San Diego Marriott Del Mar — Hotel in San Diego

I was very excited to stay at your property as it was my first time spending a weekend alone with my 13 yr old son. We had plans to go to the race track for the afternoon. I had booked the day before and had to book direct with customer service as I could not complete the transaction online. This was frustrating but enabled me to ask questions about some of the things that came with the rate, ie. The executive level access. I paid the extra fee seeing as this would make things easier with us having access to food/drink since we would not have a lot of time to prepare. The person I spoke with on the phone was not very knowledgeable about the property and in fact didn’t even know what the “executive access” offered. But I booked it anyway.

Upon arriving at the hotel after an incredibly long ride down (3.5hrs) from LA, I was anxious to get changed and get to the race track . It was 2:30pm and i asked if I could early check in and the woman behind the counter was incredibly short and abrupt with me and flat out said no. I believe her name was Ahlia. I was taken aback as I had just spent so much time in the car and just wanted to put my things in the room , and grab a drink or bite at executive level. She then proceeded to tell me that the executive access wasn’t even available on the weekend and there wasn’t any thing she could do. I explained that I spoke direct woth the reservations and they explained to me that there WAS food/ drink available all day etc. I was very frustrated as my son and I were both starving and thirsty. I asked her , what did I exactly upgrade for executive access if it wasn’t open, and she said well you can have breakfast.

Next thing, I ask them if i can park my car. The woman explains to me that I can proceed to the parking structure and press a button and they will lift the gate for me to enter. I left my son in the hotel so he didn’t have to go back and forth and I sat at the parking gate for 10 min. And NO ONE EVER let me in. I had to go get a ticket and go back to the front desk. At this point I was very frustrated and just wanted to get going to the racetrack.

Breakfast btw was terrible and inedible. The eggs were cold and soggy and they served some sausage that was rock hard. Coffee was even complicated to get.

The room itself was comfortable and innovative in design and overall a 5star! The service and the experience at the hotel was sub par and I would...

I’ve stayed at different Marriotts before and no issues like this one. Too bad because it could have been our go- to in the future.

At the last minute, we wanted a staycation with my teenage daughter to just rent movies and order room service. This hotel’s website mentioned the capability of renting movies.

My first call for help was to ask about the ice vending machine since the guest directory said to call for locations. After it rang about 15 times I hung up and decided to look for one on my floor. to my disappointment could not locate one. I didn’t feel like calling again so we just went without ice. Next, we wanted to view movies to rent but could not locate them in tv. We tried Netflix but we kept getting error. We couldn’t get Netflix, HBO or showtime after several attempts. I called for assistance and I was told that they no longer offer to buy movies. Your website says yes. . As for the errors Netflix HBO (which I can get at home) a technician would be sent out. I also mention I did not have a menu to order room service and I was told that I would one would be sent up. We waited for an hour before I followed up. At this point I was a little bit irritated since the whole purpose of staying at this hotel was to rent movies and order room service. I was seriously thinking of checking out and asking for my money back. Because so far, our staycation was not going well. when I called again i was told technician would be right up when I asked for the time, she said five minutes and he did show up. I asked again about the room service menu. Was told one would be sent right up we didn’t get it until probably like 15-20 minutes later. I was about to go out and get my own dinner from outside the hotel.

Since technician showed up fast I thought I would give the hotel benefit of the doubt and stay here. we did end up ordering room service and surprisingly they delivered it within 30 minutes however my daughters grilled cheese sandwich bread with slightly burned. She did not appreciate and did not eat it. I asked for my burger well done. It was medium. Good but medium is not how I like it. at this point I didn’t want to call and complain. I just wanted to get past it and enjoy our own Netflix.

The staff...

It's impossible to get ahold of the hotel restaurant (i'm talking... 30 mins of non-stop calls to get anyone to pickup the phone every time you try -- this was also true of the front desk). Once I got ahold of the front desk, they said they would place my order for me, but never did, and 90 mins passed for me to be told "we don't have anything you ordered", and guest services said it took them an hour to place my order because they "got busy" (they could have easily just told me that and I could have ordered myself...). At this point it was too late to place another order, and my family went to bed hungry. When I brought this to the attention of a manger (after guest services HUNG UP ON ME), no resolution was offered other than a sandwich from their lobby convenience store (hard pass on that one). I would expect Platinum Elite members (ANY guests!!!) to receive more respect then an "oh well what are you gonna do about?" type of attitude. It was honestly infuriating, and I do not get upset easily.

Additionally, I was staying in the room with my 1yr old, so there were diapers and other trash in the room, and housekeeping never came to my room. I was not told there would be no housekeeping (as I had in prior stays during COVID, which is totally understandable), but this is now mid-Summer and staff is not even wearing masks, so why still is there zero housekeeping offered? I did not feel comfortable asking the front desk for anything at this point, due to how I was treated the night before.

When I finally did get to the hotel restaurant (for breakfast the following day), it was really....not good. I thought a simple bacon eggs and potatoes breakfast would be foolproof, but the potatoes tasted like they were not washed or something? Just tasted like literal dirt. The bacon was deep fried in dirty oil or something, and just tasted like oil dust. Do not recommend.

To add insult to injury, when I tried to email Marriott about the experience, I typed out my entire review (even more detailed than this one, if you can believe it), and got an error message saying Marriott could not accept my review, and the review was erased.

All-in-all, 1 star is generous for...