The Guild Hotel, San Diego, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel

500 W Broadway

San Diego, CA 92101

United States https://theguildhotel.com

After spending a few days in Carlsbad for an event at the Oceanside Museum of Arts, we decided we would spend some time in downtown San Diego and decided we would stay at this hotel. We came with such high hopes but left underwhelmed. Layout of this hotel isn't the greatest. This is an only YMCA building that were reclaimed and reopened as the Guild hotel earlier this year. This was a big factor in our decisions as I've always had a thing for old architecture and for them to reclaim and relaunch this building preserving its history was amazing. As you enter through the front door it opens up into the lobby bar. Reception is directly to your right which was a tiny 2 person desk with minimal signage to indicate where you should be going. Took a second to look around to determine that was the desk, looked more like a concierge/ luggage check.

We got queen room which had all the basic amenities. Note there is no real closet, just a tiny freestanding wardrobe closet that is maybe about a foot wide so not ideal for long stays.

The bathrooms were bright and well lit, large walk in shower however the water pressure and water temp were quite disappointing.

A/C blew cold with digital thermostat so you could set the room temp to your liking, bedside outlets had built in USB for charging your phones/tablets. On your floor there is an ice machine which dispenses room temp water, ice water and crushed ice.

Location was good, right downtown with the water, Little Italy and Gaslamp all within walking distance.

Inside the courtyard of this hotel is a resturaunt called Luca serving food all day. Great ambience and nice and relaxing place to have a coffee or a meal.

Staff: Front desk was great, prompt check-in and provided lots of good recommendations of things to do, where to eat and what not. This information was greatly appreciated.

The bad: First pet peeve, its nice the hotel provides an ice machine and ice bucket however someone didn't think this through properly. Your ice machines dispenses crushed ice, but the tongs for the ice provided is a wire style one. We just ended scooping the ice with the cup itself. Tongs were completely useless.

The hotel had an funny odor throughout the hallways and room. Musty and stale smelling. We stayed here for 2 nights and during that whole duration of time, the wifi was spotty or straight up down. Being from out of town and on business, this made communicating with the rest of the world quite difficult and often found ourselves going to the neighboring coffee shops to buy coffee just to use their wifi. When calling front desk, no help was provided and was told, our engineers are working on it and we don't have an answer.