I stayed at the Sheraton Harbor Island from Aug. 11 - 17, 2003 and my experience was such that I won't stay in a Sheraton again. In fact, I turned down a referral to a Sheraton while booking a hotel for a convention in Los Angeles in Sept. 2003, specifically because of my San Diego experience. The Sheraton has a brand name that prompts certain minimal expectations, that include quality and customer service that is above a Radisson but not the Four Seasons. You expect something very nice, but not exquisite. And the property is beautiful, tastefully appointed in its furnishings and conveniently located so close to the airport that you could literally walk from theairport right to the hotel (I kid you not: You can see the hotel from the window in baggage claim). Not that you have to, because there's a convenient shuttle that picks you up, gratis from the airport. The rooms in the East Tower are on the small side, but they are comfortable and some sport balconies with a very pleasant view of the marina or downtown San Diego. Be advised that the West Tower is not just another building next to the East Tower, but an entirely separate hotel (I heard it was a Westin before), about a quarter-mile away, down the road and requires a walk or shuttle ride to go to the main hotel. It also is beautifully appointed and the rooms are larger than the tiny East Tower rooms. BUT. But. God help you if you are attending a convention at this hotel. Although the Sheraton have set themselves up for substantial convention business, with an entire wing and spacious meeting rooms and banquet halls, they don't seem to have the basics -- like control over their AC, basic sanitary practices involving water glasses, or ventilation allowing horrid sewage smells to engulf your convention participants. The "Sheraton Promise" of the If-it's-not-perfect-we'll-make-it-up-to-you variety should not fool you. You will have to fight very hard for them to make even the most rudimentary of amends. It required two meetings with the general manager. But the real issue is customer service at the level of rates they were charging in mid-August ($179 per night). Here are some examples: 1) My room-mate returned to her room midday while the maid was cleaning the room. She pointed out the used glasses and asked her to make sure we got clean ones. The maid proceeded to rinse them out in the sink and then replaced them on the coasters as though they were fresh glasses! The general manager apologized and said it was an isolated incident. My roommate found the maid later, who told her "We all do that because we don't have soap." We realized that for the past few days, we'd been trading our germs back and forth because we had no idea we were re-using unwashed glasses. 2) Our convention staff and members who came into the convention office that we had set up all came down with terrible stomach illnesses after eating food delivered to the room that had been ordered from the hotel. 3) A foul odor in one of the convention-wing restrooms began to emanate early in the day on Saturday, Aug. 16, and got fouler as the day went on. It was a sewage-like smell, not the type of odor from an indisposed guest. 4) We witnessed a Sheraton shuttle driver shouting rudely at two of our invited guests at the port cochere, in front of all other Sheraton guests. They were so upset and humiliated, they called the general manager. 5) I was frantically trying to retrieve my bags from the locked storage closet of the bell station. A desk clerk haughtily informed me that I needed to "make an appointment" with the bell captain when I needed to get my things out. This, while I was trying to get my bags to make the shuttle. The Sheraton shuttle driver refused to wait for me to find the bell captain and said it wasn't his concern that I couldn't find anyone to get my bags out.