Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts — Hotel in Santa Monica

We picked the Hotel Oceana for Mother’s Day specifically because it was a hotel that stated on their website that it has a spa.

Before the trip: When talking to front desk rep Lilly, we were first told the spa prices were $250 a person, but later saw on your website when looking at massage options that they were listed as $190. Lilly gave an ungodly amount of pushback to honor the prices on the website, which still haven't been updated to this day. It does not matter that the increased prices are due to COVID and using a third party masseuse like Lilly said; you should remove the misleading pricing off your website or honor those prices to your guests. Lilly said she'd have to speak to a manager about it. We get a call back finally saying that the price would be honored and our schedule was confirmed for two of us at 1pm and two of us at 2pm, so we went ahead and made early dinner reservations at a restaurant downtown. Called closer to check-in to upgrade our suite for our first night (2 queen beds) since our 2nd night was set for The Lanai Suite already (the main reason being so we don’t have to move to another room anymore and can relax/fully enjoy our stay in one). Melody was who I spoke to and she took care of this right away.

Night 1: We did a late check-in. Lilly was the one at the front desk and told us she was “the one who helped with the spa reservations,” so we asked Lilly if everything was set and Lilly said yes. She gave us our keys to what was supposed to be our “upgraded” Lanai Suite and said the room was “just on the 2nd floor to your right.” It was not. We did 2 laps around the floor before finding it in a dead-end, tucked away corner. In this “upgraded suite,” we had practically no water coming out of the showerhead. My brother said he had to shower “in sections” of his body; that’s how little water we had. The shower floor felt as if it wasn’t even fully grouted. The tiles and space between the tiles were so sharp, we were all so uncomfortable. My sister even got marks on her feet. I called to inform the front desk about all this and spoke with Tory. Her initial response was, “Well, we did have you in another room, but since you asked for an upgrade, we went ahead and moved you to this room.” It was very curt and I didn’t appreciate this backhanded implication that because I asked to be upgraded, my family and I ended up in this poor quality room. Tory offered to move us. It was 11:30 at night and we were just so exhausted, so I said we’d deal with it in the morning. When flushing the toilet the next morning, the button would not come up. My mom had to pick at it with the end of a comb and pull it back up in order to use it again.

As per any hotel it is SOP to check first if the room is ready for occupancy. This room was obviously not checked, nor has not been used for a long time.

Day 2, Night 2: The facial was not included. We were told at the very last minute that only one masseuse was available. They had to also call in at the very last minute an esthetician. The masseuse herself said she was just called to come in that morning. Getting one massage at a time delayed our whole vacation schedule and resulted in us having to cancel our lunch/dinner reservations. The esthetician for my brother’s facial and the masseuse were very kind, however, our minds were still on all the mishaps. In the end, when seeing the printout of our room charges, that’s when I saw that $50 off was just the tax of our spa charges (I paid the masseuse, esthetician, and bellmen more in tip). They could not even give us a proper discount. I confronted Lilly about all this at the front desk, only to have her call our hotel room in the middle of the night to say, “But we comped your rollaway bed!” and a second time to say, “But we comped your valet!” when these were not resolutions she even offered, these were the bare minimum items that I had to ask Melody for.

These are just a fraction of the events that happened, as more added up to a painful experience. This was beyond...

It was a horrible and ruined anniversary thanks to this "luxury" hotel, stay in July 2023 on Hilton Free Night Certificate. The bad experience was mostly due to the poor service. The hotel seemed short staffed, operation disorganized and training lacking.

100-minute late check-in without explanation or apology:

The concierge emailed us for ETA and we replied 3pm - the official check-in time. Then on the morning of the arrival day, we chatted on the Hilton app to double check our room would be ready at 3pm.

However, the room was not ready at 3:15pm. The front desk didn't tell us what was going on or the estimated ready time, and instead asked us to hang around to wait for a call. NO APOLOGY, which was surprising.

By 4:30pm, after we failed to relax in a room as planned for a staycation after a long drive and before getting ready for dinner, we still hadn't heard back from front desk. So we approached the front desk, and again, NO APOLOGY, NO EXPLANATION, NO TIME ESTIMATE. The front desk tried calling housekeeping upon our inquiry and the call was never answered.

Eventually we got our room at 4:40pm, 100 minutes later than the official check-in time. Without time to unwind, we had to immediately get ready for dinner. And it was a pity that I had to drop out the last minute because of the exhaustion and to send my partner to go alone.

Incredibly rude and inadequate restaurant service:

The next morning, we were ushered to a dirty oily table in the on-site restaurant, and the waitress said before we asked, "I don't know where these marks came from, but this table is ready", which sounded so righteous lol.

After a very long wait, another waitress came to take our orders. And then after starving for another very long while, we got the dishes from another staff. Noticing that a set of utensils and some food were missing, we couldn't find anyone for help because no staff was in sight at all lol.

Eventually we shared only one set of utensils to eat and got the missing food. But during the whole time, no one came to refill our cups or ask about our feedback (the latter not desired by us though).

Because it was charged to the room at ordering, with MANDATORY 20% gratuity + 5% staff health fee (crazy for a breakfast without service, right?), we left without asking for the check since no one was in sight again lol.

Incompetent front desk:

We decided to check out right after the bad breakfast experience. Not too surprisingly, check-out didn't make up for the unsatisfactory check-in experience lol.

When the front desk asked how the stay was, I complained about the breakfast (not about the check-in since it was the same staff who checked us in), and she was nice enough to say sorry this time (better late than never, right?) and also said she'd take care of it by waiving the breakfast charge.

Nice gesture. We could've felt a bit better. But then I got a $20+ balance due bill. And this time she gave an explanation (wow, better late than never again!) - only the food could be waived, not the tax or the MANDATORY gratuity and fee. (FYI, 2 breakfast entrees at $30 each, $60 total, so additional $21.25 for 10.25% tax + 25% mandatory tips & fee) At that moment, it was almost hilarious since anyways we had $50 food & beverage credits as Diamond members, which means the nice gesture was a "generous" $10 off.

Lack of follow-up (much minor lol):

Running away ASAP, I chatted on the Hilton app with the hotel to complain about the above three bad experiences (a much shorter version of course) on my way home, and immediately received an updated email folio with the breakfast bill truly waived, which was appreciated.

The hotel apologized on the chat and said a manager, name specified, would follow up shortly. It NEVER happened.

Wanted to forget about this ruined anniversary, but more friends just shared their bad experience and now this memory is...

I had a lot of five star experiences while staying at Oceana. ||BEST EXPERIENCE |Lenny P |Your stay starts with the front line of the BELLMAN and Valets |The bell captain Lenny P is the most amazing man and lovely to work with, and he should be running this hotel, his attention to detail and his concern for the clients is genuine||BEST EMPLOYEE |Devin|Daily we worked with Devin, every day of our stay to handle parking, our car moving around ,our luggage around , making sure we got everything that we requested to enhance our stay and things that were needed in the rooms to be corrected or attended to, Devon was spot on and absolutely delightful to talk with. He is American and English, and he has a lovely accent. |Devin is the type of young man who will go very far in the LUXURY service industry, and in |five star ++++ environments |I hope that Devin receives recognition and rewards along the way ||The waiter staff for the morning meals on the patio by the pool were absolutely divine and lovely. ||Francisco and Yara attended to my every need and talked with me about the food and what they could do in addition to what’s already been done.||On our arrival night we ate in the conference room dining room, pop up environment and had to call on the phone to find someone to help us and did not have the same kind of waiter staff that we found with the morning staff||The nighttime staff was not five star.||ALL The food was delicious. my favorite was the steak and eggs in the morning. I don’t know where they’re getting those eggs, but I’ve never had an over easy egg that tasted as good as that. The steak was cooked rare as I requested and was tender not requiring a steak knife. ||The kitchen and main dining room for the restaurant are under a huge renovation and you will be VERY disappointed if you eat inside in the conference room that they located the inside tables for all day dining. The fancy pictures you see on the website don’t exist for that dining room anymore.||The daily housekeeping did a fabulous job and checked in with us to see if we had anything else that they could do to additionally help us EVERYTHING IS SPARKLING CLEAN, ALL THE TIME including the pool patio and pool furnishings ||When we requested to have the couch bed opened up and made up they efficiently did all of this very easily and very quickly and we’re happy to help , no matter what time of night it was ||Depending on the style of room that you are assigned, the bathroom could be next to the front door and the bedroom could be a five minute walk away, well it seems like five minutes when it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you have to walk to the front door of the suite to use the restroom . The closet was also exceptionally small||Our air conditioner failed and we were assigned a different room and in new suite, the bathroom was right next to the master bedroom as it should be ||The original room also had three different areas where the carpet was worn and dirty . ||This property has beautiful furnishings and beautiful decor, and is VERY VERY SAFE ||With all these wonderful features, assigning rooms to customers that are not in 100% good condition, Shouldn’t be a standard that this hotel is keeping||When hotels create a circumstance like that, I unfortunately then, have to become part of the solution. ||I hope the management team reads the reviews and adjust how they have managed some of those oversights ||If you are downstairs on level one right around the pool, remember that everybody is walking past your patio doors ……|so as beautiful |as these rooms are |remember that there’s little privacy ||This is a boutique hotel and does have lots and lots of five star accoutrements and standards. This is not a beachfront hotel, some of the pictures make the beach look closer than it is||You will be taken care of here and I do...