The Bristol Hotel San Diego

Beautiful Bristol Hotel My reservation was upgraded to a beautiful suite with wine. The room decor was also beautiful and the 9th floor view as well. Valet Gentleman was very friendly and courteous as well as the staff at guest services. Hotel is also in walking distance from the Gaslamp, and the convention center. I would definitely return for a stay here at the lovely Bristol Hotel

Would've given it 4-stars for cost/quality if it weren't for the staff SHORT VERSION The area isn’t particularly nice due to no fault of the hotel, but is convenient. Service was quite poor (first time I've marked a hotel down for it), but the hotel itself was reasonably nice. If i were to ever visit San Diego again I would probably not stay in Downtown, but if I needed to, I would probably consider this hotel again for the price point. LONG VERSION For context - whilst I would like to stay in five star resorts, I simply can’t afford it. My general level is something around (European) Hampton by Hilton - basic, but usually modern and nice enough, clean and quiet. I don’t really stay in hotels enough during my stays to really be fussed about staff/service. This hotel was more or less in my price range and one of the few with two-bed option. LOCATION In theory, this is a great central location. You’re walking distance from the train station, the bay area, Little Italy, Gaslight district (and as such the convention centre); there’s public transport outside your house to anywhere (airport, Old Town, Balboa Park, even Coronado and Jolla, albeit long). There’s a few salad-sandwich-coffee places nearby and a Chipotle that’s open til 10pm. It being a business district, most places do close early, though. However, the main issue with this are (and in big city downtowns in general) is the homeless people. Whilst I didn’t see anyone directly outside the hotel, there’s absolutely tons of them around even during day time, particularly on the road with the tram moving further away from the train station and a lot of them are very evidently high, so it doesn’t feel very safe. Also Downtown lacks any personality and is probably not a very accurate depiction of the real San Diego if that's something that's important to you. THE HOTEL The hotel itself is nice enough. There’s some attempts of colour and style and in general everything but the reception desk itself are pretty nice and clean and relatively modern. If you start looking too closely (same goes for the room) you’ll find places for improvement for sure, but for the price we paid, we were happy with everything. We didn’t have issues with the lifts, even with a room on the 8th (/9) floor. For those who care, there were two floors with ice machines & the gym (open til 10pm) was adequate enough (and you can get filtered water there!). Have seen complaints about Wi-Fi - it wasn’t too great, but we didn’t exactly have issues either. They do have a luggage hold. There’s water in the reception area and on one occasion I saw cookies. You can also buy true essentials - water, soda, painkillers and pot noodle. There’s a coffee machine only to be used between 6am-12pm, which honestly felt very stingy - it’s a generic coffee and a generic coffee machine, how expensive can it really be to run and how much would it really be used in the evening anyway. Also stingy - charging for early check in/late check out with seemingly not even an option for an hour’s grace ‘til 12pm as this is done via text beforehand. Bearing in mind check in is from 4pm and room cleaning isn’t daily! We arrived at 3.30pm and that was fine to be fair. Rooms were also only cleaned every 3 days (we only stayed 3 days), but I think it can be done upon request. We never bother with room cleaning anyway - the only thing is bins - and even if stingy and not about planet saving, means that we don’t have to worry about early morning noise or knocks on the door. STAFF Which leads me to staff. I’m honestly really not that fussed with staff/service. As long as they’re nice enough and I can get basic info I need, I’m happy. However, in this hotel, it felt like every time I tried to approach someone for something (asking about Wi-Fi or luggage hold or the Expedia wine we didn't get given), it felt like I was bothering them. On more than one occasion there was actually no one at the desk. The water was often empty, or if there was water, there was no cups. I got a knock on my door at 10.47, if I was planning to check out, which I thought was horrendously rude. It wasn’t even a cleaner, but a young girl with a clipboard. There were no enjoy your stays or days, though admittedly, I had to linger in the reception area for a while after checking out, and I don’t know if it was a different team, Comic Con or just me not being American, but that courtesy did seem to get extended to some people. ROOM Overall, the room was nice. We thought it was spacious enough for two people, actually felt like the storage layout was pretty thought out. Pillows weren’t amazing, but the mattress was great (I like a soft mattress) and beds could probably fit two people if they were the smaller-leaner type. Air con was powerful and quiet enough, albeit confusing (essentially, you choose a temperature in which it kicks in, but it took us a while to figure out how to navigate the ‘override’ button). There’s a fridge, iron, hair dryer, bucket for ice and probably a few more things I’m forgetting. Lamps come with USB charging ports, though one of those didn't work for us. We didn’t use the TV, but it was huge. As far as toiletries went, we only used hand soap and that was fine. Shower pressure wasn’t great, but manageable despite long hair. Only real downside was the toilet constantly making water noises, but we just switched the water off for the night rather than “bother the staff even more”. Luckily, that was an option, but very annoying it was doing it in the first place. More care could go into cleaning - under the bed could definitely do with a vaccuum, toiletries were in the wrong place (conditioner/body lotion switched up). Very confused as to why the duvet is between two sheets and not a duvet cover. I think you can hear some noise from the corridor and a little from the street (much less than you’d expect given the location), but we didn’t hear much (just sockets) from the other rooms and slept surprisingly well. Overall, our stay was okay and despite the room for improvements, if I did ever have to stay in Downtown San Diego again, I would consider going back, but would definitely shop around for other options too.

No WIFI! I checked my calendar, and yes, it is 2024. Why someone would renovate a hotel and not make sure there is WIFI in every room is beyond me. Almost zero signal in my room, completely unusable. I asked to change rooms, but no, they couldn't do that. I asked for a refund, but no, they couldn't do that. I had to do business zooms from the lobby. Inexplicable design choices such as no desk, coffee maker tucked into a closet a closet shelf with not enough room to pour water. Lobby offered only insipid coffee from a machine, not even water.

2 day San Diego trip. Very clean hotel, the bed was super comfortable. The hotel is located within walking distance to the "Gaslamp" area, which is the party area, bars, restaurants etc. The hotel is also close to the harbor if you want to walk or use a rideshare service.

Great hotel Beautiful hotel and great location. The staffs were friendly and welcoming. The hotel is located in the center of downtown San Diego. The public transportation is right across from the hotel and restaurants are easy to access. My room was cleaned.