Best Western Inn & Suites San Diego – Zoo/SeaWorld Area — Hotel in San Diego

We stayed at this hotel for 6 nights during holidays. We are a family of 5 traveling often and we usually are happy staying in a clean and quiet place. We do not need much. We just want a place to sleep considering we are out for long days visiting.

We didn’t really had the choice of hotels since we bought a package through Air Canada Vacations. We really enjoyed San Diego but would have preferred to stay elsewhere.

Positive: the hotel is centrally located. All attractions are about not much than a 15 minutes drive. The rooms were small but clean. There was a breakfast buffet included, nothing fancy but it was doing the trick.

Negative: Rooms are right on the I8 highway and windows are thin as paper. You cannot sleep there…it is like literally sleeping on the highway. Request a room on the other side if you book there. We requested a quiet room but ended up on the wrong side.

Service is awful. Employees could not care less. We interacted with 4-5 different employees during our stay and they were not caring at all. They look friendly and are smiling, say they’ll do something but they don’t care in the end. I cannot believe some of the reviews I read here saying service is good.

Here are a few examples of what we experienced: A few hours before our arrival, I called the hotel to ensure the sofa bed in our room would be made because we were arriving around 1:00 am in the night from the east coast and travelling with three kids. They said yes it would be done. We arrived and it wasn’t. We had to open the sofa bed. There was only a flat linen on the bed. We found only one blanket in the room.Considering it was like 4:00 am for us because of the time difference we decided to live with it and addressed it with the staff the next morning. The lady at the front desk was arguing with us that there were linens in the closet… well no there were none… we searched the whole room! We asked that they do the bed during the day. Well, when we came back late at night it was still not done! We had to call and request linens and do the bed ourselves. Everyday, we had to ask for more towels (they only put 3 in the room) we were 5 people. Sometimes they told us we will bring some in 10 minutes and an hour later we had to call back. Had to go down to the front desk to get them because they don’t come to the room.

Another issue is that there is no safe in the rooms. We did not want to leave the kids iPads in the room not securely stowed so we were keeping them in our luggage with a padlock. At one point during our stay the key to the padlock broke in the padlock so we asked if they could provide a tool to cut it. They didn’t help at all. They only told us to take a Uber to a store to buy a metal cutter. There is no way an hotel like that doesn’t have maintenance staff that could have cut the padlock. They simply did not care.

On our 4th night when we came back to the room late at night the sink was clogged with dirty water (see pictures) dripping everywhere and the carpet was all wet. We had to change room at 10:00 pm… gathering all our belongings. They could not give us a better room… very frustrating. They didn’t really apologized. The maintenance employee came to check if the new room was all fine, but the front desk staff did not care. The new room we had for the last two nights had an issue with the toilet clogging all the time.

Also, Wi-fi is not good. It works a bit better depending where you are in the hotel… you need to find the right spot. Breakfast is crowded and sometimes they went out of coffee or other stuff and the tables were always dirty.

We do not recommend this hotel. We will share our experience with Air Canada Vacation. They should reconsider sending...

I’d give this place 0 stars if it were possible.

I checked in Sunday Night at 7pm. The first room they checked me into was used and still dirty. Room 233 to be exact. Then I went downstairs to get checked into a second room. Wasn’t even mad or upset, I was patient and calm. I got checked into room 235 for the second room. Then I went upstairs to check that room out, and it was used/dirty still too. Still being patient and calm, I went downstairs to get a clean room. I got checked into room 216 for the third. I left my belongings in that room. Desk attendant did not update it in the computer. So I left early Monday morning to run errands and didn’t come back until Tuesday morning. When I get back Tuesday morning, someone is booked inside my room while my belongings were in there. That person said they did not see my belongings. The cleaning staff said they did not see my belongings. Vebi and I checked the cameras and I showed him exactly when and where I came inside with my belongings. That happened Tuesday morning into Wednesday. They said they would cut a check with the amount for my belongings. Andrew told me before I left, to send him online images of the items that I have since there is no receipt and that he will forward them. It’s been two weeks and I’ve emailed Andrew the head manager to see what’s going with an update on the check and I still have not received an update email. I’m so angry. I was patient and calm the whole time while handling the situation and did not go Karen mode. Yet, they have not responded or updated me.

Update: I call the manager to get an update since they had not reach out to me. Andrew cooper, the same manager that responded to this bad review. before I left, he asked me if I had any receipts and I told him no I did Not have receipts since I purchased my belongings some time ago and I paid full price. For some reason, Andrew tells corporate that I paid discount price AND that I have receipts for my items. It’s been 3 weeks since I left the hotel and I have not received a reimbursement for any of my belongings. Andrew told me he would get back to me in 1 business day and it’s been two. Then Andrew has the audacity to respond to this review saying “if you have any billing concerns, feel free to call” when he knows that I haven’t been cut a check for my belongings that THEY LOST! DO NOT BOOK HERE. Terrible, and I mean absolutely horrific customer service.

update: got off the phone with Andrew. He told me that Best Western San Diego Zoo WILL NOT BE reimbursing me for my items that THEY lost. They said they need a physical receipt WHILE KNOWING I told them I didn’t have one before I left and Andrew told me that it would be fine without a physical receipt and the items I forwarded. A thousand dollars worth of personal items Down the drain because of THEIR mistake. a thousand dollars gone. So I was lied to, lost my personal belongings due to their mistakes, lead on, and was given dirty rooms. Do...

My family spent the day at the San Diego Zoo before going to Best Western. We were exhausted, sore, and ready to simply crash into bed. Unfortunately, that was not our experience.

There were 2 problems with the first room. The first was that there was no soap or soap dish at the bathroom sink. It went downhill from there. I went to prepare the sofa bed in the spare room and immediately found that the mattress was so thin you could see and feel the springs. There was no way any of us were sleeping on that. We called the front receptionist and what was offered were 2 comforters to lay over the mattress. This did not work. At all. Even doubled up, they did nothing to hide the fact that your back was digging into the springs on the sofa bed. We contacted the manager of the hotel to see what else could be done. We asked if they could perhaps take a queen-sized mattress from an empty room and stack it on top of the thin one. This, unfortunately, according to the manager, could not be done. A reason was not given. The manager, Ashley, then offered us to look at 2 other rooms that may be of more comfort. Well, this was not successful either, for the other sofa bed mattresses felt exactly the same and were just as bad. We went back downstairs (we were on the 4th floor) to speak with Ashley to figure out more options. She offered us an $80 discount from our bill if we agreed to stay in the room with the bad mattress. This, we refused. We then asked for a possible refund, and we would simply leave the hotel and drive the 2+ hours back to our house. Ashley said that this was a circumstance where she could have to consult a supervisor, both of which were unavailable, for one was at home and the other on vacation. I said that there had to be someone to answer that question about a refund, seeing as this would determine whether we stayed or left. Ashley responded sarcastically, "What do you want me to? Call them at home?" to which I said, "Yes. If that will answer about the refund." Ashley then replied, "I would like you to check out." This is extremely unprofessional behavior from a manager, when we are simply trying to figure out how to sleep comfortably after a long day at the zoo. We went back upstairs. Shortly after, Ashley called back and said that her supervisor could not authorize a refund since it is the same day as our stay. She offered us another room with a king-sized bed and a bunk bed. We had to call in for a roll-away bed for the fifth person in our family, and somehow, this roll-away bed had a better mattress than the many sofa beds in that hotel. Isn't that funny?

There were also issues in the second room. The bathroom door did not lock, and there was no soap dish, although there was soap, so that's a plus. The TV remote did not change channels, so we had to call for maintenance.

However, we have also stayed at other Best Westerns that were better than this. Very odd.

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