EPPanda

As promised:

Had a 2 night stay booked via certificates for Friday arrival, Sunday departure. We traveled with another couple who also had a 2 night stay booked via combination of certificate and points. Both groups are Diamonds via Aspire. Received check-in notification in the app on Thursday, there were 5 rooms available, all "Oceana King Studio Suite" standard rooms. We didn't complete check-in but our friends did and chose a standard room, 218. On Friday morning, checked the app and there was only 1 room available, but it was marked as a "Seaside Oceanfront One Bedroom Suite", 106 at the SE corner of the property. Confirmed and processed check-in via the app. In the preceding days, we saw Lanai suites still being sold, but on Friday morning they were only selling standard rooms. Front desk agent confirmed no Lanai suites available.

The standard "Oceana King Studio Suite" and the "Oceanfront One Bedroom Suite" ended up being almost the same other than the shape of the room and the balcony/ocean view from our room. We were expecting more of a differentiator given the "Suite" vs "Studio Suite" designation, but still enjoyed the room all the same. Our bathroom was a bit more cramped than the standard room, but we had a larger bedroom/living area. I don't have pictures of our room as our son immediately laid claim to everything, but our friends took pictures of their standard room which I've attached. There was a bit of noise in our room as it was in the corner next to the stairs, where the door slammed quite loudly every time it was opened. Overall, I did like that it was offset from the pool a bit and more "private" compared to the Lanai suites on the perimeter of the pool.

Breakfast in the restaurant wasn't too busy when we first arrived around 8am on Saturday. We each had an entree and had a few additional pastries/add-ons. Service was a tad slow but the restaurant was filling up quickly and there were also orders coming in from the pool area. We provided our room numbers and asked for a split of the bill, but the next morning I received a folio which had the full charge on my room. Our friends stopped by the front desk and resolved it without our involvement, an updated folio was sent which reflected the change. On Sunday morning, we ordered room service around the same time which was delivered quickly (~10 minutes). There is a $5 tray charge on the folio for this, but no issues with the $50 credit applying. We felt portion sizes were quite decent and the food was "good enough". Probably wouldn't order it without the credit, but it was nice to get some extra time at the property. From what I've seen, the recent change to breakfast is a bit of a net positive at the Oceana as it was previously a $22 credit per person.

We did not try the pool, but it was quite busy every time we went by with almost all the chairs taken. On Friday specifically, we saw about half the people stay out by the pool from morning until night. We opted instead to go down to Santa Monica Beach, the walk down is easy enough but the walk back is a bit arduous. The property has 10 bikes + locks available for rental with a signed waiver. We didn't make use of these but our friends did take them out multiple times and had no problems with availability. Nice amenity that I would use if I came without young children.

Plenty of street parking available as long as you pay attention to the restricted times. We found parking on 2nd St behind the property as did our friends. On one excursion, we had to drive out to Palisades Ave for a spot, but there are also spots on some of the other streets. Any other questions, feel free to ask.