The Portofino is a beautiful hotel. The hotel is older, yet has been updated and decorated immaculately. The colors, lighting and ambiance are lovely. The rooms, however, are definitely on the small side and the walls are thin. I strongly recommend booking the larger room . Also take note that the “harbor view” views are really rooms that are at the front of the hotel and look over the parking lot foremost and then onto the harbor. The ocean view rooms are quieter and have a much better view, although the ocean view rooms actually look at the inside of a jetty, not open ocean.

Great staff at the Portofino Hotel, particularly Chris at the front desk.

Basically, it is a very nice boutique hotel and I would give the hotel 5 stars if not for the adjoining restaurant’s lack of service. The restaurant, Baleen, had amazing food and even more amazing bad service. The poor service at Baleen was really a huge bummer. We had 3 meals from the restaurant, each experience getting worse. We first arrived at the hotel and received a wonderful early check in only to go to the restaurant and get greeted by a surly, bitter server who clearly did not enjoy her job at all. The wait time for the food was excruciating, only to be made worse when it took longer to get the check. Later that evening we were hoping to get a cocktail and the wait time for a server to even greet us was over 20 minutes. It took even longer to get 2 drinks. We vowed never to return. Thinking we would avoid the waiting game for breakfast we decided to fill out the door form and have breakfast delivered to the room at a set time. Well, surprise, surprise, it was over 40 minutes late.

Unfortunately, the poor restaurant service very negatively affected an otherwise very nice experience.

We stayed in Redondo Beach for a wedding & The Portofino was the suggested hotel for the party. It is such a beautiful & airy hotel right on the harbor & the yachts just make the experience that much more exciting for non-beach dwellers! The property was stunning & the restaraunt was beautiful & very good. There are actually sea-lions in the harbor right outside the harbor-view rooms & you can listen to them & watch them play right from your balcony. We will definitely be returning to The Portofino on our next trip to LA!

We were aware of this property as we had stayed in Redondo Beach previously. This was a wonderful experience. The room was huge, even the room facing the marina. There was a separate area with a desk, and the bathroom/dressing room area was huge. Staff was very helpful and pleasant. Valet was relatively quick. We did a priceline offer for this hotel, so it was an incredible value.

I was in this hotel for one night as a final night of a recent trip to the Los Angeles area. This was a priceline stay, so I knew nothing about the hotel prior to my visit. First the good. The hotel is in a really beautiful location, and also quite convenient to local beaches and other attractions. The staff were also quite friendly and helpful, and the room was clean and comfortable. There were a few negatives, however. There is one price for parking, if you happen to have a car, if you chose valet or to self park. While not outragious, it seemed a bit pricey for self parking, outside, uncovered. Not all rooms come with a nice view as you are led to believe from the hotel's website. You may have a lovely view of the neighboring restaurant, along with the noise. However, the other views are indeed quite nice. Also, the hotel has made attempts at going "green" in many areas including motion activated light sensors,etc. In addition, the shampoo, soap, etc. are all in bottles that are shared between guests. If you bring your own, it's no issue either way. But this may bother some guests. Finally, this may have just been an issue with my room, but the AC until was not functional. In the evening it made no difference because I just opened the sliding patio door -- but with the curtain pulled (remember, restaurant view!) But, it got quite warm in the daytime, so definitely would have been a problem in the summer.

Otherwise, the rooms were clean and nice, though certainly not what I expected from this class of hotel. So would I stay again? Hmm. If I used priceline or some other discount source and paid a low rate probably so. If I had to pay the hotel's published rates, most likely not. In my opinion, it's probably not worth the money if you pay full price. The water view rooms can cost you as much as $300/night or more. There are a few nicer places in the area for the same or lower published price that I would consider first.