Alma San Diego Downtown Review

Three nights at the Alma San Diego Downtown. Good location, large room, and a somewhat helpful front desk. Everything else was a reminder of why I default to Hyatt.

Rating: 2/5

Pros:

• Large room with comfortable furniture and San Diego-themed decor
• Convenient location - Gaslamp Quarter, walkable to waterfront and Petco Park
• Trolley stop and airport bus around the corner for easy transit
• Friendly front desk, proactively removed one night's destination fee
• 8,000 AAdvantage miles earned through AA Hotels

Cons:

• Constant street noise and trolley sounds
• $35 nightly resort fee offering high speed internet and a $20 snack or dining credits
• No do not disturb option - housekeeping enters regardless
• Verdant climate control with over sensitive motion sensors
• Lukewarm hot water on the last morning, plus a leak from the room above
• Wi-Fi that struggled with basic work

The Details

Detail	Info
Hotel	Alma San Diego Downtown, Tribute Portfolio
Address	660 K Street, San Diego, CA 92101
Neighborhood	Gaslamp Quarter, downtown
Nights	3
Room Type	Standard room, 3rd floor (handicapped, unassigned)
Rate	~$170/night cash, booked through AA Hotels
Miles Earned	8,000 AAdvantage miles + Loyalty Points

Booking

I booked the Alma hotel through AAdvantage Hotels at around $170 a night cash. Why I typically avoid Marriott properties, this was one of the better deals for a last minute booking. The reason to route through AA Hotels rather than Marriott or a third-party site: the stay earned 8,000 AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, which covered the AAdvantage award ticket home from Chicago with a few miles to spare. While the "economics" worked out relatively well, the stay itself was harder to defend.

Location

Alma's location puts you right in the Gaslamp Quarter - walkable to the waterfront, a few blocks from Petco Park, and is well-placed for most of what downtown San Diego offers. The trolley station is directly around the corner, and walking up to Balboa Park is an easy trek.

It's worth noting one tradeoff - the Gaslamp is a lively neighborhood and it shows at street level. Music can be loud and the street noise doesn't stop. The hotel's insulation does nothing to buffer it, especially on lower floors. I had my Loop earplugs with me and still found sleeping a challenge at times. Other guests report the same experience on higher floors, so it's not a matter of room assignment - it's the location.

The Room

I was assigned a handicapped accessible corner room at check-in. The room was large but the accessible bathroom layout isn't what most guests expect when booking a standard room.

The space itself looked good. The furniture was comfortable, there was a sitting nook, and a large TV on offer. The San Diego-inspired decor was well-incorporated.

What the room included:

• King bed with comfortable linens
• Sitting nook with seating area
• Decent storage
• Modern bathroom
• 2 bottles of water an a mini-fridge

What it didn't have: any way to signal you didn't want housekeeping. There was no do not disturb hanger anywhere in the room and no door indicator. This wasn't just my room - this seemed to be the case for the whole property. As someone who typically doesn't opt for house keeping, how strange.

Climate Control

This property, like many other Marriotts, uses a Verdant motion-sensing climate system. The hotel essentially configures the sensitivity level for the A/Cs motion sensor, meaning it won't work if it doesn't sense enough movement. This means frantically waving at a sensor multiple times a night as you try go get the A/C to switch on.

If you've stayed at a Marriott property in the last few years there's a reasonable chance you've encountered this - it restricts cooling when it doesn't detect movement, on the theory that a sleeping guest doesn't need as much AC. In practice it means waking up at 3am in a room that's climbed to 80 degrees because you weren't moving enough for the sensor. The sensors in this room weren't registering reliably even when I was up and around, which made the whole system essentially non-functional.

This is a Marriott-wide pattern more than an Alma-specific one. It's one of the main reasons I avoid the chain. They usually greenwash this as an eco move, while offering housekeeping services that can't be refused and plenty of single use plastics.

There are a few videos out there showing how to "defeat" these systems - I'll have to pack in a screw driver next time I book a Marriott!

The Destination Fee

The Alma San Diego required $35 a night destination fee. Over three nights that's $105 on top of the room rate. The return: $20 per day in dining credits or toward chips, candy, and sodas. The property also mentioned this covered enhanced high-speed internet, which I later learned wasn't the case.

Nothing that comes close to justifying the fee. It's a common practice at this tier of Marriott property and gets even more frustrating when the hotel doesn't deliver upon the basics.

Other Issues

On the last morning I woke up to a cold shower - not great for an early start to work in another timezone. The same morning a leak appeared in the room when whoever was above me took a shower.

The Wi-Fi on the final day was the final straw. The internet struggled with making a Zoom call, with the connection peaking at under 14 Mbps. Speedtest.net failed to complete the upload test entirely. For reference, American Airlines regularly offers 80mps speeds on their free onboard wifi. The hotel on the ground couldn't manage a fraction of that.

I will say that the front desk handled it well - they removed one night's destination fee without being asked twice, which was the right call. I appreciated the response, but it was only a small part of what went wrong with this stay.

Final Thoughts

The Alma has a good location and a room that looks the part. The front desk is friendly and responsive. That's genuinely where the positives end.

The accumulated issues over three nights - the noise, the resort fee, the climate control, the privacy situation, the water temperature, the leak, the Wi-Fi - weren't individually catastrophic but they added up to a stay that felt guest-unfriendly in the particular way Marriott properties often do. The Verdant climate control system waking you up at 3am in an 80-degree room is a feature, from the hotel's perspective, and shows the chain's overall regard for guest experience. The lack of a do not disturb option is a strange choice and the first I've encountered at any property.

Earning 8,000 AAdvantage miles through AA Hotels took some of the edge off, and the miles did cover a flight home. But next time I'll book the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego down the street, which is the far superior property that has never let me down.

Part of the Buyups, Bargains & Beaches — San Diego Series

Installment	Status
San Diego Trip Preview	✓ Published
Alaska IAD–SAN First Class (AS 201)	✓ Published
Alma San Diego Downtown Review	You are here
San Diego Taco Tour	Read the review
SAN Route 992 bus review	Coming soon
Sapphire Lounge SAN review	Coming soon
Alaska SAN–ORD review	Coming soon
AA ORD–DCA A319 First Class review	Coming soon