Kona Kai San Diego Resort — Hotel in San Diego

My sister and I chose this resort to spend time together celebrating our fathers life. He loved San Diego so we figured we would celebrate and say goodbye to him there. When we arrived at the hotel we were told we were being upgraded. First of all there is no elevator in the first building and there was nobody to help us lug our suitcases up to our room. At that time they let us know there is only one restaurant on the resort and no in room dining. We had no car because we felt like it would be fine but the location was not suitable with just one restaurant especially when finding out on Sunday nights they are not even open. Where do you go for dinner?? We did end up renting a car. The pools did have lunch service but it closed at dusk. When we got to our room it was a king bed. I had booked a 2 queen bedroom. When I called downstairs they informed me they were completely booked and could not accommodate a new room with two beds until the next day. We sucked it up and slept together We did not get a new room until late afternoon the next day. The headboard in the new room was leaning so far that I thought it might fall on my at night. It was not bolted into the wall. The bathroom was very disappointing. Small tub(old with staining)/shower combo and one small sink. Not really what I expected for the kind of money we paid. The toilet paper was also one ply , now come on that is crazy. The air conditioner was a wall unit that was super loud and cycled off and on all night. Waking me up often. The view was lovely. The only issue was they did not inform us there would be a wedding on one of days we were there. We had no use of the private beach that day or the firepits in the evening. I would have appreciated a notice of the event, especially because we paid 46.00 a night for a resort fee on top of the parking fee for the car we never intended to rent. The first night we ate dinner at the Vessel Restaurant and it was great. We had a waitress named Marin and she was lovely. The food was amazing!!

Now on to the service, the breakfast buffet was ok, same things everyday. Drinks were not part of the breakfast. We had servers that brought coffee and cleared plates. So when the bill came (we had breakfast paid for as part of my credit card package) it covered the cost of the buffet but we were left to pay for the drinks, tip ,and two different surcharges (6% which was fine but the other one as a 20% surcharge for a buffet?? Never seen that in my life.) The service was good the first two days but at the end of our stay they had very few waiters so we waited for water and drinks for around 15 minutes until my sister went to get the bartender for help. Horrible experience. I wonder where all their staff is?? One of our last nights we had dinner again at the Vessel restaurant again poor service. I really do not blame the wait staff it was clearly a staffing issue. I do want to reiterate the food was amazing!! So basically I will not be staying here again and I will be letting my credit card know that this should not be listed as one of their The Edit properties. Definitely not what I expected...

My husband and I spent our 9th anniversary in San Diego and we chose to stay at this resort because online there were many amenities listed, chiefly interesting among them were the 21+ pool and bar, and the private beach with nightly bonfires.

The hotel is located on Shelter Island, which was close enough to uber almost anywhere in SD for cheap, but removed enough from the downtown area to be nice and quiet. There were seals playing nightly and we could hear their barks from our patio, which was awesome.

Upon check-in, we were told the pools were open until 10pm and that the bar to the 21+ pool would be closed, but the other pool had a bar that would be open also until 10pm and we could just carry drinks to the adult pool if we liked.

This turned out to be a lie. The other pool bar was closed for most of our stay, and the only time we saw a staff member there it was around 5pm but closed shortly after.

There was a private event happening during our stay, and for most evenings the courtyard where all the games are for recreation was closed to us for the private event dinners, making us take the long way around to the pool.

Since the bar was closed, we had to go into the "fancy" restaurant in our swimsuits and stick out like a sore thumb to order a drink (which was like $20 btw) from the only human working the bar AND restaurant orders. She did her best but service was so slow that it took about half an hour to get one cocktail.

At night, the bonfires were pleasant. That is, until a staff member from the hotel arrived nightly to shut off the fire while we were sitting there. I think it was about 10:30pm.

We booked a couples massage at the pricey spa. The materials said that we get one add-on item up to a certain limit for free if we mention our room number. The spa took our information, then promptly charged us the full amount. I will say the spa had great customer service because I emailed about the issue, and it was resolved immediately with a refund in the amount that should have been discounted. Honest mistake, no problem there.

The steam room was relaxing, and the hot tub was the first hotel hot tub we have had in years that was actually hot.

The views of the marina are lovely. Our room was lovely, though there was no ice machine on our floor, so we had to walk downstairs and outside to get some. Which wouldn't be a big deal but this was billed as a resort so honestly I expected more.

Beautiful lobby, with tasty fruit water available daily which I definitely took advantage of, and we did receive help buying (slightly) discounted tickets for the Zoo, but it seemed like none of the staff knew what was going on at any time and gave us the wrong information.

Vessel, the restaurant in the resort, was trash. Very expensive for mid-tier at best food, slow understaffed service, but delicious bread service though its not complimentary.

Honestly for the price, it was still a decent resort and a good stay, but I would hesitate before calling this a luxury stay or recommending this at a...

I wanted to love this resort because it was very beautiful but I was extremely disappointed. There was a couple of different problems.

1. The first room we were in the A/C went out and they apparently didn’t have anyone in the resort that could fix it. They gave us another room to move to and the A/C for that room was horrible as well. Not to mention I had to move my 1year old and my 12 year old at 3am in the morning and repack. It was very frustrating. In the morning they promised to upgrade us into their jr suit. Front desk said they were going to expedite house keeping to get us in the room quickly. They had us waiting over 4 hours!!! By the time they moved us to another room it was almost 5pm. It killed my entire day I had planned with my children. The communication there is terrible. If they would have just told us in the first place what time the room would be ready I would have been able to work around that instead of just waiting there doing nothing.

2. the jr suit they upgraded us to was beautiful but it was not what it seemed. The AC for this suit also wasn’t the greatest l. It kept constantly shutting off and I had to keep getting up throughout the night to turn it back on because the room would get so hot. They also had a beautiful bathtub but we couldn’t even use it. The drain stopper didn’t even work so that was a bust! They wanted us to check out at 11am the following day and even after I asked to get a late check out since they had us waiting hours to move us into this room it seems like it was an inconvenience. At the end they let us check out at 1pm.

3. they charge you so many fees on top of already paying for your room. I payed over $1200 (that’s already including booking fees online) plus when I got to the resort they charged me an additional $300!!! They charge you for parking and other ridiculous fees. I just think if someone is already paying a lot of money you shouldn’t have to charge someone extra fees especially for parking.

4. We ordered takeout at the only restaurant they have in the resort and it was cold. We waited almost an hour to hear anything about our food. They guy said he was going to give us a call once our food was ready and we never received a call. After an hour of waiting for that call my husband went to go check our food and they just had it sitting there. When we brought the food back our hamburgers were soggy and cold.

Overall I would not stay here anymore which is disappointing because like I said the resort itself...