Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines — Hotel in San Diego

Recently spent 3+ weeks at this hotel over 2 stays during a corporate move process. Was there both before and after labor day (when tourism slows down in town). My findings:

The bad: The free wifi is bad. I was working from the hotel and it was miserable working on it. The premium wifi was $5/day and not much better. The hotel is not particularly close to any restaurants/entertainment; nothing walkable. You can drive/uber to La Jolla, UTC, & Del Mar/Solana/Encinitas. If you want to stroll around a fun area, this is not the place. It is a very busy hotel; the line for help at the front desk is perpetually never ending at all times of day. During the high tourist season, the pool and common space is overrun with vacationing families and children. An absolute zoo on the weekends. This is probably true at a lot of hotels in San Diego. PRO TIP - the resort fee allows access to the Shiley Pavillion next door, where there is a small lap swimming pool if you are in to that. A lot of the guests treat the pool area like an island resort and leave their trash and towels around for someone to clean up after them; however it is not a true resort and there is not always staff dedicated to tidying the pool area. Military aircraft buzz over the property all day long. Its kind of cool to see the machines but also makes a lot of noise (noise mostly seems to stop by nightfall). Housekeeping was not provided except when scheduled at the desk. I dont have an issue with this in concept; however, we set-up a housekeeping schedule at check-in and were blown off most of our arranged days. At check-out for both stays we had to go through the bill exhaustively since the front desk did not apply the proper credits associated with our stay either time. There's really no reason for it other than the hotel probably trying to sneak the charges through IMO. Parking is $35/day...probably one of the more expensive lots in San Diego. Valet is $45; we did not spring for it. Highway robbery IMO. TV did not have any streaming/smart apps. I brought my HDMI cable for the 2nd stay.

Not good or bad: The food at the restaurant is pretty mediocre. It is certainly the most convenient option; your only other options are to get in the car or delivery. I tried all the breakfasts at least once; the highlights were the smoked salmon plate and the chilaquiles. There are lots of conferences and other events hosted here and the hotel is often busy with attendees coming in and out. It was always quiet in the room though. The prices for rooms can be very high in the high tourist season - but that should be reflected in the price at any hotel you will try to book in those months.

The good: Incredible views of the ocean and golf course. There's a nice path along the edge of the course where you can see a gorgeous sunset every night. Staff was very accommodating and friendly (especially the bell hops, bartenders, and restaurant staff. The front desk not so much) If you are in town to play Torrey Pines, the clubhouse is steps away from the hotel. It looks like the hotel offers a golf bag check at the front door. I'm sure there's a fee for it. Torrey Pines state park is just down the road where there are a number of easy yet fun hikes with breathtaking views of the area. Also great beach access from there. Hotel is dog friendly; not sure if there is an extra fee, but definitely saw families with dogs on the property. Grounds/property were decently cleaned/maintained, but aging and renovation - even just some fresh carpet and paint - would go a long way. Rooms are also a little dated; but good size and comfortable. Rooms were adequately cleaned at check-in.

TLDR - Overall, a decent place to stay if you have a a good reason to i.e. wedding/event at the hotel, are doing business in the Torrey Pines area, or for easy access to the golf course. Otherwise there are probably better options...

If you have a choice PASS on staying here. I wish I did. If attending a conference here, stay somewhere else and drive each day. Isolated location, so you would need to have a car anyway, or incur ride/cab charges to go anywhere else. Only been here short time and absolutely not a 4-star facility but somehow travel marketplace say it is. If it is a self-rating coming from Hilton, it is dishonest. Outdoors is beautiful and only reason for stars. Room is large and clean but needs upgrades, as does parts of the entire property, as expressed by other reviewers. Noticeable that some repairs that have been done are of poor quality (see wallpaper picture, paper is cut in mismatch, I also saw shower tile is cut narrow on one end and wide on the other). Coffee stand only open until 1 p.m. & does not accept Hilton Honors drink tickets like some other Hilton properties do. My basement level room has "yard" like space that is isolated by wall/fence from common space but accessible by adjacent rooms (through their sliders), so some may find it a safety and/or privacy concern. "[A]lways ensue your sliding patio door is locked and the secondary lock is engaged as well," and "[f]or further privacy at night, please keep your drapes closed whether you are in the room or out for the evening," according to a letter in the room, authored by General Manager Alyssa Turowski. Certainly not the balcony room I selected and expected. Further as to my personal guest experience, I did not get the room I booked (I don't think anyone would expect the walled in dirt yard type space a balcony room). And it was also a miserable check-in experience because property has their own rules for business travelers on reservations to be paid by virtual cards. If this applies to you, expect problems (they require a physical business card with a matching number or one in virtual wallet that can be tapped/run on pos terminal). I've never encountered this requirement, but Manager Torres said expectation is strictly enforced here. Moreover, the whole interaction was made far worse by the poor customer service and smug attitude of the staff. Lanie attempted to mislead me about the extent and nature of the credit card funds hold, despite that I had repeatedly said I shouldn't have a hold for the nightly room charge on my personal credit card. I don't believe this is an approach a customer service representative would employ unless instructed to do so, but draw your own conclusions. In addition, Manager Torres seemed to have little interest in helping in a substantively meaningful way, despite that the property's policy deviates from the program's regular process. He literally refused to provide his full name and the phone number to the front desk, instructing that I should provide anyone that needed to follow up with an email. From what I understood, the hotel won't honor verbal assurances from business travel agents and no longer take faxes, despite that they require written instructions from business travel coordinators. The general attitude from staff was that they were doing me a favor to stay here. Certainly not interested in problem solving, and they really doubled down on the smug attitude when I came back hours later and used my personal credit card. The fiasco delayed my check-in several hours (I had to get instructions from work on what to do, after business hours, which included waiting on hold for our travel agency after hours help for nearly an hour before they could take my call). Missed my evening plans, including dinner, as a result. Bottom line, beautiful outdoor space but older hotel not as updated or maintained like it should be and staff here do not provide excellent customer service. They are absolutely not guest centric and from observation and experience so far, very poorly operated and managed. Not what you expect from Hilton....

It does not make me feel good to have to write this considering I have never written a bad review before but after the events of our week stay, there is a lot to be said about the Torrey Pines Hilton. Being that I have worked in the hospitality industry for years, I have a leniency towards those working in the same work force but, it was truly disappointing to see that the hotel correlated to a very famous golf course would under perform to this capacity.

We checked in on a Friday and waited in line for over an hour just to be told that our room would be ready in 2-3 hours. Please keep in mind that we arrived to the Hotel at 3pm and could not get into our rooms until close to 6pm. After a long day of travel, like many, we were anticipating on dropping off our belongings and getting dressed in order to eat but, had to hold off until our rooms were ready.

Soon after we had checked in, we realized that we were charged an extra $800. We waited in line for another hour and when we asked the front desk, they told us that that was a part of the bill and provided no explanation as to why. They gave us a number to call in order to try to dispute the charge which turned out to the number of their front desk…. who we had just talked to.

There were days when housekeeping did not come and in the instance that they did, our towels were stripped from our rooms and not replaced. When we called, they informed us that there was a shortage of towels and we would have to wait. Again, another service issue that disrupted our plans.

Valet is $48/day compared to self-parking which is $40/day. With valet, at the very least we expected to be greeted but, instead we pulled up to 3 gentlemen standing at the desk that would wait for us to get out of the car and hand them the keys ourselves. No doors were opened and there was no help with our luggage/belongings. Unless you are driving a luxury vehicle, they will not give you the time of day. This was proven to be true because we had 2 vehicles with us, one being a Mercedes and we distinctly received different treatment when entering and exiting the Mercedes.

The escalator and elevator were both broken during our entire stay. As you could imagine how fun it was bringing our belongings (golf bags, suit cases, and bags) up and down the stairs for five days.

The bar downstairs is severely understaffed. With the amount of guests staying at this hotel, there should be 2 bartenders and a bar back scheduled specifically on Friday and Saturday nights but, on both of those nights we had 1 bartender who was busting his a** to serve a fully packed bar, bar side tables, and booths. Nick (the bartender) was AMAZING and deserves nothing short of a HUGE raise and recognition.

Majority of the staff seemed miserable and that tells me everything that I need to know as to how an establishment is ran.

We are very disappointed in the service and hospitality of the Torrey Pines Hilton. This trip was marked on our calendar for months and we were expecting a nice relaxing getaway for the week but, instead we’re met with our very underwhelming experience. The only redeeming factor was that it was located right on the Torrey Pines Golf Course and based off of the price, they play into that. Overall, it was not worth the convenience and we will...