Stayed at this hotel for 4 nights while on business in San Diego. I stayed here a year ago and the hotel has been remodeled since. The remodel is very tasteful and modern. Only slight complaints include the shower curtain liner and manager's reception. The shower curtain liner is cheap plastic and looked to be quite "used." A cloth liner would have been nice and much easier to keep clean. I've stayed a lot of Embassy Suites where there is a decent manager's reception with hot appetizers that change daily. This one just provides potato chips and pretzels. The remodel is quite upscale and you would think little details such as these would get the same attention as the rooms. Beware of the high hotel taxes and parking garage expense ($17/day). The garage's design will test your patience.

Got a great rate via the hotel website. Stayed here for 2 nights while visiting Seaworld. The hotel is winding up remodeling. The rooms were very spacious and clean. They smelled brand new! Plenty of room for our family of 5, with the living room and separate bedroom. We had a corner room and these are a bit bigger than other rooms. My parents were next door and were not in a corner room, so their room was a bit smaller yet still big. Our kids really enjoyed th Koi pond. One of the hotel staff gave them some food for the fish. That was very relaxing after a long day on the road. The breakfast was yummy. The lines were long, but the food was well worth it. All of the hot foods likes eggs, bacon, sausuage, french toast, pancakes, etc. were cooked to order. Check in was a breeze. We will definately stay here again when traveling to San Diego. This is one of the nicest hotels that we've stayed at.

I was actually shocked upon reading the most recent reviews. We recently stayed there and had a fantastic experience. We spent an entire week and enjoyed every minute of it. We had just spent a week at the Disneyland Hotel, which does not hold a candle to this hotel. The housekeeping was flawless!!! Everything was perfect everyday. For the review that said they passed up breakfast, what a mistake. It was great, and we are very fussy about our hotels and food. We have stayed out at the HotelDel on Coranado Island several times, so we have much to compare it to. The parking can be a little tricky, but you will find this to be true for almost everywhere in the area. Don't be fooled by the parking fee. Some hotels say they don't have one, however it is included in the hotel price somewhere. Thats what they do at Disney. Getting back to the breakfast, we have never stayed at any hotel that offered a free breakfast that was so delicious. The staff in the kitchen area was wonderful and they worked very hard to keep things going smoothly. Well done!!!
For those of you traveling on business, be prepared for families to be there as well. This is a hotel with suites, so many people with families stay there. We are a family of 5 and we really enjoyed our stay. Trust me, I read these reviews like crazy. And sometimes I change my mind and cancell. Don't cancel, its a great place. Yes, there is a bit of construction going on but we were aware of that before we came.

My family of 5 just got back from a 1 week vacation at the Embassy Suites, La Jolla. We stayed in a 2 room suite. Here's a rundown:

LOCATION

If you're on vacation, we found this hotel to be in a perfect location. We were close to everything including lots of great restaurants.

SERVICE

We found service to be excellent throughout the hotel, including in the food service area.

ROOMS

We had a king bed in the bedroom. Two of my kids slept in the foldout couch. The third slept on a cot. The foldout couch and cot were too soft in my opinion, but my kids could care less. The rooms are spacious if you're 2 people, with 5 people you might find yourself wishing for more space if you spend any down time in your room. We didn't do much of this so it was of little regard for us.

If the rooms have one design flaw it's that the microwave and frig are behind the door the separates the bedroom from the living area when that door is open. In addition, you have to open a pair of doors to open to get to the microwave and frig even when the bedroom door is closed. Typically the bedroom door is open so to get to the frig you have to close the bedroom door, open up the double doors to the frig/microwave area, then open up the frig. Following that you'd close all three.

The rooms have been recently redone and look great. Yes, the 42'' HDTV in the living area is awesome. I watched a few minutes of the MLB all-star game on it and it looked great.

I can typically find something broken, not working, torn, or busted in any hotel room I stay in regardless of the hotel chain. I tend to think nothing of it. After staying here I week I found absolutely nothing flawed in any way. Even the shower water temperature was shockingly perfect every time and never varied one iota during any shower.

PARKING

They charge $17/day parking for parking. Overall in this area of La Jolla I noticed that parking was a precious commodity at some restaurants as well. To me you either accept that before you book or you book your stay elsewhere. I accepted it from this perspective: I'm paying an extra $17, but getting a complete breakfast for no additional charge. For a family of 5, I've have paid $40 per day to replace that breakfast, unless we went to McD's every day and that would have gotten very old, very fast.

Parking is tight if you try to park during the evening, it's never a problem during the day. Over the course of a week I had to fight to find a parking spot once.

COMPLEMENTARY BREAKFAST

Overall I thought the breakfast was great. The food was high quality. The omelette's were great, they had pancakes every day, french toast some days. The selection was overwhelming, if you couldn't find something you liked here, then your standards are extremely high for what is mostly a buffet.

There's been a significant amount of discussion regarding the crowding. Here's the scoop, there are plenty of tables to sit at. You can sit in the atrium and watch Koi, or eat in the Coast Cafe (they don't do breakfast in the Cafe), or outside on the terrace.

The problem is that the layout of the buffet is very poorly done. The cook eggs to order line is at times too long b/c you've got people thinking that's where they're supposed to go even if they don't want an omelette. However you can get anything you want without waiting in that line if you don't want eggs. I found short lines or no lines all week everywhere else in the buffet. But I do agree that there's alot of bumping and jostling going on when you're getting your food.

You can avoid all the jostling and crowd if you get to breakfast before 8am during the week and before 9am on weekends. There's can also be a huge difference in the omelette line between 8:20 during the week and 8:29, for example.

I spoke with the ass't manager about the breakfast layout. She said it's not a part of the redesign they're doing. However they have been discussing it and are going to look at possible options for making the food selection process flow better.

RECONSTRUCTION

The front entry area is still under construction as well as the business center. They said they expect the business center to be up by next week. They expect the rebuild to be complete by the end of July. Overall, this didn't inconvenience us at all.