San Clemente Inn — Hotel in San Clemente

My family and I just returned home after spending a week at the San Clemente Inn in a 1 bedroom suite with 1 1/2 bathrooms and kitchenette. |I will start with the good...The location is spectacular. San Clemente is a gorgeous city, very laid back, relaxing, easy to get around, beautiful views, and great shops and restaurants. The drive to LA, San Diego, Disneyland were all about 30 mins to an hour and 1/2 away and quick and easy off the highway. Perfect location!!!! |The facilities at the hotel were nice, clean, great for a family with kids. Lots of activities for kids / families (and lots of places for mom and dad to chill out and watch the kids!) Pool and hot tubs were clean. However, their website said the pool was heated and it was not, but our kids still had a blast. We were there in April in 60degree weather so having the water heated would have been great but we managed. |The kitchenette was great, useful and clean. Grocery store was less than 5 minutes away. Fantastic for a long stay. There were plenty of cups and dishes and any utensils needed. They also had a toaster and blender!|There are outdoor grills on site. We did not use them but they looked clean.|Having 1 and 1/2 bathrooms for our family was convenient. Bathrooms were both large with tons of drawers. The bathroom was a bit outdated but very clean and also had ample towels and extra beach towels for the pool! |Our suite had a bedroom, pull out couch in the living room, and 2 twin murphy beds. The full bed in the bedroom was comfortable, had many drawers and large closet. Many lights and plenty of outlets. The 2 twin murphy beds were clean, comfortable and the kids loved them. Although after you pull them down behind the beds was unfinished and kind of dusty but out of sight. This area also had storage cabinets with drawers. Storage was not an issue at all. In the closest were extra blankets and pillows which was nice.|What was disappointing was....|The pull out bed in the living room was absolutely terrible. Unusable. The hotel advertises the suite to sleep 6 comfortably but the sofa bed was broken. The sofa looks clean and updated but when we pulled the bed out it was bent and unstable, and the mattress was atrocious. We stopped by the lobby and they said they had a topper for it but instead sent us a staff member. He was very nice but even gasped as he pulled up the mattress. He apologized and said he will go talk to the manager. They brought us another mattress but it was just as bad as the first one. So we decided to just buy a blow up mattress. However, we did find it odd they didn't offer to pay for the blow up mattress.|Then, the next morning we noticed the half bath ceiling was leaking. Staff came and looked at it and said they needed a plumber to fix it. So, they had us move to another room. We liked our location because we were by the pool and had other family in the next room but they were able to move us just a few doors down. |We understood things happen and the staff was very nice and comped us the parking fee which would have costed us $175. It was a pain moving all our groceries and clothing already in drawers to the next room but we managed. It took about an hour to get reorganized again. |Small inconveniences were that the HDMI cord was missing in the bedroom but we never used that tv anyways. We could have asked for one. The DVD player in the living room was missing but also not a big deal. (they have DVDs in the lobby for use, which the kids thought was kind of fun) |But then....the next suite's pull out sofa was even worse! (if that's even possible!) But we used the blow up mattress and it was fine for us but I think other people would be less than thrilled about that. |All in all, we all decided we would definitely stay here again. We were pretty easy going and just wanted to get on with our vacation. The price was right for such a beautiful city and |Hope this helps any future...

Update on 2nd Visit: At first the guys that were rude on our first visit were nice and the staff was helpful as usual. However, in the middle of the week we found ants everywhere. My wife went to the front desk to let them know and there were multiple people complaining of the same thing. No apology or courtesy from the lady at the front desk at all, just a rude "We will have someone take a look. Do you want me to tell my manager?" A very nice maintenance person came and sprayed the room within the hour and we never saw ants again. The same guy even came the next day to ask if we saw more ants, so he was on top of things.

The reason for the one star change (we gave them a 4 before) is because of what happened throughout the week and at the end. My son had a rash all over his face and arms so we assumed it was a reaction to their detergent on their sheets and knew it would go away, so we didn't mention anything. My wife complained to me about being very itchy the first few nights. At first we thought nothing of it, but then we found bites all over her arms and legs. We thought it was the ants mentioned above, so when they sprayed we thought it would go away and things were fine. On our last night there she woke up with more bites on her feet and legs, and I had bites on my shoulders and arms. We left a day early and at 3:00 AM to drive home before traffic so we didn't talk to anyone at the desk, we waited until a more decent time. When we did call at 11:00 AM my wife let the guy at the front desk know we checked out early and said they might want to check for bed bugs because we had bites all over. She was very nice, did not accuse anyone, just mentioned it because we didn't want others to go through the same thing. No apology, just, "I'll go ahead and tell my manager."

Two minutes later a guy called saying he is the assistant manager and said, "Well we checked the room with dogs before you were there and didn't find anything. So...." and left the sentence at that. I told him we had bites all over and that something was in there that they needed to check again. He asked, "Did you see anything? What do the bites look like? Are you sure they are bed bugs or is this just from your own research? What exact days did you notice the bites?" After I answered his questions he added, "If you really want we can put a work order in your name and call you back with the results, but we didn't find anything before, so...." I finally said, "Yes we want you guys to check because we do have bites all over us." My wife was getting very upset with him and was saying how he needed to apologize and have some customer service (he was on speaker phone as I was driving home still). He never apologized, only was very defensive and doubting about the whole thing. So I attached the pictures of my shoulder and arm as a few examples of what we had all over. We never said they were definitely bed bugs, we just suggested they look for them because we had bites all over us.

The management is very rude and doesn't know how to speak with people or handle problems. We never heard an apology for anything that was going wrong, and whenever we mentioned anything (I wouldn't even say complain, we were very nice about everything that was going wrong) they were defensive and rude. Maintenance and the cleaning staff are very nice and helpful. But if you want to get eaten alive and be treated like dirt by those that are supposed to help, feel free to stay there. If not, I highly recommend going somewhere else.

1st Visit: The guys at the front desk were pretty rude, but the women were very friendly. The cleaning staff was very friendly and courteous whenever they saw us passing by. I'd stay here again (read second review, never will I stay...

My experience began when I booked my reservation directly with the hotel back in January/February. On 3/31, I received a call from Resort Time informing me of a double booking situation. I spent hours on the phone trying to resolve this issue between Resort Time and the hotel, resulting in two reservations and a room switch during my 4-night, 5-day stay.

Originally, I had booked the same room for the entire stay, but ended up in a studio room for 3 nights and a 1-bedroom suite for the final night.

The first night was challenging as the AC didn't work, making it uncomfortably hot. I promptly contacted the hotel, and they replaced the entire unit. The next day, the new AC still struggled, and I relied on a portable fan and leaving the patio door open at night, which helped somewhat, though daytime was less comfortable.

On the second night, I noticed the shower head was leaking continuously, which I initially overlooked until checking out of the studio room and moving into the 1-bedroom suite on the final night.

During the third night, I discovered a large wet puddle between the shower and toilet. After drying it up, it reappeared by morning. I brought this to their attention upon checking out of the room, along with noticing dirty bathroom vents.

Fortunately, Patrick, the GM, was able to transition me smoothly into the 1-bedroom suite for my final night. The AC worked perfectly, there was a ceiling fan in the bedroom, and ample space. It would have been ideal to have been placed in the correct room from the start, but I appreciated the comfort on the last night.

Throughout my stay, I interacted with several staff members including Anthony, Joshua, and Patrick (GM), all of whom were wonderful and understanding. They apologized for the issues I encountered both before and during my stay.

Patrick went above and beyond to resolve matters, which made a significant difference for me. Without his intervention, I would hesitate to return; however, thanks to the excellent staff and maintenance team, I am willing to give them another chance. Moving forward, I'll ensure to book only a 1-bedroom suite to avoid any reservation mishaps and triple check they actually have me down for the correct room moving forward.

Despite the initial challenges, the on-site restaurant, Riviera Restaurant, exceeded expectations. From delicious homemade chips to a delightful breakfast burrito and fantastic drinks, plus a bottomless mimosa deal, the dining experience was exceptional.

I'm giving this 4 stars even with my room mishap's because I am taking into consideration location, staff, and willingness to make this situation right along with maintenance crew. otherwise would be...