Navy Lodge Monterey — Hotel in Monterey

Check in was easy and the room, a two queen bed room, was clean and had a very small kitchenette, with a small fridge/freezer combo, a toaster, a single cup coffee maker, a stove top and a microwave. The room also featured a flat screen TV with two HDMI inputs and a separate DVD player and a "desk", which is just a small circular table, with two chairs, and a sitting chair next to a lamp. There are two cabinets that had plenty of space for the clothes of my family of 4. The bathroom has one sink with the toilet and shower/bath behind an adjacent door. There was also a closet for hanging jackets and what not. Also of note, and something I haven't seen in many hotel rooms, but this room has a ceiling fan, which is nice if you get hot, since the year round microclimate here keeps it around 70 degrees Fahrenheit and thus you won't find air conditioning in most houses or businesses. Let's talk about the beds. At home, we have a king bed with a memory foam mattress and maybe my back is just sensitive to changing mattresses, but my back has hurt every morning so far. We're staying here for 12 days and have only spent two nights here so far, so this review is based on my experience so far. My wife and daughter both reported their backs hurting in the morning as well, though my son said he slept fine. So take it for what it's worth. The Navy Lodge has free WiFi, no log in required. Just have to accept an agreement and then you're logged in, but only for 1440 minutes (24 hours) at a time. After that, you have to log all your devices back in. I've seen something like this at other hotels, but usually it's more like every 3 days. It wouldn't be so annoying if the internet wasn't so slow as well. Make sure you have any games updated before leaving on vacation if you plan to play video games while here, which myself and my son typically did in the evenings or if the weather was bad. But otherwise you won't be spending much time in the room with all the local attractions, hiking, beach-going, etc. Last thing to note, there's an included cold breakfast every morning but it's limited to bagels, two types of cereal, yogurt, fruit cups, hard boiled eggs and some pretty terrible coffee. Not bad in a pinch, but not ideal if you're looking for more of a full hot breakfast. Highly recommend the Del Monte Cafe for great food and good service. To wrap up, room was nice, clean and the added kitchenette helped reduce how much eating out we had to do but the beds and WiFi kept it from being a 5...

I wish I could have so many nice things to say about this navy lodge as the other customers. We had a really unpleasant experience with their poor customer service. We stayed there two nights with My 19 months old during a PCS move. We got a one bed room so my daughter slept in the pack and play we brought with us. Due to the change of environment, my daughter refused to take bath at night at all. And her bed time is 7pm, so she made us all went to bed at 7pm and spent VERY limited time in the bathroom. (30 mins in total for two nights in the bathroom.) After checking out, I saw a $200 charge on top of the hotel charge. I called the lodge and they told me because we damaged the tower bar (apparently someone pulled the bar and cracked the tile), there was no way we did that. I wanted to ask more information, the front desk Jennifer told me to talk to the manager. However, I couldn’t get a hold of the manager for two weeks. I called daily, left voice mail nobody ever contacted me back. At a point, the front desk would just put me on hold and disconnect me without giving me any info. Finally the manager called me back yesterday and she was not trying to help resolve issue but simply telling me yes, we are charging you $200 because you were the last people stayed in that room, they also said that they have photos of the damage. I couldn’t figure out with the limited time we stayed in the bathroom (and the hotel room, we left early in the am and went back just to sleep at night), how could we possibly damage anything without knowing it? Especially if it’s the bar somebody had to intentionally pull it to damage. I don’t think my 19 months old had the ability to do this type of damage. My husband and myself for sure didn’t do it. Because they are unwilling to resolve the issue for us, we had to call our bank to start the dispute (first time ever we had to set a dispute case with any merchants.). We are super disappointed considering this DOD facility and that’s how they treat their service member! Just for your information, if you ever stay there, make sure you check the room throughly, just in case there is some existing damage you didn’t notice then they will charge you for that when you check out. Not sure if we will get the money back, but definitely a lesson learned. We have stayed in so many hotels, apartments, military housing due to my husband’s assignments, we have never damaged anything in any of those places, not mention to be charged by the things we...

This was my second extended stay at this location. The facility was clean, pleasant, well-kept and maintained by a friendly staff. It looks to have a recent remodeling which ought to carry it through 2033 at least.

Pluses include the usual room amenities in a DoD facility room: a kitchenette with large fridge, stovetop, utensils, etc.; a centrally-located laundry room; fresh fruit available at the front desk 24/7 and it's within walking-distance to the Mini-mart.

The immediate area offers well-maintained, arbored paths, established primitive trails leading into wooded areas and closed roads which are likely Off-Limits. The housing area is pleasantly nostalgic and pastoral. Cats sleeping quietly on stoops; kids' bicycles littering the lawns; kids roller-skating in the street, etc.

Suggested improvements include re offering laundry detergent for sale somewhere (front desk or vending machine); revise the current "continental breakfast" offering. At the time of this review, it consisted of a prepared meal in a paper bag, available in the lobby betw. 6am-9am. The contents (snack bar, fruit cup, cup of apple juice and a "main" meal item which varied from "pretty good" to "I'd prefer not to"). It was the first time staying in any DoD facility where the breakfast seemed like a random afterthought. Hopefully just a temporary solution during a remodel. Regardless, usually anything is better than nothing. 😇

[I read some of the other reviews and it reminded me of quite a bit ... I did not have any cellphone reception in my room (room is not a lead-lined SCIF, so I presumed poor coverage by my provider); the front desk could use a bell to get someone's attention; the sound does carry in those long halls and if I had to guess, those mattresses were made by Federal Prison inmates somewhere. They are likely the same in all DoD guest housing facilities worldwide ... which is hilarious when you think about it. And painful. Still, high marks, all things considered.]

NOTE: Eligibility to stay at any military guest housing facility on any DoD installation is restricted to those affiliated in some manner with the military or government. They are not generally open to the public. Please check your...