Sheraton or Marina Hotel in San Pedro?

[sassycat]

Looking for some fairly recent comments on these hotels. The comments I have seen on both have run hot and cold for both. Anything special to request?

[immargaret]

Haven't stayed there yet but the Sheraton in San Pedro has gotten some pretty good reviews from cruisers lately. They said to ask for the Club floor, includes snacks, and continental breakfast. Also ask for a harbor view, so you can see the ships arrive in the early morning hours. They also offer a free shuttle to the San Pedro port, and have a Enterprise rental car desk in the lobby if needed. On their site they do offer a cruise and stay package, including some perks...like champagne, etc.

[patti hunter]

We stayed at the Marina the week before Christmas and were very disappointed. While the service was excellent, and the view of the harbour was lovely, the condition of the room was terrible.

 

There were hideous (I shudder to think what) stains on the bed covers, the carpet and the furniture. The sheets were too small for the beds and kept coming untucked. The arms of the easy chair were worn & shredded, one of the casters kept falling off the ottoman, the bathtub was stained, wouldn't drain, and there were terrible cracks in the tile. Wallpaper was peeling, drapes not attached to the traverse rod, etc....I could go on & on.

 

It appears that all the money for renovations has gone into the public areas, as the rooms (we looked in the open doors of others that were being cleaned) definitely need to be refurbished.

 

I've heard that this used to be a Doubletree, but it's definitely gone downhill from there. And this place is NOT cheap! I don't mind paying their rates, but would expect a reasonably clean room in decent condition.

 

Oh, and not to forget - there was a loud, festive party going on at the building next to the marina, so we were treated (?) to loud, hispanic music until almost 2:00am. NOT a good way to start out a cruise!

[gtmerc]

We have stayed in the Holiday Inn and it wasn't bad, a little expensive, but their breakfast was toast and coffee. Cruising out of there in the fall and again looking for a pre-cruise special. Will keep checking boards to see input from other cruisers

[catdancers]

What's happening at this Sheraton? I've checked various internet booking sites and from April 1 to the end of the year, they show no availability. Is it closed for renovations or something?

[immargaret]

I have reservations at the Sheraton for April 13th, which I made back in November. I also talked to the Enterprise car rental desk at the Sheraton yesterday about our cruise in April and they didn't say anything about being closed.

[amy417]

I guess it is all perspective, but we bid on priceline and got the Marina hotel for $54 dollars in Nov 04.

We loved the hotel. We noticed that the exterior of the premises (pink stucco hotel) was in need of upkeep. The grounds were very pretty.

The rooms were very nice. The layout of the hotel is a little interesting but not daunting. The marina is beautiful. Many might complain becasue there is nothing of interest close to the Marina (within walking distance) But there was a cute little trolley that comes right to the door and for a quarter you can ride around San Pedro. For $1 you get a day long pass that lets you transfer to a little train that takes you to several stops along San Pedro. One is a seaside market place where you can pick out your fresh fish and have it cooked right in front of you and lunch on the pier by the water. It was very nice. It also had several little shops to browse in. If you take the train all the way down you wil get to the cruise ship port. Your ticket also lets you transfer to another line that takes you into the business district. We did not take that one. On the trolley line there is a stop at an aquarium which is right on the beach. It was here that I learned for the first time in my fifty years that the waters of the pacific are always cold. I never knew that being the east coast gal that I am. You see all of the movies and stuff and you think that the beaches look so warm and cozy that the water MUST be the same!

But I digress. The Marina is a nice place to stay before and after the cruise. You can leave your car parked there while on the cruise..don't know but I thionk it is free. The shuttle to the port is free. My only caveat is if you are not driving and you are checking in late in the evening, eat something first. There is nothing close by and the hotel didnig room may be closed. We used the supershuttle from LAX to get there with no problem.

[sassycat]

We decided on the Sheraton. Made reservations on-line for mid April. Catdancers - are you going thru http://www.starwoodhotels.com or another web site to make reservations?

[Tobintemp]

What's happening at this Sheraton? I've checked various internet booking sites and from April 1 to the end of the year, they show no availability. Is it closed for renovations or something?

 

On their website they state:

The Sheraton Los Angeles Harbor Hotel is leaving the Starwood system on March 31, 2005.

 

I have reservations for May, so I hope it dosen't effect it since I made the reservatios through Sheraton.

[catdancers]

Thank you for the input. Yes, I did try the Starwood site and just got the "SOLD OUT" notice. So then I called Starwood reservations twice and they told me that the LA Harbor hotel is leaving their group March 31, 2005. They advised me to call LA Harbor directly. So far I've made 3 calls to them and have yet to speak to anyone who can make me a reservation. Sigh.

[gayla59]

We got the Marina Hotel thru Priceline and after reading some reviews I was really nervous and had decided that if it was too bad we would cut our losses and go to another hotel. We were pleasantly surprised with good service and a nice room, although a long walk from the elevator. Maybe we lucked out and got a newly refurbished room, but everything was great. We strolled into San Pedro and saw what there was to see, grabbed a bit of authentic Mexican food at Maria's. Some friends stayed at Sheraton and weren't pleased with it, but I don't know exactly what the problem was.

Good luck on your quest for a room!

[sassycat]

MMMMM Thanks for the info. Think I need to do some checking with the Whatever-it-now-called to see what is going on. Rats

[jorgra]

What's happening at this Sheraton? I've checked various internet booking sites and from April 1 to the end of the year, they show no availability. Is it closed for renovations or something?

 

Hello:

We have reservations for April 29th on what they call park and sail package.

It costs $149.00, includes buffett breakfast for 2, a bottle of wine and valet parking for the duration of the cruise, we sail from April 30th-May 8th on NCl Star.

I booked directly with the hotel about 2 weeks ago. (310) 519-8200

Also they were having renovations from the end of January to March.

I hope this helps.

[suziehmkr]

Also, they do sell out of those packages fast. I booked one for our upcoming Holiday cruise in DECEMBER... I booked it in January, almost a year in advance, my friend called two days later and those packages were gone. We are on a 15-day, so it was a great deal for us... hotel & parking, less expensive than just parking at the pier! We will be ok if the hotel isn't that great, since we will only be there overnight. We have stayed in BAD hotels, so this one should be fine based on reviews.

[bluehorizonlover123]

We are staying at Sheraton have not read anything good about Marina. Did you go to tripadvisor.com and read hotel reviews there.

[bluehorizonlover123]

Catdancers Hi its Nancy. The Sheraton is still available you have to call the hotel directly. They are no longer going to be a member of the Starwod properties and therefore you will not be able to book them thru their online booking engines. There is no 800 number for the hotel. You have to call them direct long distance. I called them yesterday and found this out.

[dkingdom]

Unfortunately we had a horrible experience with this hotel. I booked 5 rooms with the park and sail package 5 months early for our July cruise. When we arrived at 3:00 in the afternoon we were told there was a plumbing problem and they would comp our rooms and send us to the Marina Hotel. Of course we were fine with that and they transported us in three separate vans over to the Marina. Originally I had booked all 5 rooms with 2 beds in each room because there was 4 to each room. When we arrived at the Marina we were told the 5 rooms all had only 1 queen size bed! She said the Sheraton never told them we needed doubles in each room and they were all booked up! We said well how were we supposed to sleep 4 people in a queen size bed?? The Marina tried to accomdate us and said they could bring rollaways in but would have to call a place to bring more in. Being Sunday they could not get any rollaways. Then they found out they couldn't put 2 rollaways in a room anyway because it's a fire hazard so basically they couldn't do anything for us. The Marina then called over to the Sheraton and they were told they had no rooms for us and left it at that. We ended up calling the Sheraton ourselves and spent over an hour on the phone with them. They were not willing to do anything for us. My girlfriend got on the phone with them and said over and over to them what were they going to do for us! They had absolutely no answers. We tried calling the corporate office but of course they were closed on Sunday. We said surely they could give us the rooms of people that hadn't checked in yet and were told a straight out lie that everyone was checked in already and there were no rooms! We said isn't there another hotel they could put us in and finally they said there was another in Long Beach but they were not willing to give us our meal that we were supposed to get free and only would bus us back to the hotel in the morning for the meal. They had to be kidding that on the morning of our cruise all 20 of us were going to be bussed back and forth. They couldn't even tell us if the other hotel had any rooms for us and we sure as heck weren't going to be moved back and forth again to find that out. Then my niece happened to get on another phone with a reservationist that was being very helpful and was told there were rooms available at the Sheraton and booked them for us while my girlfriend was being told on the other line there were no rooms! 3 hours later we were finally picked up again and brought back to the Sheraton and we received our rooms that supposedly they didn't have. We had made reservations at the Acapulco Restaurant down the street for dinner that night at 6:30 thinking we would have time to rest before dinner. We received our rooms and had 5 minutes to freshen up before hurrying for dinner. My sister had flown in from Colorado that day and our friends drove in from Las Vegas that day, needless to say they were exhausted. That wasn't the end of it! After returning from dinner we found our rooms were much to be desired. We had water running out of the faucet all over the counter onto the floor and the next morning I was taking a shower in scummy water up to my ankles. My niece had a broken chair and something that looked like a pool of blood beside her bed on the carpet. When exploring further she found it all over the mattress too. She was so disgusted she couldn't even sleep that night. She had them bring extra sheets just so she could lay on the bed. We have never encountered a hotel that was absolutely so unwilling to help us. We later found out that this hotel was independently owned and not part of the Sheraton chain. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but I do believe you should know how the hotel treated us. It was as though since they comped our rooms they could care less about us. We never asked them to comp our rooms, they offered to do that for us. None of us ever complained or caused a problem with them to have them treat us this way until after they refused to so anything for us. In fact only 3 of us tried to handle the situation while all the rest of our group sat in the lobby of the Marina. I would have rather paid to have a decent room. The manager was the one that lied to us about the hotel being filled and my niece called him a liar to his face. Hopefully he was fired after this. I do know they were intending to remodel their rooms because they had a display in the lobby showing what the rooms would look like...imagine how that felt after having such a disgusting room! After our cruise when we came back to pick up our cars we were greeted by some superior who apologized and gave only my niece an envelope which contained a free stay at their hotel in the future and was told that it was cough syrup that was spilled on the mattress. We laughed because that would have had to have been an awfully large bottle of cough syrup! Needless to say nice gesture but I doubt if she will be returning to stay. Sorry for such a long post.

[cynbar]

We stayed at the Marina Hotel before our cruise in January, and we were pleasantly surprised. It's not a resort but most of it has been remodeled, and we were given a lovely marina -view room despite our Priceline status --- everything was new and clean, it had a comfortable bed and a small couch and a desk with internet access, also a coffee maker and plenty of good towels. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant because we were worn out from our cross country flight, and the food and service were fine. The lounge had free hot and cold appetizers, and a nice view of the marina. Next morning, we had breakfast at a good price in the restaurant, and then took the free and efficient shuttle over to our ship. I would definitely stay here again before sailing out of San Pedro---

[CoolCanadian]

After reading the bad review about the Sheraton I'm glad I'm booked elsewhere. I originally booked the Sheraton in October for a one night stay later in March. This was booked online and without restrictions. I only heard about the renovations through the CC board and contacted the hotel assistant manager by e-mail. She kept assuring me that all amenities would be available during the renovations but the club floor that I was booked may or maynot be finished by the time we arrived. I wasn't going to pay for a club floor room and not have it available and the manager wasn't pleasant about my hesistation to keep my reservation. I wasn't sure if I could rely on the Starwood Promise for a good stay so I decided not to take a chance. I thought it would be better elsewhere...a place that has gone through the mess of renovations and good service from a better hotel manager.

[bluehorizonlover123]

Cool Canada please tell me where you booked instead. I have called the Sheraton on many occassions and they have been less than pleasant on the phone. I don't know if I should keep my reservation with them or cancel. I am very nervous about it. I have time as it is in December but they are not very friendly there.

[CoolCanadian]

Personally, if I had to do it all over again...I would book a hotel in Long Beach. I hear it's beautiful there and more to see. Originally I wanted to be close to the pier, free breakfast, free appetizers, free shuttle. I thought you can't go wrong with the Sheraton. You can always complain...but then I thought...NO, I need to start my vacation off with a good night's sleep.

 

I've never tried Priceline before and I'm hesitant to try it this time around.

I'm not sure if Canadians can even use it.

 

Instead, I'm going to stay near the airport at Holiday Inn Express, Lawndale. The rooms are reasonable, free shuttle to the hotel. I'm arriving later in the afternoon so I really don't have time to see LA and I'm not renting a car. The next morning, breakfast is included and hopefully traffic on a Saturday afternoon in LA is better than traffic on a Friday afternoon in rush hour.

 

The Director of Sales: Todd Cahill has been wonderful. He has answered all my questions promptly and professionally.

[bluehorizonlover123]

I have been considering doing the same thing as you. Staying by the airport and then the next morning taking the super shuttle over to the cruise terminal. That way I know I have an honest hotel to stay in. What rate did you get from this Holiday Inn hotel. I have $89 a night at the Sheraton but they are making us get 2 rooms as we have 5 people and they wont let us have 5 in one room. I could stay at the Embassy Suites by the airport and we could all fit in one suite which includes free breakfast and free shuttle from airport. We would just have to get ride to ship in the morning. Let me know what rate you were able to get at Holiday Inn airport. Thanks so much.

[CoolCanadian]

$60.00/room. One adult, 3 kids. Prepaid

[394119th]

I called the Sheraton San Pedro just two days ago questioning why I could not book a park and sail package for September via the Starwood website. The reservations department told me the hotel will no longer be a Sheraton after April 1st. She said 2 or 3 other chains are trying to take it over but nothing has been decided as yet.

 

Also, and critical in my case (with a new Range Rover) they have discontinued self-parking under the hotel...it's all valet parking now. I'll stay elsewhere and not get my doors dinged.

 

Rich

[suziehmkr]

I have a stay, park & sail package booked there for December. I will keep an ear out to see what happens with this property to see if they will honor my reservation package. hmmmm very interesting.