Loews Coronado Bay Resort

Gorgeous stay from the first moment I step in resort, Jonathan at the valet so helpful with luggage, Rick Gustafson at the front desk was so nice extending warm welcome, complimentary room upgrade just made my day!!! How nice is that?! So grateful! Courtney at the bar makes a killer French 75, (she topped it off with extra bubbly I love it!!!) definitely coming back soon 💕

Primarily my complaint is around the fact that this hotel is isolated. There’s nothing around. Yet they have no 24 hour room service, knowing that there’s nothing around. Quite frankly, they have a captive audience that would pay for it. Secondarily there was someone’s hair all over the bathroom. But that doesn’t bother me as much as not being able to eat when I’m hungry., rather starving. It was suggested that I use DoorDash. But we’re so isolated that it would probably be an hour before food arrived.

The hotel is quite isolated but they provide a free shuttle to downtown which takes 10 minutes. But means the food and drink at the hotel are expensive. I paid 2 dollars for a small banana at the cafe! The food in the bar and restaurant are nice but again quite pricey. My room was large and clean but did smell odd. Musty? Everything worked and it was cleaned well. I asked for different pillows as the one in the room wasn’t great. The pool is nice but after being given the menu no one took my order so I went to the bar and got scolded by the bar lady for ordering at the bar. Then my buzzer didn’t work and my food was half cold when I went to ask for it. The customer service in this area needs to be improved. The staff are friendly and nice otherwise however. The reason for the three star is that the rooms could do with a bit of an upgrade. The food and drink are expensive. The gym is pretty awful too- machines were broken, no air con etc. it seems they neglect to fix and upgrade things.

The staff are still 5-star caliber, but the facilities are closer to 3; some serious renovation is needed. Inclusive of parking, resort fee, and taxes, we paid the equivalent of $631.33/night for a king bed room with a marina view, and got a room in Building 5. First, the signage sucks. We completely missed the parking because the entrance is not clearly marked, and because we didn't know to look for a garage entrance. Then, once we parked, we had to figure out where the elevator was, and because we had to drive to the building, we couldn't ask for help shlepping our stuff to the room. Second, the entire floor smelled so strongly of air freshener (as did the room) that it triggered a migraine. To their credit, they were able to move us to a room that did not reek, so again - points for service. While the second room didn't stink, it had the same problems that I describe below. Third, the bathroom was tiled with white, but the grout was mostly brown with stains (see photo of shower floor). And speaking of the shower, check out the photo of the shower head, which looked like it has been there since the '80s; and the rusty sawed-off pipe is not a good look, either. (The corner by the ceiling looked like mildew.) The shower itself was so small that I kept banging my elbow on the wall. Fourth, the carpet was disgusting. In the original room, it felt slightly damp, and was stained. In our less-stinky room, it felt dry, but it was still stained. Fifth, when we ordered room service, one cloche was so banged-up that it was sadly funny. In the photo, the TV is reflecting off one of the dents - there was no blue on the cloche. Sixth, the food was meh. The salmon tasted like it had been frozen, thawed, and re-frozen, or else soaked in water before cooking. Seventh, no one had told us they would be working on the water pipes. When my husband tried to take a shower in the morning, there was NO hot water. Then, later that day, I filled the tub twice, and both times, the water was yellow. There were also a few dark brown flakes at the bottom of the tub, which I later determined to be rust. I contacted the front desk about the water and they immediately sent someone, which is how I found out they had turned off the hot water that morning to flush the pipes. It would have been nice to know that would happen. Eighth, when it was time to check out, the (one) guest elevator was out, and we were directed to use the freight elevator. While it was about twice as large as the guest elevator, it was also 3-4 times as gross. See the photo. I've also included a photo of our "Marina view"; you be the judge whether it was worth paying extra. One more thing -- when I went back to the front desk around 1:45 pm, there was only one person working the front desk. The person in front of me had some dispute over parking or something (the husband turned and told us it would be a while, because they had multiple rooms), and I had four people behind me. As we waited, one of the women behind me said that at the last hotel she was at (in FL), they had checked in after midnight and the front desker had immediately called in three people to help check people in. The guy directly behind me showed us a photo on his phone, saying, "this is what my room looked like." The bed had been slept in and was still disheveled. No way is this still a 5-star, and no way is it worth the hundreds of dollars per night that they're charging.

Seventeen years ago, I stayed at the Loews as part of a work trip to San Diego and this year I came back with my family as part of a 3-week trip to the US. The hotel's a real mixed bag now. The pool area is still the standout feature, and the foyer and bar areas are nice to hang out in too, but the accommodation we had in Block 2 was like the Room That Time Forgot. Genuinely, it felt like it hadn't been decorated at all in the time since I'd last been there –– tired decor, dirty and scuffed furniture, absolutely tiny Queen-sized beds, a shower with zero power and inconsistent temperature... Really, how hard is it to give the room a lick of paint and update some furniture? We were in a Courtyard Marriot and a Homewood Suites either side of the Loews and both were ten times as good and cost half the price. Coronado was lovely, but if we ever come back, we won't be making the Loews our home again.