for the evening, go to turn on the TV, remote doesn't have batteries.  Security guard brings us a new remote.  Brush our teeth and the sink completely backs up, takes hours to drain.  We get in our bed and there's no fitted sheet, just the mattress protector with an unfitted sheet over it, yet our daughters bed had a fitted sheet.  Not a huge deal, just weird!

After the second day we realized the HUGE gap at the bottom of the door when we woke up to bugs on the floor from outside.  We then tried to always keep a towel under it after that!

After our 4th day there, I requested new towels, wash clothes and trash pick up with new trash bags (per Covid precautions this is how you have to do it).  I left our trash out and linens in the mesh bag, expecting to return with another mesh bag left for us, with clean towels, wash clothes and trash bags.  Nope.  Our stuff was picked up yes, but nothing left, so again, had to call the front desk and the security guard had to bring us stuff.  Same night, go to use the toilet and realize it's still running.  Mess with the handle a couple of times and that fixes it.

Fifth day, now the toilet won't stop running.  Messing with the handle won't work.  Too tired to look into it and went to bed.

Sixth day, requested toilet paper and told the front desk we were leaving so to leave it at the door (figuring maybe that's why we didn't receive our towels before).  Arrived back to find it left at the door! :-) I took the lid off of the toilet to fix it and found that part of the rubber on the chain for the flapper had broken off and became lodged against another part of the flapper, making the chain too short for the flapper to close.  Tonight brought some rowdy, arguing guests.  Didn't bother us any, we were just relaxing on the terrace.  I saw the gentleman staying below them come out and I'm assuming he called the front desk because I then saw a hotel employee, and shortly thereafter, things were quiet again.  The hotel (obviously) can't guarantee what kind of people they rent to, but did appear to rectify the disturbance rather swiftly.

The entire stay, each night, we'd witness mice playing in the bushes just outside our terrace.  We both detest mice and given the gaps under the doors, EASY access!

Checked out 10/17.  Unsure that I'd stay here again, based on everything.  Certainly wouldn't be a first choice.  All of the staff was super friendly and...