I was excited to stay here because I used to live in Point Loma and was happy to see someone had updated this hotel into what looked like a chic, modern little gem. Unfortunately it did not come close to meeting my expectations.

When we checked in and got to our room - there was basically some sort of plumbing issue that had completely backed up into our sink. Yuk! - we called the front desk and they promptly came to clean it up. But that wasn't the end of it. We were promised by the website a large flat screen TV. - true, but it didn't really work. Each time I turned it on, it would immediately turn back off. I finally figured out that if I turned it on and immediately changed the channel it would stay on. But then when I turned it off, it turned itself back on. Bizarre.

We were also promised wi-fi, which again - DID NOT WORK! Neither did the in-room radio system. sigh. The room was quite small and while they had tried to update the look - the remodel was done on the cheap! The rain style showers drizzled water that was either burning hot or ice cold - and again, hard to turn off and on as the nozzle turned endlessly in either direction.

The room layout was OK but it was very dark and dank. And while the room was supposed to have a king size platform bed - they obviously went cheap and bought some sort of irregular sized mattress for a big discount. The platform itself was king sized, but the mattress ended more than a foot before the end of the platform. Turns out it was only 6 feet long - MUCH shorter than a King and my poor boyfriend spent the night with his feet hanging off the end!

Oh yeah, and there is basically no parking available.

When we complained, the staff was quite rude and unhelpful to us. The service was definitely amateurish.

We didn't have any food or drinks - so if you are looking for a bar - this might be a good place to go as the bar was busy at night. BUT DO NOT STAY HERE - there are plenty of nice hotels on Shelter Island and Harbor Island, don't waste your money in this dump.

I was really excited about the price of this hotel; here I was getting the opportunity to stay in a 3-4 star hotel for the price of a 2 star hotel over a weekend in winter (winter in Southern California is like my Washington's summer). I went to the hotel's website before I made the booking to see what it was all about and it looked like a very swanky place to stay complete with gorgeous interior styling and H20 bath products (I'm such a sucker for products).

When my friend and I got there it was quite late at night as I'd flown down to San Diego after work and the club lounge downstairs was lively with lots of drunk beautiful people. We were a little bit unclear about where to check in, reception is actually just inside to the left away from the lounge. We then walked upstairs past the pool and outdoor film screen to go to our room where we were in for a great surprise.

We walked in the door and there was a huge king size pillow top mattress above a platform bed complete with high thread count sheets, the flat screen tv fixed to the wall and tasteful furniture choices in the chairs and side tables located in the room all left a smile on our faces. The star of the room was "Scooter" a tropical fish who has his own spotlight (we didn't want to leave it on too long in case Scooter became crispy)!

It all sounds great doesn't it? and it really is, until you walk into the bathroom.

The fittings were quite nice but the tiles were in need of replacing and the tub needed refinishing. The water pressure was minimal which makes it tricky to rinse the lather created by the lush shampoo and conditioner.

A few changes would help maintain the standard set everywhere else in this hotel and bring it from 3-4 stars to something more special. Parking is a little bit tricky too, like us, you might get lucky with street parking but otherwise space is limited so be prepared for that. We had fun testing out the advertised "sturdiness" of the beds (the fittings over the storage components of the headboard make them a little noisy) and all in all it was a great experience...hopefully the owners complete the renovations of the bathrooms sometime soon for an even more enjoyable stay.

My husband and I stayed at The Pearl for our honeymoon. I read all the reviews before we went, so I was under no illusions that this would be a quiet place, a luxurious place, or a perfect hotel. We had never stayed at a non-chain, and I wanted to check it out anyway. We really enjoyed our stay.

We checked in on a Monday, and not too many guests were staying on a Monday. I was prepared to ask for a room away from the pool area if necessary, but we got one without asking. (Number 17.) It was near a side street, so street noise wasn't too bad, but we had to run the AC at all times because the room got really stuffy if we did not, and the AC was very loud. Still, if you don't mind loud fans running, that doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Plenty of chain hotels are the same way.

Some of the rooms are RIGHT next to the pool. I wouldn't have liked to stay in one of those rooms.

A few of the reviews mentioned that there was no place for breakfast nearby. This is not true (or I guess it may be true depending on your definition of breakfast). A Starbucks and a smoothie place are about two blocks away, and there was another restaurant that appeared to be serving breakfast maybe 3-4 blocks away, although we did not check it out. It is not the most pedestrian-friendly area, but it is possible to get to these places without an automobile.

Also - the restaurant does have coffee available in the mornings. They set up a coffeepot at the bar.

One day the cleaning people did not clean the room while we were out, but I was able to find someone to ask about getting clean towels in the meantime, and the cleaning crew was still around, so the room was cleaned when we went out again later.

The food at the restaurant was phenomenal. I had this mushroom risotto that was just wonderful, and the drinks were great too.

We ended up splurging for a daily guaranteed parking spot. It was our honeymoon, after all. I think it was $25 a day. This required us to ask someone to move a cone to our spot after we left for the day, but after the first time we just did it ourselves rather than bother anyone. Street parking seemed to be relatively available, but it was still nice to have that guaranteed spot and not have to worry about it.

We paid in cash, and they were not really equipped to handle payment in cash. They didn't have any change, and the bar was not open. Fortunately we didn't really need the change, so we just told them to tip the cleaning crew.

All in all, it was a unique experience for a honeymoon, and I'm glad we took a chance on a new place.

I can tolerate most hotels, this one included, for a night. Sometimes staying in cheap motels is the way to go and you don't expect the most comfortable bed.

However, for a romantic getaway, when you're really thinking hard about where you want to stay and have the cash to stay in a wide variety of properties, it is a huge disappointment when even the basics aren't met by a hotel that looks like it ought to just fine. The website looks awesome.

While I saw some of the negative reviews here: small rooms, noise from both the club (it's a club, ok!) and the road (wow, that is a surprisingly busy road!), what no one mentioned is that the beds are CRAZY BAD. Cheap, soft beds and crappy pillows. It is like staying in a dorm room. It was one of the worst night sleeps I've had in a long memory and certainly not the quality I was expecting. I could feel the springs in my back on the lousy mattress. Yikes!

Here's what I disliked about this hotel besides the terrible, low end bedding.

1. Shower was broken.
2. Room had strange moldy smell, like bad venting from hotel and our room felt very airless quickly, even in the cool night.
3. Loud (it is, after all, just a cheap, badly constructed roadside hotel on a busy road...) and so everyone who mentioned how loud it was, I agree! Wow, it was loud! And we had the room in the far, back corner, though it seems next to some kind of generator.
4. Dying fish in room. Our little fish, colorless, lifeless and barely alive. Yikes! A gimick gone horribly wrong...
5. Burnt out light bulb in hallway: it's a small thing, but that's what sets apart a good boutique hotel from a dingy highway motel right? It was hard to see the lock on our door. Again, the expectation, based on the website was pretty high...

We had one of the four deluxe rooms and I would definitely have not wanted anything smaller. It did not feel deluxe and did not match the website expectation.

I'll mention the service. In a word, definitely NOT boutique service... the bartender had to look up how to make a Manhattan (which was terrible), the front desk did not know how much it would cost to take a cab to the airport, the waitress did not know if there would be coffee in the morning (there's no coffee pots in the rooms) and had to think of places to recommend... it just seemed like everyone was new and you'd think based on the extreme BRANDING and professional gloss they put on everything that traveler basics would be drilled into the staff.

Finally, let me mention dinner. Slow night on a Monday, even with the Prix Fixe menu, but it still took over two hours to get our appetizer, dinner and dessert and not in that happy French cafe slow service way. Waitress was apologetic, explaining that they only had one chef in the kitchen but then they only had three tables going! If the chef can't handle three tables, boy howdy. Our dinner order was mixed up with wrong food and while they ended up comping the meal generously, it certainly wasn't how we expected to spend a good chunk of our evening in San Diego. We waited and waited and waited. Though it gave us more time to drink wine out of plastic cups since we sitting next to the pool. Oh! the indignity! The romance ruined!

This hotel would likely be just fine and fun if you were there for one of the party nights, thought you'd get some action and romance, and booked a room using their after midnight love special. Maybe that would be fun.

I'm not terribly pissed off at the experience since I like trying non-chain hotels and got a room for $99.00 off-season special, but it was DEFINITELY NOT the experience I was hoping for (a special end to a great holiday) and felt the website and presentation was misleading enough to post my first review on this site as a warning to others.

I would definitely not stay here again. What a disappointment.