W Hollywood

24+ Hours in Los Angeles – Introduction

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We were only really staying one night in Los Angeles and therefore I decided to book the W Hollywood, an SPG hotel. The drive from the airport took about fifty minutes and the car rental was super cheap at just ~$20 USD through a promotional rate they had. The plan was to walk around Hollywood and the surrounding areas the first day, then check-out the following day in the morning and drive to Malibu for lunch, then head to the airport in the afternoon.

I had originally booked a “Wonderful Room” (whatever that means), which was described as follows:

Wonderful Non-smoking Room: King Bed
• 386 sq ft/36 sq m – 407 sq ft/38 sq m
• W Signature Bed
• 42 Inch Plasma Tv
• Bliss Bath Products
• I Pod Docking Station
• Smoke-free

The check-in process was rather slow since they only had one person working at the reception desk while some other agents were chatting; so maybe about after ten minutes we were helped. The agent thanked me for being an SPG Gold member (free with the AMEX Platinum Card) and informed me of my SPG Gold benefits such as late check-out and a room upgrade. She had informed me that we were upgraded to a room on the 10th floor. I would call the upgrade very minimal since the room was more or less than what we had booked, I assume it was just on a higher floor.

 

The hotel is literally located right in the heart of Hollywood and you literally walk out onto the “star street” (or whatever they call it). I really like the modern interior and design of the lobby, although the pictures online showed more “red” everywhere.

The lobby of the hotel has the reception desk, a bar, relaxing areas, and a restaurant which has outside seating. There was also a DJ playing some tracks throughout the night.

Our room was nice, but almost identical to the “wonderful” room that I booked in the first place, so as far as I can tell, the only upgrade was that the room was on a higher floor. The room had a nice, modern design and the room was super clean and the furniture was in great condition.

The room included a large bed, desk, a lounge chair, and a really cool bar with a disco ball light above it. There were also a ton of (overpriced) snacks and (even more overpriced) alcohol, which of course we didn’t touch (or even look at).

Free SPG-sponsored water was included, there were also several other water bottles in the room priced at $5 USD each. The snacks and alcohol were also super overpriced, I mean Sprite was ~$8 USD… We decided to just get coffee and snacks at the Starbucks next to the hotel when we were hungry.

The bathroom was very clean and had a nice overall design with bliss amenities, which were lemon scented and excellent.

Perhaps the best part of the hotel was the rooftop pool, although we were both a bit shocked when we found out it closes at 18:00… I mean, really? There are even pictures on the website that show specifically that there is nightlife at the pool… yeah, that didn’t happen. We were hoping to relax a bit in the evening by the pool, but that didn’t happen; instead we went in the early morning after we woke up.

The whole pool area is gorgeous and overlooks some parts of Hollywood. There are private areas which can be reserved and also a bar.. which should be operational during the evenings. The pool was clean and the water was at the right temperature, so at least we were able to relax a bit in the morning.

To sum it up, the hotel was nice overall but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t return to this one. The design is nice and the hotel is modern, but the services weren’t the best. We constantly found ourselves waiting for an agent at the front desk and we had to ask three times for something we ordered to the room. The fact that the pool isn’t open past 18:00 is a bit shocking since they specifically have pictures and descriptions of pool nightlife. We also weren’t dressed super fancy and got a few strange looks from others.. but I really could care less about that.