Best Western Plus Marina Gateway Hotel — Hotel in National City

Arriving at the hotel, we were surprised by the apparent lack of dining choices nearby and the 'industrial' setting we were in. There was no close beach access, although you could see the harbor from the hotel.

Because of that, we almost tried to find a different lodging option. I spoke with Jeff at the front desk, and he encouraged me to give it one night. Since I arrived after the allowed cancellation time, I would have forfeited that night, anyway, so we stayed. I am glad we did.

This hotel is pretty new, and is well appointed. The staff are great, and they were very willing to point us to a wide range of food options very close to the hotel -- we weren't nearly as desolate as I first perceived. In addition to the restaurant in the parking lot, which is open very early in the morning for breakfast and gives a discount to hotel guests, there are several casual dining and fast food joints within a short jaunt from the hotel.

After exploring the neighborhood, we actually found that we enjoyed the location quite a bit. Watching the huge car-carrying ships come in and unload their payload into the massive car holding yard was pretty cool. Watching the Navy ships floating in the harbor was pretty cool, too. Being so close to the Naval Base, you could hear Reveille in the morning and Taps in the evening -- another cool experience.

The proximity to Bay Harbor drive was nice -- Once I learned the route, I was able to make it the Gas Lamp Quarter and Old Town in just a few minutes without ever getting on Interstate 5.

We arrived on Wednesday and left on Sunday morning. During our stay, we found that the restaurant in the parking lot has live music on weekend nights. If you're not a night owl, it may be worth requesting a room on the back side of the building that overlooks the industrial area to avoid being kept awake by the music. We had the air conditioner fan on most of the time we were in the room to drown out noise, so it wasn't an issue for us. We were on the back side of the building, so we didn't experience the full impact of the loud music as I would expect someone on the front side of the building would have.

Speaking of the air conditioning, the units which are located in the room are configured so that when you run the air conditioner, they cycle on and off when a preset temperature is reached. If you're like me and require ambient fan noise to sleep, you need to chose between a constant fan, which doesn't cool the room, and the air conditioner, which cools the room and cycles the fan on and off. This is less than ideal if it's hot outside and you want the best of both worlds. This can be fixed with a reconfiguration of the air conditioner, so I hope the hotel changes them accordingly.

The bed was comfortable, but the pillows are pretty small. The hotel was very accommodating and brought me a couple extra pillows which made this a non-issue.

The pool and hot tub are located outside and were clean and the temperature was very comfortable.

We booked through Expedia, which I will never do again. If you want to stay at a Best Western, book directly through the hotel. They will match the price and you won't have to deal with foreign-based customer service if you have questions about your reservation.

In a nutshell, if I had to do it again, I would absolutely stay at this hotel. My only real complaint (which isn't really a complaint) was the air conditioning, but to be fair, I never asked the hotel if they could change it for me, so this is in no way their fault, as I am sure they would have done anything they could have to make my stay enjoyable.

I...

I stayed at this sorry hotel from 3/4-3/8/20. My daughter and I arrived Wednesday for my son's graduation from the Marine Corp Depot in San Diego about 13 minutes away which took place 3/6.The reason I booked this hotel was because of the great reviews I read which were about cleanliness and service Those were the main reasons why I chose this hotel. Our room was clean and we did receive good service until our last night there which was Saturday-Sunday about 12:20 a.m. We returned to our room after leaving in the morning Saturday at 7:00a.m to find out that my daughter's suitcase had disappeared along with my tablet my daughter's make up, her hair straightener, my son's tennis shoes and some of my daughter's souvenirs, yes some. We noticed that they took their time to look through our stuff because my daughter's souvenirs were all in one bag and they took some and left some, also, my clothes and some of my son's clothes were on the floor, amazingly they didn't steal my souvenirs or my suitcase. We called the front desk and they called the police. The police came and took a report and finger prints. The door wasn't forced so I'm 100% sure it was an inside Job. I waited for their general manager Jess to call me back but he didn't until I called the hotel about five times and that's when I finally got a call back on Tuesday 3/10. He reassured me that he would look through all the cameras and get back with me, well, three days later on Friday 3/13 he did, only to tell me that he was still reviewing all their surveillance cameras (how long does it take to review one day of recordings???)and also to tell me that he trusted his workers 100% and he didn't believe it was any of them, he said how he's been there 11 years and "nothing like this had ever happened " then he offended me by offering a ONE yes, that's right, a ONE night stay at any of their Bestwestern hotels in any place I chose. Are you freaking kidding me?!! I told him that what made him think that after this horrible experience I would want to stay at any Bestwestern hotel, not only that, but after, he said he "didn't believe that any of his workers would steal". What the heck was he insinuating??? That my daughter and I flew from Texas to still our own stuff? Any way, I told him that his offered wasn't going to work for me and that what he could do is refund me all my money for the nights I stayed there, he agreed and I told him that as soon as he got my stuff back I would repay the money he refunded me. He said that he was going to do everything he could to find out what happened and that when he did, he would get back with me. What a joke!! Here we are almost 6 weeks later and I haven't received a call from Jess. I got my money 3/17 so I guess after Jess did "all he could" and went through all the recordings from Saturday he realized that it was in fact his workers?? Or maybe he was in on it, I guess I'll never know. I've had the privileged of traveling to different places and I have never experienced any kind of theft (one of those places being Mexico city known for its thieves) and it is a terrible feeling knowing that someone went through my personal belongings putting their hands all over my stuff. If you do decide to stay here, do not leave your stuff in the room, it's ridiculous, but you're better off taking all your stuff with you if you are planning on being out all day. I'm sure they watch people who stay several days to see how long they stay out and see how long they have to go inside rooms to pick and choose what they...

Spent four nights here on a beach trip with two of our young grandchildren. Pluses: very close to I-5/beaches/Old Town; good water pressure and high showerhead (which my 6’1” husband always appreciates); good restaurant across the parking lot where we ate breakfast at a hotel discount every morning and dinner every night; very clean rooms and hotel; comfortable beds; ok WiFi. Biggest plus? JAMES, a brand-new employee who’s SO nice and friendly, and who has a smile that lights up his whole face and about 10 feet around him.

Minuses: the toilet ran until we told the desk and they had someone fix it; the ice machine in our floor stopped working on Day 2 and wasn’t fixed by the time we left, so we had to go down a floor to get ice (the issue wasn’t having to go down a floor, it was that it was broken for the rest of our stay); the mini fridge was seriously MINI, there was so little room that everything we brought was crammed in there, and all the food I put against the back froze (including all of the fruit and carrots I’d brought for snacks); the first time I inadvertently blocked some little hole in the back of the fridge, everything was warm in the morning, and the second time everything was at least partially frozen, including our beverages that were on the door; one of the elevators stopped working on Day 2, then when it was “fixed” the door would open when you pushed the call button so the second one never came, but the first one didn’t actually move - just had doors that opened and closed - so we had to use the stairs.

From the fourth floor.

And I have foot problems.

Which meant I couldn’t go to breakfast with the family that morning so I scrounged something from the frozen fridge food, but everything worked by the time we were ready to go out for the day.

And last but not least, on the website they offer an “allergy-free room”, which my husband requested and which meant no feather pillows (which they supposedly don’t have anyway in the entire hotel? so what makes it an allergy-free room? They couldn’t tell me), but they couldn’t tell me what laundry products were used to wash the linens. I can’t sleep on bedding washed in bleach or products with fragrance, so I had to bring my own sheets, etc.

And I’d still stay...