Anyone considering staying at this hotel needs to understand that the University Plaza Waterfront has a partnership with UOP to house some of its students. This fact is not clearly indicated on the hotel's website, and might have affected our decision to stay there had we known. Lacking that knowledge, we made an online reservation for a single weeknight just after Labor Day. Check-in was a bit of a circus -- only one person working the desk, and she was mired in dealing with some complex resident student problem. This seems really inefficient; it would be much better to have a desk employee who is dedicated to handling student issues so that the regular customers can check in or out in a timely manner. Sure, the desk clerk was nice enough, but the process was much slower than it had to be. When we made it to the head of the line, the clerk said that the hotel had "lost" our reservation and we would need to dictate all of our information to her again. According to the clerk, the hotel's reservation system is contracted out to a third-party website that is supposed to forward the reservation information on to the hotel via FAX(!), and the hotel's FAX machine is "unreliable." Pardon me, but 1997 called and wants its technology back! After that, it was time to stow the car. Be advised that here's no on-site parking for customers, so we had to park in the adjacent ballpark's lot. Not a big deal after the end of the baseball season when downtown Stockton is completely dead, but you have to wonder what happens during the summer. Finally got up to the room, and even though it was clear that the hotel was not even close to being full, the clerk put us in a room facing the ballpark and its parking lot. We couldn't even see the water or the pool, which are supposed to be some of the property's main attractions! After that, we noticed that most of the electrical appliances in the room (e.g., alarm clock, coffee maker, desk lamp) weren't plugged in, and quickly understood why: there were hardly any outlets in the room to use! The king bed and linens were decent, but the bathroom was kind of odd -- it had a glass door, so the entire living space was illuminated whenever anyone switched on the bathroom light. That disturbed our sleep a little, but the last straw was the drunken carousing students who woke us at 3:00 AM. Why doesn't the hotel separate the resident students from the regular guests, especially when they have plenty of available vacancy? Bottom line: the pool and bar look nice, so there's potential, but management seems to have no idea about how to run a hotel so that its customers will return. Please do yourselves a favor and stay elsewhere unless this hotel does the unlikely and gets its act together.

This hotel was very quiet and pleasant. Staff were super helpful and nice. Can walk to restaurants and store. Safe, outdoor parking. In a quiet area of town, very pretty by the water. Clean, modern rooms. Good room service.

This is a fine, upscale hotel in the perfect downtown Stockton location - you can guess it by the hotel's name! All the reviews below are on mark - nice rooms, fine bar, great views, etc. You will be pleased to stay here.

My only gripe is that it seems the staff is 'in training'. We were 'greeted' by mass confusion at the front desk (the hotel also serves a upscale 'dorm' for UOP students) but they eventually worked thru the check-in process. The 'rack rate' was $159 but the staffer told me she could offer us $139...we thanked her and moved on. The morning experience of purchasing some snacks and stuff from the shop there was equally confused...I beleive she doulbe charged me (for the couple of bucks I wasn't going to worry about it). Then, upon check out we were charged $159 (I asked for a receipt and that led to a hunt of the paerpwork??) and was told that she couldn't 'fix' it and would have her manager do so. We rec'd two subsequent receipts by e-mail (two!) both at the $159 pricing!

I normally don't focus on the negatives when travelling (hey, it's part of the experience) but this first class hotel would benefit from a trained, competent staff. Fix that and this is a gem of a hotel.

Fin

This hotel is a travelers dream!! The room was Gorgeous, the Bar inviting, and the Restaurant's food was Grub!! And even better than those great qualities were the people working them. They were Warm, Funny, and 100% on their Game. A Special Thanks to the Shuttle driver, Mike who got us to our Event (@Bob Hope Theater) in plenty of time and stayed late so we could get back to the hotel safely (and we really needed the help).

Many Thanks to the Great People at University Plaza Waterfront Hotel