This is a good embassy suites hotel. The lobby is a fun, authentic feeling mission style with murals inside the arches, sitting areas, fountains and pools with koi and turtles. The rooms were standard with two double beds and the sofa bed, two TVs, nicely appointed bathroom with granite counters. Plenty of room for the five of us. The balcony offered a nice view of downtown LA in the distance. Breakfast was great, and the mangers reception had plentiful sacks and drinks. The area felt quite safe, a Mimi's cafe in the parking lot, other restaurants nearby, and a complete mall a few blocks away. There's a classic Bob's Big Boy and an early original McDonalds on Firestone. We stayed here to go to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game. It took about 20-25 minutes taking the 605, which was about a mile away on Firestone. (Hotels closer to Pasadena were booked or too expensive.) This hotel is equidistant to 5, 710, and 605, so it is pretty easy to get to and is easy to get back to a highway. The city of Downey is pretty basic, middle classish with moderate homes, standard banks, stores, churches, schools. All seemed graffiti free and there were no bars on the windows, so the feeling was pretty good. It is not a super cute walking district, more business as usual, although some new restaurants looked like they were opening soon. So overall it's a good family friendly central location in greater Los Angeles. It is not near anything, but it's not that far from everything. The Downey Music Center was adjacent to the hotel.

The older Embassy suites hotels can look very faded even if cared for well. This hotel was not cared for well. Strange furniture, grimy dirt-colored carpets, a shower that hadn't been scoured in years, hvac that turns off entirely if (in the hotel's view) the outside temp is between 55 and 70degF.: just a few of the problems. And that cooked breakfast? Only if you don't value your time, the line was never shorter than 15 people every time I checked. Even profit center items, such as vending machines, were out of order.

The only plus was front desk staff, which seemed to care when I had a request. But they didn't care to ask why I checked out after one night and moved somewhere else due to the accumulated grime throughout the room and the hotel.

Business trip...9 people from different parts of US and Canada. Hotel was very accommodating! Breakfast in the Courtyard was amazing, so well organized! Rooms were very clean, only complaint was my room was missed once. The shuttle service they supposedly provide let us down every day and we had to scramble to arrange alternative transportation to our training facility so I would suggest outsourcing transport. That was the only major let down. Great ambience, friendly staff! Food in the restaurant was delicious! They have a happy hour but we never made it back in time... Definitely a nice hotel!

A pretty good location for Downey, and the rooms are fine. Restaurant, bar and manager reception area all could use upgrading. Better food, drinks, and atmosphere would all be welcome. The manager reception serves really cheap swill for drinks, though the bar is OK. Food was acceptable, but very limited, and quite honestly not that appealing in general. There are a couple of restaurants in walking distance, but nothing to recommend highly.