Previous reviews have summerized the San Carlos quite well, though improvements seem to have been made.

It is close to the Convention Center, and improvements (Lights, bike cops) to downtown Phoenix made me feel safe walking home at 11 pm. A five minute walk. A light rail project which the locals claim will never be finished has the streets pretty torn up. Construction on a new high rise next door caused one patron to demand a room change.

The staff was extremely friendly, helpful, and did their best to try to accomodate my early check in. (Despite not being able to.) Equally friendly service at the downstairs restaurant.

The "charm" is mostly overrated, a few old photos, a display, some remnants of architecture. The elevators are quite charming with their copper clad doors and old push buttons. Room furnishings could be best described as old & cheap. The sundeck & pool, while small, was a fantastic place to relax while waiting for my room.

The room was small, but I spent little actual time in it. One of the overhead bulbs was burnt out and never replaced. The small bathroom needed more attention, smelling of mildew after taking a shower, and the toilet plumbing greening with oxidation. The soap, lotion, shampoo were of nice quality.

There was no continental breakfast, though room service was available via a door hanger. Unfortunately, after the first use, I never received another door hanger.

My first two nights sleep were great, night 3, however, verified that the walls are paper thin and a party in the next room and another one by the pool kept me up well past 2 am. No ghosts that I know of.

My thoughts: They're trying to do their best with a very old building. I'm sure it was a gem at one time, but is no longer. If you're used to the accomodations of a motel chain, avoid the San Carlos. If you like to step off the beaten track when you travel, the San Carlos is for you.

We knew the hotel is old but had no other choice during those two days. We paid $175/night for a room with "original" carpet and bathroom fixtures (old and stale). The clerk who checked us in was friendly; the rest of the staff were disinterested for the length of stay, including the manager. I guessed they thought they did us a favor for being there. Needless to say, never stay there again.

Peter.

Ps. The pictures in the website are really nice, not in reality.

The San Carlos is in a great location, only a few blocks from the Phoenix Convention Center.

Our room was very clean, and the housekeeping service was good. The view out of the room was nice and we could see the activity on the street without hearing any street noise.

I enjoyed my stay here very much, and really liked the adjoining Irish Pub. The hotel restaurant was also nice, but too busy to accommodate me right away. After a 15 minute wait, we were seated and served promptly.

I would recommend this hotel to anyone needing to stay in the downtown Phoenix area.

I was in Phoenix in April for a concert, and stayed at the Hotel San Carlos for one night, I must admit the that I was a bit worried about the location, but when my sister and I got there, worried was an understatement! Large concentration of homeless people outside of hotel and some of them can get agressive if you don't give them money.

Some of the streets around the hotel were closed due to construction, and if a person does not know Phoenix, you can find yourself driving around for a long time before finding a place to park.

Parking for the hotel was in the Chase tower, they did have an underground tunnel that you can use, but it was so inconvenient, especially when there are events being held at the convention center and your car ends up on a higher floor.

The hotel is in a desperate need of a little renovation, starting with the elevator, if three people were to get on that elevator it would problably plummet all the way to the bottom and it made a horrible noise. When we got to our room the first thing we noticed was our neighbors in the next room!! We could actually hear the whole conversation they were having!
It was 112 degrees in Phoenix that day and the hotel only has central air conditioning that is controled by the staff, it was absolutely disgusting!

When we came back from the concert, we had to park on one the higher floors at the Chase tower again, but this time, people were getting out of the civic center event so it took forever to cross the street! When we finally got across, we noticed that there were a lot of homeless people on the sidewalk panhandling, we got scared because they were kind of agressive, we actually had to run to get inside the hotel!

When we went to bed, needless to say we didn't sleep at all, between the people in the next room talking and laughing all night long, the very bad air conditioning, the bar across the street with really loud music and the very hard bed!

Continental breakfast, is just that.

If you can, definetly pay a little extra and stay at the Hyatt, I wish I had done that. The best part of my stay at Hotel San Carlos was leaving!