I am currently staying at this hotel and thought to give you a quick review of how my stay till now.
I am a Platinum SPG.
I checked in on Monday night, the bloke at the check-in counter appeared to know what he was doing, but he didnt. I confirmed if my SPG number was on the reservation he said it was. While he was checking me in, I slipped in the polite, 'Is there a suite available?'. He replied a odd 'There is one but its not available.' To me that seemed contradictory even more so at midnight after flying for 6ish hours.
As always he asked for my credit card and for some reason he couldnt get into the system, he took almost 6-7 mins to get my credit card before he gave up and said I will just the CC on profile which is the same.
I didnt bother pushing as I was just too tired. As he was checking me in he took a very long time working the machine to code my keycard, after wrestling it for a bit he gave me the key with a room number which was different to what was blinking on the machine. He almost fell over when I pointed out the slight error. He re-coded my key to the correct room. (I am getting grumpier by the minute as I am so tired and just sick of waiting)
He finally gives me the key, I walk off to my room and get into my room and suddenly realise that I he didnt mention anything about my Plat Amenity or Lounge Access. I called him back at front desk and he said, to just come to the front desk in the morning to ask for it.
The room itself is simple but nice. There was a 30ish inch LCD HDTV. Two bath robes. Nice big bed. Tiny balcony but nice to get some fresh southern californian air.
As you can tell this is not the worst but not the most pleasant experience. When i woke up in the morning I went to the front desk to get my key and i explained my experience. The Bell Captain (I forget his name now) was fantastic, he deeply apologized for everything, in fact he actually had my Plat Amenity on desk waiting (I always pick 500 points). I came back to my room that day and I found a message offering me a suite upgrade. ^^
I took it.
The suite is fantastic. Two LCD HDTVs in the room. I believe the one in lounge room is 36 ish inch or so. The one in bedroom is about 30ish inch so quite nice. Leather Sofa. Nicer view. Bigger bedroom. Bathroom was almost identical to the room.
THe Club Lounge is good breakfast but I find the food in the evening to be average. The good thing is they change it daily.
Aside from everything I mentioned, there is loads of construction so if you are planning on a holiday and if you are like me you might wanna wait for another 6 months to let them wrap everything up. The staff even the incompetent checkin bloke were super friendly and customer concious. Did I mention the carpet is soft? Oh yeah new hotel = soft carpet.
So moral of the story dont checkin late.
at Sheraton Carlsbad.