I stayed at the W for 4 nights and found it to be an extremely poor value. It is a hip hotel and is decorated beautifully, but the rooms are incredibly small with grundgy city views. The shower in our room was barely a drizzle and the drain was clogged. As far as amenities, the 2nd floor pool is extremely small with only 8 lounge chairs squeezed in beside it and surrounded by buildings. You also smell the exhaust from the restaurant which blows into the pool area and have to listen to people pounding away at the treadmill since the fitness center also opens up to the pool. The fitness center is inadquate for a hotel of this caliber with only two treadmills, two elipticals and some free weights.

Many of the staff members were extremely rude as stated in some of the other posts. I left some clothes hanging in the closet, which were stolen by the cleaning staff. Both the manager and risk staff were very evasive when I called to inquire about my things and I could not get anyone to call me back. I ended up having to make a special trip back to the hotel at which time the manager on duty (Sebastian) and his risk staff were incredibly rude, defensive and unprofessional. They never apologized for the loss and didn't even offer to do anything (except "investigate the matter") until I got very irrate with them. It was extremely frustrating and atypical of how most hotels handle it when things have been left in a room.

During my first two nights in San Diego, I stayed in the Sheraton Harbor Island, which I found to be much better with balconies in each room, incredible views of the bay, a really large and nicely landscaped pool area with drink/food service, a great workout facility with brand new cardio and strength equipment and very friendly staff.

As an aside, the Beach Bar at W is very cool, but if you want to hang out there, just go for the evening and skip the annoyances of staying at the hotel.

We stayed at the W San Diego for 2 nights over the Memorial Day weekend. This place is fun. They cleared out the lobby on Saturday night and brought in a DJ. My husband and I watched from the balcony. The Beach bar was also fun. The only problem was they served drinks in plastic cups a la spring break. It draws an extremely young crowd so I guess this doesn't bother them.
The beds are fabulously comfortable. I do wish they had coffee makers in the rooms. I ordered a Belgian waffle from room service for breakfast and it arrived cold so that was a bummer. The hotel is really in a great location downtown within walking distance of Gaslamp and Little Italy. The walks are a bit spooky since it it very dark and there are an alarming number of homeless people sleeping on the streets. But there were lots of people out walking so we felt pretty safe.

We stayed at the W Hotel for 3 nights. We were in San diego for a mix of business and vacation. We were looking forward to a 'W' stay, & were not disappointed. Overall, we loved this hotel! It is beautiful, with a great design aesthetic. The rooms are great, even if on the small side. Loved the bed (so comfy!), the flat-screen TV, the window seats, windows that open, the bathroom design & Bliss products. Just about everything about the room was great.

The lobby is beautiful and is like an oasis when you enter. The outside beach bar was great for hanging out. Groovy lounge music is played throughout the hotel - nice touch. The gym is great, because it is essentially outside - had a lovely workout. The pool area was nice, but very small. They could use more staff visits to the pool to clean up towels etc. The clientele is not one to pick up after themselves, so the seating often appeared taken after the guests had left. Overall, the hotel is quite spotless and smells great.

We found the staff pleasant and helpful overall. We realize no hotel stay is perfect. We did have a couple of annoyances, which echo complaints of previous reviews, but these are pretty minor details. One front desk guy appeared to be trying to humor us, but was really quite unprofessional. He had a heck of a time trying to expedite a room change, despite his assurance that changing to King room would be no problem. He seemed to think that we would enjoy chatting with him repeatedly to get this done. In the end, after several hours, he was totally ineffective & we called the 'whatever, whenever' desk who switched us immediately. The other annoyance was waking up to loud partyers next door at 1AM. This happened on our last night only. We called the front desk & they sent security up within a few minutes. It took awhile for them to settle. This, of course, can & does happen at all hotels & requires a bit of luck. The last annoyance comes from street noise, which is no worse than any other downtown hotel in San Diego. Would recommend the higher the floor, the better re: noise.

One other note: Enterprise rental cars will drop off and pick up their cars at no extra charge from this hotel - very convenient.

Overall, we would highly recommend this hotel & we would definitely be happy to stay here again.

Unlike some prior reviews, I had an excellent few days at the W San Diego. The hotel is more for young singles/ yuppies (20s-30s), as the hotel lounge and bars are a big hang out with the yonger crowd, epecially during the weekends. The room was smaller than I expected, but the beds were excellent and the room/bathroom was otherwise great. The hotel overall is a very cool modern design. The beach bar was pretty cool as a roof top bar. Breakfast was pretty good, but service was slow. The pool was nice, but very small. Overall, no big complaints. I had a pleasant stay.