Just finished up a 2 night stay at this hotel.
Location: The location is actually pretty decent. It’s on the outskirts of the downtown area in the heart of Korea town. There is a 7-11 and several fast food options in the immediate area. I don’t know if it is fair to call this a Convention Center hotel though. It’s a good mile away from the Convention Center and they don’t offer a shuttle. If you were to walk there, you would be going underneath the 110 overpass, which is always dicey. The area itself was safe but there is absolutely nothing to do there for the English speaking world. The only cabs we saw were dropping people off from other areas. Of the hotels/motels in the immediate area, this looked to be the best. I liked that the highway was a half a mile from the hotel as we were exploring areas outside of the downtown area.
Staff: The staff had a pretty lax attitude with us. Nothing was very memorable at all. They never greeted us or opened doors and didn’t seem to be knowledgeable about the area. We asked the lady at the check-in desk about a recommendation for a good Korean restaurant in the area and she suggested a place down the alley behind the hotel. When pressed, she simply printed out a map of the area and tried to navigate the places for us. She thought that Beverly Hills was within walking distance until I pointed out that we are in downtown LA. We made due, but it would be nice if they explored the area for their guests. Their on site restaurant was never mentioned, which we took it as a sign for the quality and never tried it.
Hotel: The hotel was in better condition than I expected after reading the reviews here. The lobby was small but quaint. Our room overlooked the courtyard on the 2nd level and was big enough for our purposes. However, I did have several issues with the room itself. First, the energy saving light bulbs are annoying. It takes about 3 minutes after turning on the light for it to reach its maximum brightness. At night, when it’s pitch black, that makes it a little difficult to navigate through the room in a makeshift night light. The second was the pillows. On a Queen sized bed, you are given 4. But they are literally a 2X2 in size. The sheets are also paper thin and you only get two of them. I’ve had better bedding at a youth hostel personally. The room itself has a distinct musty smell that lingered so long that we had to open up a window to air it out. The TV channels were probably 50% English, 40% Korean and 10% Spanish. I believe that they have Encore as your movie channel option. Was an LCD TV, but no HD in the room.
Perhaps the biggest gripe is the parking. Yes, it is free. But that parking garage was designed by a blind man. What should only hold 15 cars max holds 30. More often than not, we had to have the hotel valet move the cars so that we could back the car up. There is one entrance and exit and you had to be a professional driver to navigate around the pillars and other cars to avoid contact. The parking lot across the street is a much better option…but it wasn’t working as intended. You are supposed to open up the gate with your room key but it was never a problem for anyone to pull in.
Price: I utilized Wyndham’s Best Rate Guarantee to get my price down to $60.00 per night. This was a pretty fair price for what we got. I wouldn’t pay anymore than $80.00 per night though.
All in all, it was a good hotel for the price, but don’t expect to be wowed.
- Clarion Los Angeles
- Clarion Hotel Los Angeles
