My Bride and I stayed at the Magic Castle Hotel in September of 2005. We were looking for sightseeing opportunities @ Venice Beach. Santa Monica Pier and Hollywood Blvd.- Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre...etc..
The hotel was 1 block off Hollywood Blvd. with great service from the staff and a tasty continental breakfast offerred each day. The Magic Castle Hotel is well kept , clean but has a small pool area ( which separate from its size met my need for cooling off after a day of hiking the streets of Hollywood and surrounding areas. The overall Room and Bed were clean and well kept but older, which lent some charm to the hotel. I liked the hotel and the service offerred from its staff and would easily recommend it to friends and family.

I stayed at the Magic Castle based purely on the reviews on Trip Advisor.... and unfortunately it didnt match up to them. If you are the kind of person who values your sleep, dont stay here. However, if you like listening to the bathroom habits of complete strangers in the next room, or you like hearing every word of other guests conversations while youre lying in bed, or if you like being woken up every 5 minutes by slamming doors, TVs and children running around in the bedroom below, then this is definitely the place for you.

Having read other reviews saying this hotel should be a 5 star hotel, I can only assume that none of those reviewers have ever stayed in a decent 5 star hotel. The carpets were filthy, the kitchen was ill-equipped and we had a colony of spiders living on the living-room ceiling. Our toilet backed up and overflowed and when i contacted reception to ask for help, no one came. When I called again, I got told that the member of staff Id spoken to had forgotten about it.

There were one or two staff who were helpful but no more than I would expect from a hotel. My boyfriend was really unwell at the time and he needed peace, quiet and rest so I ended up spending a day searching for alternative accomodation in LA.

When we told the staff that the noise in the bedroom of our suite was intolerable, they couldnt understand as that was supposed to be the quite part of the hotel!!

We would never stay there again. If youre a noisy person with noisy kids, maybe your own noise would drown out that of everyone else. If youre a quiet couple looking for a romantic get-away with privacy - forget it.

My wife and I recently went to L.A. for a wedding and to visit our daughter. With all the rave reviews of the Magic Castle Hotel, how could we not try it? We arrived there in the evening with high expectations, but we were quickly disappointed. The carpeting in our room had numerous holes like cigarette burns (it turned out that these were dark spots). The next morning we debated about complaining to the management. After some hesitancy, we decided that management should know that our experience was not consistent with the reviews that we had read. After all, we were going to be there for three more nights. We started wondering whether the reviews were written by real guests of the hotel.

We addressed the carpet problem with the person at the front desk. She was very understanding and offered to place us in another comparable room. However, this room was near the street, and we did not want to risk the possible noise. So we decided to stay put and thought that was the end of it.

As we were enjoying our breakfast at poolside, we were approached by the general manager. He apologized and offered us further assistance. He indicated that another room was opening up that morning. A little later that morning he gave us the key for this newly vacated room. Were we surprised! The room was enormous with a full kitchen, dining area, living room, etc. Besides this free upgrade, he advised us that the first night would be deducted from our bill.

With large smiles upon our faces, we promptly moved over our luggage to our new luxury suite. We then went back to the pool for swimming and sunbathing. Upon our return to the suite, we found a beautiful bouquet of flowers from a florest with a note apologizing for the inconvenience from the general manager. This was astonishing! Where do you get such service from a hotel?

The remainder of our stay there could not have been better. The location is 2 blocks from Grauman's Theater and other tourist sites, as well as the subway that we took to Olvera St. The pool was refreshing with staff members bringing out popsicles and cool towels. The staff members were incredible - from helping with directions to caring for our every needs. The general manager was awesome and went over the top in making sure that we were satisfied. Would we stay there again? In a heartbeat. For us, the Magical Hotel was magical!

Three guys. All from London. Stayed at Magic Castle off the reviews from this site.

My god were they right.

Jason, Gretchen, Amy and the others were SO SO helpful and friendly that it is quite unbelievable.

The hotel was magical and I will go as far to say it was my best ever hotel experience.

The only worry I have of putting in a good review is that they will think 'hmm, maybe we shouldn't be a 2 star hotel' and jack up the prices for the future... If I go back to LA, this is where I will stay cos the location on Franklin is perfect and the rooms are delicious.