The Sofia Hotel

Priced fair for location and quality of room. The bed and pillows are my favorite part of the room. They use Parker & Morgan pillows which I'm now going to buy for my own bed. on-site self parking and valet is over $30 for each but that is fair compared to nearby hotels. Overall great quality place.

If we paid full price, I probably would have docked another star. The website we booked through had this room listed as $165 per night over the memorial day weekend. We jumped on it being that most other downtown hotels were upwards of $200 for the holiday. My business partner and I spent Thurs & Fri night there with not too many complaints.



However, after reading a few reviews on a couple sites, I still am unsure why they don't install full shower doors. The entire bathroom is tiled. Toilet and shower are separated by a glass partition. The partition doesnt fully stretch the length of the shower, so the water tends to splash out. IMO, if it wasn't possible to install an entire glass door, shower curtains would have sufficed. The switch to the restroom light is to the right of the main door, however the restroom itself is to the left. The bathroom sink is to the right as soon as you walk into the room.



My one other complaint is the parking fees. When booking online, it first appeared we would be able to pay an "overnight flat fee" of $10. Once we arrived, we noticed that the $10 flat fee is only good until 2am. If your stay doesn't include cruising downtown streets during the witching hours, you actually have to pay $30 for 24 hours of parking. You can self park to get that rate, or you can use valet--it comes out to the same $30. We opted to self park since we were not too sure how long it would take for valet to retrieve the car. We were in town for business, so there was not a lot of free time to dawdle.



There are a good amount of pros to this hotel. The view from the third floor of Downtown San Diego is beautiful both during day and night. The cheapest food options we found within walking distance was Wendy's and a fresh baked large pizza from 7-11. They have 3 different HBO channels. If you don't want to use wifi, they do provide an ethernet cable for internet connection, which I appreciate. They provide 2 water bottles per day as well as coffee, both regular and decaf. Their fitness center is open 24 hrs, although I was not able to use it.



Most of the staff was really friendly. The maid came to clean when we were still in the room, so we sent her away. Before she left, she made sure we had all the supplies we needed...toilet paper, water, shampoo, etc. One of the valet guys threw dirty looks, but whatev. If Hotels Tonight has another special on this hotel, we might just stay again. If you do download the hotels tonight app, make sure you use promo code "sSaenz3" to get $25 off your first booking. Every little bit helps! Safe travels everyone...



This area is mostly one way streets, so let me offer small tip. When southbound on Front St, look for parking on the left side just as you pass C street. If you pass it, you can still pull over in front of the hotel for valet. If you're determined to self park, turn left on Broadway (Broadway runs both ways), and left again on first. The first parking lot on the left side is for the Sofia. Parking permit machine goes to sleep after inactivity, so if it looks off, just hit a button to wake it up. It accepts both cash and credit.