ferg01

Hi all,

Recommendations would be welcome please...looking for something (which hopefully exists) that gets sun all day and is quiet. Most of the pools I see on Hotels.com are small and shaded. I've had FT recommendations for elsewhere in the past and they've always been spot on. Ideally it would be located in an area with decent lunch / dinner / drinks close to the hotel.

Some contenders (comments most welcome):
1) Four Seasons Beverly Hills
2) JW Marriott Santa Monica
3) The London Beverly Hills
4) Hyatt Regency Long Beach

ajGoes

When are you going? You can't expect "sun all day" in Santa Monica during the June Gloom season of marine-layer clouds.

ferg01

Good point, going in April (forward planning!).

ajGoes

There's a high risk of June Gloom near the coast in April. More importantly, you can't expect swimming temperatures then. I was there for three weeks this April and the highest temperature I saw near the beach was in the low seventies, with lows of about fifty nearly every day. Most days had highs in the low sixties. I imagine Long Beach is similarly chilly and cloudy.

The temperature rises rapidly as you move inland. Beverly Hills will be a lot warmer and sunnier but will still be subject to long periods of overcast.

DELee

If you're willing to expand your region of interest, I'd suggest somewhere out in the Palm Springs area for April.

That being said, unless you'd go midweek, many places will be very busy and noisy during the weekends.

David

TWA884

April is not yet pool weather in Los Angeles, at least not for the locals.

That being said, you should definitely consider that pools at The Beverly Hills Hotel, The Peninsula Beverly Hills and the Hotel Bel Air.

ferg01

Thanks for all the input. It's all relative I guess, the weather here will be in the low 50s at best in April. It'll probably rain too so I'll take what I can get!

Good to know as you move in from the coast that things heat up, I wasn't aware of that. Mrs Ferg01 wants to do Palm Springs in the summer so we'll be back soon after. This time around, I'll stick to the LA area. Beverly Hills it is.

TWA884, thanks for those hotel suggestions. While they look great, they're slightly out of my budget (I should have given the info in the original post).

Any views you might have on the following would be welcome:
1) 4 Seasons Beverly Hills
2) Viceroy L'Ermitage or
3) The London

Thanks again, I appreciate all the helpful comments.

DELee

It will be in the low 100's (~40C) during the summer in Palm Springs.

David

chrisl137

And about 5% humidity.

I ended up in PS over the 4th of july weekend one of my first summers in LA because smoke from fires drove us out of Pasadena. Since it was a holiday weekend the coast was packed, so we headed inland, knowing it would be crazy hot. Palm Springs was pretty quiet during the day because of the heat, but there were enough places open that you could go into a place with take out to get a cup of water, walk outside to pour it over your head, and be dry by the time you got to the next one on the block, where you could repeat the process. Definitely an interesting experience that I'd do again, but probably not for everybody.

We camped a few nights in Lake Hemet on that trip. It was quite nice up above about 4000' elevation.

ajGoes

You really might want to look further inland. The average high and low in Beverly Hills in April are 70° and 54°.

Pasadena and Glendale are much warmer and sunnier and offer a variety of interesting things to do when you tire of the pool.

The rule is that proximity to the coast or higher elevation mean cooler temperatures. The gradient can be extreme; if you're near the beach in Santa Monica in the summer and go the ten miles (as the crow flies) to West Hollywood, you may find it twenty degrees warmer.

TWA884

If I were to take two trips to Southern California, I would stay in the Palm Springs / Palm Desert / Indian Wells / La Quinta area in April and Los Angeles in the summer.

chrisl137

Pasadena still gets the May Gray and June Gloom, but it usually burns off by late morning. When I was commuting to Redondo Beach I didn't realize at first that it never warms up down there and had to leave a sweatshirt year round.

If the OP is looking for a high-end sit-by-the-pool trip, the Langham is probably the best hotel pool in the Pasadena area. There's not really much to walk to outside the hotel, but it's a pretty convenient location to get to both DTLA and Pasadena for food. It's very inconvenient to the west side or beach cities.

I'd also second the recommendation to do the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area in April (Joshua Tree can be really nice that time of year) and LA in the summer. For budget accomodations, Desert Hot Springs is generally less expensive than the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area, but you probably want to drive to PS/PD for meals. The pools in Desert Hot Springs will be small, but there isn't likely to be any shade.

corky

I think you are doing it backwards. IMO Palm Springs is unbearably hot in the summer but perfect in April ( I was just there this past April). Los Angeles won't be pool weather in April no matter how cold it is where you are. Visit the desert in the spring and come to LA in the summer.

ferg01

A rethink might be on the cards! We’ve done Oman, Dubai and Palm Springs in the height of summer and thoroughly enjoyed each trip...

I’ll defer to the collective wisdom on this forum and thanks for the info, it’s all very helpful. Time for Plan B.

chrisl137

I liked PSP in the summer, too, and have done some crazy things in the heat in the other deserts around here, but it's definitely not for everybody.