TownePlace Suites by Marriott San Diego Carlsbad/Vista — Hotel in Vista

We have stayed at other TownePlace Suites and had really good experiences on a recent road trip to the PNW. Unfortunately, this trip to the Carlsbad area was really a truly awful experience. I react to the scent diffusers that are unfortunately so popular right now, that are used to make the common areas highly perfumed with unknown chemicals. So routinely, my husband calls the hotel before making the reservation to find out if a diffuser is used. I also generally book an accessible room to deal with an existing medical condition. In this case, he left a message for the front desk, to ask about the diffuser and see if they had any accessible one bedroom rooms available, since they were not on the website. We had high expectations before our stay, because a woman called back and said that they did not use a diffuser, and had located an accessible room that was two bedrooms, that would be adjusted in price for the smaller room we actually needed. She would block the room for us.

When we arrived, there was obviously a scent diffuser in the very small lobby area that connected directly to a very small breakfast room. The smell was overwhelming immediately upon entry. When I asked about the use of the scent contrary to what we had been told, she told me that no one would have told me they did not use a scent machine, and that I had not requested an accessible room. They had no accessible rooms available & that we should have called in the morning to inquire about one. We had been on the road for nearly 10 hours and were not up to looking for another hotel room. I asked to speak to the manager, who was reportedly in a meeting. So another woman came out, who then contradicted the other person about the scent machine, and said that there was no scent machine in use, I must have smelled a guest going by with perfume. This was blatantly untrue--the machine was behind a small table that had coffee service. [photos included]. I was then told that the only option was for a room that was not accessible or they would allow me to cancel my weekend reservation without paying! As if that was a gift of sorts, when they had completely botched the reservation we made, and falsely claimed I had never requested an accessible room.

But it gets worse. So we go to the room, and when we were ready to get some sleep around 9 p.m., a very loud power washer started up in the shopping center parking lot where the hotel is located and fronts. My husband complained to the front desk, who said they would talk to the guy and/or report the noise violation to the local authorities. That never happened. The noise continued to at least 11:00 p.m. without any break.

The room itself was quirky. The bathroom was divided into two parts, an inner room with a tub with shower and toilet with a door that opened into a separate area with a sink and mirror. That generally allows someone to use the sink areas while someone else uses the toilet/bath with some privacy. In this case, the door opened to the left, which meant that someone would be clobbered if they were standing at the sink using that area with the door opening directly into the area and hitting the counter.

The room was missing basic pieces of a hotel with a living room and 2 bedrooms. That included any lamps in the living room or any side tables where you would expect to find a reading lamp next to the couch and chair. There was no luggage holder so we improvised with a dining chair in the bedroom. The carpets were dirty and reeked of Febreze, which is another...

My room had bedbugs in it. This was on 2/4/2018 and I was in room 221.

I missed the deadline to write a review on Marriott's website (not that I trust they would actually post it) so you won't find it there. This was absolutely the worst experience I've ever had in a hotel. Thank god I didn't actually get any of the bugs on me or any bites.

I threw my luggage and bags onto the couch and unpacked my clothes to hang them up. I did a super quick check under the top mattress (just by lifting it up) and I didn't easily see any bugs so I felt it was all good. I then took out my laptop and worked at the computer desk for around 30 mins or so and then went to take a shower and get ready for bed for another 30 minutes or so. When I was ready to go to bed I quickly pulled back the covers and saw a bug several mm in length quickly run and try to get away. I immediately grabbed a tissue from the bathroom, grabbed the bug and put it on the nightstand with a clear glass over it to capture it. My wife is deathly afraid of hotels and budbugs and had shown me many pictures of them online so I knew what kind of bug this was instantly. In any case, I googled it just to make sure. I'm not sure why but I also decided to pull back the mattress protector in the top corner and saw a small bedbug crawling around as well. The mattress must have been full of them.

The hotel gave me another room for the night. The next day they moved me to a different room (in case I infected the first one if any of the bugs had crawled into my luggage or backpack). They had my clothes cleaned and my luggage and backpack searched. I bought 1 outfit to wear on the first day since they had all of my belongings and they paid me back for it. They gave my company the first night's stay for free (awesome...for them) and gave me 5,000 Marriott points (ugh).

Once again, this was the worst stay I've ever had in a hotel. I've always told my wife that she shouldn't be so worried about bedbugs but I completely take that back. I now spend around 20-30 minutes stripping down the bed and checking it before moving in. ...

Front desk staff was very nice and helpful. The room size was great, very spacious, and with lots of storage. But that is about it. The place is a little run down. The lobby is very cramped and it is hard to socially distance. The room was a little unclean and dusty. I did find some crumbs and rodent droppings in an upper cabinet. I don't think this place is very COVID safe as I saw the majority of other guests not wearing masks in hallways and common areas. There was a fairly large gap in doorway that allowed a lot of air from the hall to flow in. With the lack of mask wearing and the amount of dust, pet dander (from the first floor pet friendly rooms), and other allergens my partner needed to use their inhaler for the first time in weeks. The room was not well insulated and pretty loud during the day / evenings with a lot of dogs barking from neighboring yards and North County's love for loud trucks and motorcycles. The parking lot was free but the lot was really sketchy. We kept seeing the same people lurking about including some vagrants. One was asking people either for change or to sell them illicit substances depending on whether or not they looked into that kind of thing. Most of this was happening close the the guest BBQ area which is unsecured and open right to the parking lot, so we didn't feel comfortable using it. The pizza place in the lot is pretty good though.

With a nice rehab / remodel that most of the other Marriott properties have recently gotten and the addition of more security (in the parking lot) this place would be alright. But as it stands right now we did not feel very safe or...