Crowne Plaza San Diego - Mission Valley by IHG — Hotel in San Diego

It pains me to give poor reviews as there is always another side to a story but my experience was so subpar I decided I needed to to help the hotel improve (hopefully): 1. Check-in experience: We arrived at 11:30AM after a long flight from the East Coast, waited on line for over 20 min to get to front of the check-in desk and were told the room was not clean we should come back about 1:30PM. So we waited outside in our too warm travel clothes until 1:30 as requested. Waited another 15 minutes on check-in line and were told try again around 3PM (okay, this is a standard check-in time). Came back at 3:00pm, 15 minute wait, again told room not ready check back at 4pm. Another fairly long wait on line, this time most of the guests on check in line are getting angry as is my wife. Got to front, room not ready, "we cannot tell you when it will be ready" . My wife gets angry and they give us a key so we could at least stash our bags and a discount off our last night room fee due to the (eternal) delay.

Trying to eat lunch at bar: During all this waiting we decided to go to the bar for some food. First impression, area was crowded with very few staff. My wife gets on a long line at bar to at least get a drink to calm her nerves while I wait at the table for a waitress. We are told they are bringing someone over to help. After a waitress goes to other tables but not mine I flag "waitress" down, she is not happy to come over but takes our order for food while I get my wife off bar line to order the drink s through the waitress. Waitress leaves with order but it turns out she really leaves, decides it is not her department and is not going to work the bar, too much work. We wait at table for our food, 50 minutes and no food or drinks!!! Get into fight with my wife who says she was close to front of bar line when I pulled her away, so I go on bar line for 20 minutes to at least get her a drink (I failed to mention they only have a single person working on drinks at the bar despite the line and craziness).

During my 20 minute bar line wait an older gentlemen comes over to my wife at our table and asks if we ordered, she tells him yes and he asks "what did we order"and goes away and actually finds the order just sitting around waiting (from the waitress who left I presume). He finds me and also manages to find my order just casually sitting on the side of the bar ready for pick up for last ?? minutes. Second day: now we have a reception person from catering at entrance to bar who assures us we would be served, so with trepidation we give the bar one more chance for lunch, sit down, again crazy with people everywhere and few staff. Bus boy comes over and warns us "I do not know if you will be served or when, very busy", so basically we leave without ordering. We complain to catering person seating people who says we should write a complaint but basically not her problem.

Breakfast:

they have a small place to take away coffee and bagels, snacks etc. where I go down in the morning for coffee and a bagel or danish, line out the door, 1 to 2 staff working, very slow, 25 minutes to get morning coffee, about the same delay every day but good time to catch up on morning reading.

Room: We finally get to our clean room on day one about 5:30 pm after waiting since 11:30 am, great except it is very hot outside and not much cooler in room, the AC is set for 60 degrees but basically just blowing minimally cool, luke warm air around. I recalled seeing Yelp reviews saying the AC in the rooms do not work so not wanting to wait on anymore lines I decide to just suck it up for the rest of the trip. Room is otherwise fine, needs to be refreshed but I have been in much worse and room is clean. Later during stay just run out of toilet paper but none is replaced until I write a note for maid with my daily maid tip, then we get two extra rolls.

Staff education and training: When asked questions staff generally either do not know the answer or you get two different answers from 2 different staff. Example: I wait 10 minutes to ask at front desk how to get a shuttle to the mall close by, "easy just call down here, dial "O" 15 minutes before you want the shuttle". I think okay great, later I call with my 15 minute warning, response I hear from operator: "We do not order shuttles by phone come down and we will call them immediately but need to just come down" . Okay, thanks for wasting more of my time. I do come down and they do arrange (fairly quickly) for the shuttle, so no problem.

MISC: It was apparent that the staff were overwhelmed with the convention at the hotel, they were obviously unhappy to be there (for the most part) and wish everyone would go away. A few staff were trying but most had given up. My wife left a day later than I did as I needed to get back home, most of everyone left when I did. So my wife calls me after I left and she says "The hotel is fine now, (when it is empty)!" Overall a miserable and stressful hotel stay, I was finally able to relax when I got back home and was in my airconditioned room with no lines to...

Day 1, when my family & I drove up we were really impressed with the hotel and we felt like we made a great choice on where to stay even though we paid more than what other hotels were charging. We entered the lobby and we were happy with the look and feel, kinda Hawaii like really open & tropical. I went to check in and was greeted with a nice smile and hello. The clerk was really helpful and was able to help me switch my room to a non-handicap room since I booked wrong online. That was really nice of the clerk and Manager on duty that afternoon. After checking in we drove our car around the back of the hotel near our room Tower and had really easy access to our room. The atmosphere was nice and open and had a really calm tropical feel to it. Here's where it gets disappointing, we open the door and there's a really bad smell coming from the room almost like an old freezer refrigerator smell. My wife & I looked at each other and did the stink face and quickly turned off the AC and opened the balcony door to air it out. Luckily my wife had a travel Fabreeze spray in our luggage so we sprayed around the room a few times. the room seemed nice but the smell just kept festering in the air almost like all the furniture and carpet were just soaked in this smell for a while and no matter what you couldn't get it out. The rooms decor seemed a little out dated but I thinks it's due to there Tropical theme so it kinda goes with the hotel look. The photos of the room online seem more modern than what we got. Fast forward to 8:00pm my wife was getting my sons bath ready and when she opened the shower curtain, the floor of the tub was dirty almost like the last person that used it got in with black flip flops & the cleaning staff never cleaned it. I know this because on the 2nd night when we got back from Sea World I went to take a shower and the tub was clean and white.

Fast forward to day two, we had breakfast in the hotel and had great service the food was good and we were in & out in 45 minutes no complaints there. We did our thing at Sea World came back to the hotel around 11-ish after heading to bed let me tell you this, WE HEARD EVERYTHING, the walls must be paper thin, because all night we heard people walking above us, to the sides of us, we heard closet doors open and close creaking drawers people chatting wow I was really surprised how much we heard, luckily we were so tired from our day we fell asleep eventually but it was bad.

Final day: keep in mind that we had to keep spraying Fabreeze, we get ready to leave the hotel and we pack up get to our car and decide lets have breakfast before we head back home. We got to the breakfast area sat down and waited, and waited, and waited, making eye contact with all the waiters and waited, and waited, finally 15 minutes later I told my wife get up we are leaving now. Keep in mind that the hostess was watching us the whole time. As we approached the entrance she asked my wife whats wrong, my wife said we are getting no service, she asked me if she could take our order & I said no that wont be necessary. We got to the check out desk and I said checking out, the clerk never asked me how my stay was and jokingly said "I'm reviewing your parking charges and it's telling me to charge you double because your wearing an LA hat haha" then I replied wow that must be why no one served us breakfast than he laughed handed me my receipt and we never looked back. We did accomplish our goal of going to Sea World and had so much fun, but were disappointed in the room and what I paid for the room as well...

Made "special " reservation for NY niece and her husband needless to say the whole thing was a total disaster....This is what my niece has to say

Don't stay here. This was such a mess.

Room: bathroom door doesn't lock and hotel smells... no chairs on any of the balconies. However....the biggest issue.... Service: Absolutely the biggest problem at this place. We scheduled our stay online...included early check in as an option given to us via their website. I called morning of and asked what was the time for early checkin...was told no. We dont have that. I asked then why is it an option when scheduling... oh then now they magically have it available.... What a joke. The guy on the phone was so rude and kept saying no until I pushed back.

We checked in... staff couldn't figure out how to proceed with card already on file, then the parking pass for the gate wouldn't work. Had to go back in 3 more times to eventually get no pass and a guard letting us in to park. Such a waste of our time. Unfortunately... this was happening to all the families that checked in at the same time we did.

Checked out and same thing with the pass... except we couldn't get out of the parking gate because of no pass. More wasted time.... parked...walking back in just to try to explain to new management why we didn't have a pass. Nothing was communicated from the day before..... so here we are wasting more time trying to explain all that occurred the day before...just to get another manager to walk out and let us out.

A family member had arranged a gift card for us during our stay- nothing was ever mentioned or given to us for that- so dont waste your time trying to set up a gift or gift card. Another huge waste of time when this was set up 2 months prior.

Our family member said we would be contacted by Michael- that never happened.

We will NEVER stay here again.. because of the poor service and So much wasted time.

So my husband called them hotel and his experience was that they really didnt care Here is what he had to say

The hotel manager gave me 10,000 points as compensation. I wasn't happy but he said that was as much as he is allowed to do, he normally gives 5,000.

He claimed that he told me that you would go to the restaurant and give your room number, any amount up to the gift certificate amount would be covered.

That is opposite to him telling me that a gift certificate would be waiting at the front desk for you, and makes no sense.

I had originally asked for Rose petals and champagne in the room but was told that they didn't do that but had gift certificate that I could get for you.

Why say that you have a gift certificate is it is only a room charge?

The hotel manager, Glenn Miller told me that Michael tried contacting you unsuccessfully. Interestingly Michael never called me back to ask if there was another way to contact you.

He got told how sorry they were about the experience with an "I DONT CARE" attitude.to me it is like they are just trying to pacify us instead of correcting the issues. And really. IS THERE REALLY A MICHEAL???? OR...