RTT: Guns & Gear 2

Review of Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines

My stay at the Torrey Pines Hilton was overall rea...

My stay at the Torrey Pines Hilton was overall really good. However it barely got 4 stars and I'll explain why.

Keep in mind that I am a regular Joe who has never been to a hotel that was higher than a 2 or 3 star hotel.

But let's go through the pros first.

Richard! I think there's a couple Richard bell hops, but tall Richard with the beard and bald head that worked in the morning's while I was there, is the Richard I am talking about. Richard is the main reason this review went to 4 stars for me. He was super helpful and friendly. My girlfriend and I were at the hotel because she had a knee surgery at the neighboring Scripps clinic, and he was Johnny on the spot if we needed anything, and was super helpful when trying to plan things for my girlfriend and I to do outside of the hotel while she was recovering. Absolutely someone that we will both remember from this stay.

Other pros.... The room was clean, the housekeepers were attentive, and the outdoor/pool area was very beautiful and well kept. The shower was hot and had pressure as well..which is a big deal for me. And one last thing is the breakfast buffet. It was very good! A little pricey in my book, but good! It was also nice to have a balcony to the outside.

Now the cons, and what brought the score down to almost a 3 star.

I feel the building was really outdated and did not match the outside. The inside is very dark, dark wood, copper accents, dark brown carpet. And the outside is this very tropical and bright area. They felt like they didn't belong together.

The carpet in our room was very dated and worn out. The beauty rings around the rail mounts in the shower were loose and rattling off. The paint is chipped throughout and different shades where you can tell repairs were done at one time. The internet modem box on the desk in our room was literally broken in half, and the standing lamp is falling apart. If you brush up against the lamp, not only does the shade fall off, but the light and socket falls out as well. And the wood furniture was outdated and sort of tattered.

The two biggest disappointments in our room were the microwave and refrigerator. As I said before, I've never stayed at a hotel that is considered to be this high class, so this may be common...but there's no microwave in the room. The refrigerator basically didn't work. We took and Uber to get some groceries for our stay and had to throw away the lunch meat a few days in because the refrigerator just wasn't cold. And it appeared that the entire mechanism to change the temperature had been ripped out.

Overall the experience was good. Nothing bad happened outside of having to throw away groceries. The staff was mostly pleasant (Richard being a stand out). However, from a working man's point of view, I probably would never stay here again for the price.