The outside interior of the hotel is charming and has an old historic feel to it. So that attracts curiousity. The best quality of the Dolphin Hotel is that it is very close to the beach. The room I purchased for two nights, smelled funny, including the bathroom. It smelled like dirty gym socks. The laundry room did not work. There were no phones in the room, the sheets and bedding sucked. Gordan Ramsey with Hotel Hell needs to pay a visit to the Dolphin and make it into a nice beach get away.

I was there for a whole week.Yes, the Dolphin is old"1927 till now".I had a clean room and the price was great that close to the beach!!!! I saw what others said about, The Dolphin hotel. No matter what place you stay in, you must look@the room first....it's the law...If you do not like what you sea, do not stay there.
Neil&Hina are the new owners for only 12 weeks. Nice Couple....I will go back there next yr.....this time fly to lax, and takeing the train to oceanside and walk 2 blocks, i will be there....

Do NOT stay here .. . I mean that. This hotel is horrible, first when we got there we were charged more than expected because we had 2 kids.. the guy at the front desk said he was going to give us the best room he had that it was recently remodeled and that we would love it.. when we got to the room it was smelly, dusty, dingy, half painted and the shower and the batroom were in two separate sides of the room if you tried to se the toilet you couldn't you had to sit sideways because the sink was to close to the toilet. The bed covers were covered in cigarett burns, no fridge. Worst of all I have neve fseen my boys as scared as I did that day because there was people arguing outside and the people up top were pacing back and forth non stop. My husband went to get us some food and he found the front desk guy drinking with other tenants I sY tenants because it seemed like there are several people that permenantly live there. Well we left after 3 hours dont bkther to ask for hour money back because it wont be refunded they know whe good lean people come they will not endure the night so they made this no refund policy to stay in bussiness... like I said Do NOT stay here... its a nightmare.!!!!!

I’m not sure where to start. I’ll start with the positive. The exterior has a classic downtown motel look and the interior is even more old-timey, with a grand wide staircase leading to the rooms. The front desk woman told me the building dates to the 1920s but assured me that they’ve done many upgrades (she didn’t seem to understand that I was complimenting the hotel). The hallway leading to the rooms was lovely, with tiled floors, palmed plants, and windows. Nice dark wood doors leading into the rooms. The room was exceedingly clean and stocked with a microwave and fridge. We got a corner room with nice windows. The shower had excellent pressure. The price is right for the location, right in the center of Oceanside’s main stretch of Highway 101, close to restaurants and bars and the beach. Their rates were definitely lower than other hotels in the area and it has all the individualistic appeal of a non-chain hotel.
Unfortunately, instead of capitalizing on the old-time charm of the place, they decorated the room with standard cheap-motel bedspreads, paintings, etc. The old chintzy red velvet curtains were actually the best part of the décor. The wireless internet was a pretty slow connection. Most annoying, I made the reservation months in advance and called before arriving to confirm it, and was still hassled by the woman at the front desk. She asked me at least three times how many were staying in my room, although the two of us were both standing there and I’d told her upon arrival and during the reservation that it would be two of us. She kept mumbling ‘one person’ to herself and looking at her papers, and it seemed she was hoping to argue I’d only made the reservation for one person so as to charge me more. She finally moved on from that, and was nicer. She came to the room shortly after we got there with an extra towel, but there was only one half-sized towel in the bathroom to start with so we were still short a towel. The sheets were threadbare thin with a cigarette burn in one, and, by the end of the night, the entire sheet set had unmade itself and was gathered in clumps around us. Really cheap sheets is my point. The doors, while lovely, did not inspire confidence – light seeped in around the edges and it seemed it wouldn’t take much to bust through the locks.
Lastly, the hotel is apparently known as a hooker hotel among locals. We were in Oceanside to meet up with old friends, and the entire table of locals was utterly shocked when they heard where we were staying. They literally did not believe us for a few minutes. We thought they were maybe pulling our leg a bit or exaggerating the situation, but the bartender at a later bar had the same reaction when we said where we were staying. It’s possible that they’ve cleaned the place up – we heard or saw nothing that would confirm these suspicions. But the hotel is only in possession of three parking spots in the alley, with street parking in front of the hotel that only allows two hours – I’m not sure how they could support a hotel full of out-of-town guests. They also sported weekly rates on the chalkboard and a homeless-looking man on the sidewalk entered the hotel with us once we turned in for the night. Despite all, we enjoyed our stay here and would probably stay there again.