What more do you need: the Hotel Laguna is literally on the sand in the center of Laguna Beach. From your room you can open your windows and see, smell and taste the Pacific.

Yes the rooms are old and in need of remodeling. Yes the amenities are substandard including a joke of a "continental breakfast". But really, so what. The Hotel has seen everything there has been to see in Laguna Beach for the last 80 years and is a living breathing museum. And the location cannot be beat.

Where else can you spend $200 (or less) and walk 100 feet into the waters of the Pacific, then back to your room to get ready for an evening in one of the nicest spots in the country. Great restaurants, wine bars, art galleries are an easy stroll from the hotel.

I’ve been staying there for years, any chance I get. Some people will hate the old carpeting, the slightly leaning floors, the antique bathrooms and the small rooms. But you're there for the views of Main Beach, the Pacific and the proximity to the action. Go to breathe in the ocean breezes that have travelled 8,000 miles on the open ocean to reach Laguna.

We travelled with 2 kids (2 & 4) and grandmother and the hotel was perfect for all ages. We took 2 connecting rooms over-looking the street which we found to be more interesting than the sea-view rooms and the set-up was ideal with more than enough space for the extra bed. The rooms are not luxurious but comfortable and clean and the staff are friendly. Breakfast was initially disappointing - there is tea, coffee, juice, cereal, croissant, yoghurt etc available from what was a bedroom upstairs with no proper seating but we soon settled into a routine of taking trays down to the bedroom or outside to the courtyard and it was perfectly adequate. Alternatively one can order delicious breakfast on the terrace (extra). The food was very good, especially the lamb-chops served on the beach which were outstanding. The best thing about the hotel is its location - right on the beach and right in the centre of town - heaven! We were very happy there for 10 days and are convinced that we made the right choice. We would definitely stay there again.

The rooms were drab, poor ventilllation and no air conditioning. If you want to leave a window open, you may do so, but there are no screens so any flying creature could come through your window. There was nothing "quaint" or "historic" about the rooms we stayed in. The plumbing was historic. My daughter took a shower and unknown to her, there was a clogged pipe which flooded our bathroom and leaked onto the lobby floor. To add insult to injury, the maintenance man basically blamed her for not noticing the stand-up shower was overflowing, thus the flooding was her fault! It wasn't just our room, another room on the third level had plumbing problems as well. With all the money they charge, they could at least have better plumbing. If you don't mind being scalded in the shower, and then freezing the next, this is the place for you. There were leaky faucets in 2 of the 4 rooms we rented, drip, drip, drip. One of our rooms had no headboards, and there was certainly no art hung on the walls as is shown on the pamphlets and on their website. The walls were super thin, I heard a man yodeling in the room next door. My husband and our 17 year old son smelled marijuana in the halls. My niece and her husband said their neighbors were super loud, laughing, talking and this went on after midnight. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Lastly, we asked for the general manager throughout our stay to lodge our complaints, and the manager was never available.
Finally, they lied about giving us a credit and charged our credit card for the stay. In essence, we paid twice. Get everything in writing. They do not honor their word. Extremely unprofessional.

I had wanted to stay here for at least 10 years. It looked so....so...southern Cal, so romantic, exquisite. The fact of the matter is the property is tired, the rooms are old and small, lacking in the small things that make a room comfortable (ONE plug in in the entire room; a bathroom with no counter and plug-ins at floor level; paint peeling off the doors, etc.), and the beach front view is only available to about 6 rooms in all. We were in room 103, first floor, ocean view, overlooking the roof of the first floor and the HVAC. It's a place worth staying once, because the history, the photos on the wall, the ambience is of a time gone by, that classic and picturesque time that all of us now can only relive. That said, it is walking distance to some wonderful restaurants, a public park at the beach with some sand volleyball, lots of cute shops, a gym (Laguna Health Club) and an easy jaunt over to the freeway to go north or south. The staff was very pleasant and we had good food at the beach front restaurant. Parking is valet only at $10 a day. The complimentary continental breakfast is basic and in a room where the blinds are coming down, table covers are safety pinned on and it feels like a scene out of a south-of-the-railroad tracks movie. I hate to be negative, but for me these things minimized the cool factor of being right on the beach.