J B

Review of Sunset Tower Hotel

This hotel is a great choice for lunch or dinner, ...

This hotel is a great choice for lunch or dinner, but that s it. I would not recommend staying at this hotel at all. We recently stayed in a superior room on level 6 which was small, had a queen bed and overlooked the entry drive way on Sunset Boulevard. After checking out of this hotel, I actually believe I was given a standard room, despite booking a superior room.
Being an old hotel, the windows were single glazed which means can clearly hear every car that passes the hotel. Being on the Sunset strip, burn outs, mini drag races and over-revving of engines does happen all through the night. The bathrooms and toiletries were lovely. But the fatal flaw with this hotel for me, was the mattress. It was marshmallow soft and sagged in the middle. It was not fit for a trailer park let alone a top hotel. It was honestly the worst mattress I have slept on in any hotel (or AirB&B) ever! I was so uncomfortable that after tossing and turning half way through the night with lower back pain, I gave up and slept on the floor. If you decide to stay at this hotel, you need to factor in the cost of seeing an osteopath straight after your stay. Which can become a costly exercise if you are paying upwards of AUD$700 a night for a standard room during peak periods.
I think you can get to experience the hotel
if you eat at the Tower Bar and Restaurant. This was a great venue, but I would recommend you book early and ask for an inside table. We arrived at 8pm and despite booking several weeks in advance, almost all of the inside tables were gone other than the table next to the reception desk. We decided to eat outdoors, but this was virtually empty and didn t have much atmosphere. Despite being virtually empty, we were not able to sit at a table with a view as it may be outside the boundaries and reserved for someone else. The table service was average at best. We had the Lobster Tacos and Tuna Tartare for starters, both were delicious. My partner ordered the Tower Burger, but it was missing sliced tomato and lettuce which made it overly stodgy. I ordered the Filet Mignon which was the most expensive main on the menu at $63. I suspect it had been sitting on the pass for some time because the potatoes had gone hard and the steak was cold when it arrived. For the remainder of the meal we had to endure a photoshoot of a group of people eating their meal which is totally ironic given that the Tower Bar menu clearly states in bold that there are to be no photographs taken in the restaurant. We decided to forgo desert because of the poor service and atmosphere.
The last time we were in LA, we stayed at the Viceroy hotel. While the location is not as good, the hotel was far superior in terms of service and amenities. Our room was three times the size and the bed was the next level - super king, supremely comfortable and with high quality linen. Even the Andaz directly opposite is a better option in my view.
So overall, really average stay. I didn t provide this feedback to the Sunset Tower reception staff because they didn t care to ask about my stay. That pretty much sums up my experience with this hotel.