Introduction I stayed a few nights at Ritz Carlton Marina del Rey and noticed quite a big difference in service between the Club Lounge and general staff either at reception, the finance department, or people handling the chat in the Marriott app. The service in the club lounge was superb, dare I say up to Asian or Middle East levels, while others had dogmatic attitudes about various issues capped by a bad ending when they gave me what was later exposed as fluff excuses rather than politely refuse my late check-out request with transparency. Room I booked a club room and was not upgraded at all as Ambassador Elite despite seeing availability on the day of arrival for various suite types including the junior suites. I did not push for it because I expected to need 4pm check-out and being in a non-suite is easier to manage for the hotel. That was my mistake, I should have challenged the lack of suite upgrade at that time. More on that below.The room itself was not up to Ritz Carlton standards as far as I am concerned: mostly because the shower was in the bathtub (!?) and the single vanity. There was a balcony with nice views but only to stand up and the wall was blocking the view from the room; overall not much stood out positively from the room. There are Sheratons and Westins elsewhere in the world with non-suites which look better than the room we had. The only RC feature of the room was the bedding which was excellent. Club Lounge The club served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desserts late evening and had alcoholic drinks available all day with staff able to make various cocktails on request. Not only the service was excellent in the lounge itself, but one morning when I was attempting to enter before the lounge was open (6:30am), one staff who happened to walk by told me to come back later and I said no problem I will go wait in the lobby with my laptop. Moments later he proactively went out of his way and brought me a coffee so that I could have a drink before the opening of the lounge. Great service. The quality of the food in the lounge was very good and included various healthy options rather than fried junk so I thought it was suitable for a RC lounge. To make it even better, on a couple of evenings the food was less suitable for a 1-year old so they proactively offered us to order whatever we wanted from the kids room service menu for our daughter, all free of charge. A nice touch. Service Besides the service in the lounge, I had issues with the finance department which was originally reluctant to give me a credit card authorization form, saying they “cannot” do it, when in fact various Marriott hotels do. However the main issue was closer to check-out time. I asked if we could check-out at 7pm rather than 4pm. In my experience there are five ways hotels normally respond to this, in order of preference: (1) late check-out approved, can stay in the same room (2) late check-out approved, but move to a lesser room to allow the hotel to manage room inventory (3) late check-out approved for a modest hourly fee (4) refusal by being honest and transparent that it’s simply their policy, which is actually fine (5) refuse and make up excuses which later turn out to be fluff in the ensuing conversation, exposing the fact that they made stuff up. Unfortunately this hotel was clearly in the category #5 above. To make matters worse, I also pointed out to them that offering late check-out to a guest in a non-suite is easier and that I am not sure why I did not get a suite upgrade at check-in. They again made stuff up, first saying suites are not guaranteed (completely besides the point I was raising) and then telling me that I was told at check-in that suites were not available on all days of my stay, when in fact no such conversation ever happened. My interlocutor had no credibility at all and simply tried to give me whatever excuse would stick, which was unacceptable behavior and in huge contrast with the service in the lounge. Wifi Wifi worked well with speed of 40-60 Mbps. Overall If I had stayed at that hotel without club access I think my stay would have been pretty dreadful all around with the room not up to standards, the lack of elite benefits, and the rigid service at times misleading and bordering on insulting. The saving grace was the lounge so I would not recommend to stay at this hotel except for people who intend to spend extra for the lounge and make extensive use of it.