We had the opportunity to stay at the Ramada Hotel & Conference Ctr on Kearny Mesa Rd in San Diego just this past week ( May 8-10, 2008 ).
It was a quick decision to take a short 2 day get-away to the West coast.
It was to be the only vacation we would get for the whole year and had not had a vacation at all for the past year.
If it happened at all we had to do it on a “Shoe-String” budget and our schedule only allowed us 3 days total .
We both lost our jobs over a year ago and have only been able to find much lower paying jobs since then.
Things have been very “tight” financially for us so we were in a great debate as to wether we should take the trip or not.
At the last minute ( 3 days before the planned departure date ) a very close friend gave us a few hundred dollars and said “You Should GO…You need to just get away out of the area for a few days. Just go.”
So I hit the internet scouring the countryside for an inexpensive hotel for us to stay in.
We found several potential candidates all between $58-$84 per night.
I read and re-read all the user reviews and finally made our decision to stay at the Ramada Hotel & Conference Ctr. & glad we did. ( We did not experience most of what the negative sounding reviews talked about at this hotel )
First of all the on line photos made the Ramada look very upscale, tropical with all kinds of palm trees and flowers around it.
Truly beautiful we thought.
It looked much classier than the other hotel photos in this price range. ( Obviously this is what happens with on line photos and often when you arrive you find out that it is not what the photos implied ) but in the Ramadas’ case we found that the on line photos DID indeed portray an accurate picture.
The grounds we found to be well kept, very beautiful with lots of palm trees and flowers… a lot like an oasis in the dessert might be.
When we arrived, the hotel desk staff , Sherry and Teo, were very attentive, professional and helpful.
( Thanks to you both keep up the great work !).
We had booked the stay on line and had taken the Non-Smoking 1 King bed option.
When we opened the door to our room we found that it had two queen size beds.
We noticed the hotel is undergoing a systematic renovation of their rooms and we had been given a room that was very near where the new renovations were taking place.( Not so pretty and a little noisy ). The room was also on the side of the hotel that is right up next to the Miramar Air Station so you could hear the jets flying practice runs ( this may be a negative reason for some not to stay here but on the other hand, they usually fly only in the daylight hours & you probably won’t be there during the daytime cause you’ll be out at Seaworld right? ). Also there is a tall wall that does block a lot of the jet noises and they usually do not fly after dark I was told ( if this bothers you then just be sure your room is an INSIDE facing the pool room and you wont hear any of it and you’ll be good to go )
For these reasons our 1st room was just not to our liking but I returned to the front desk and they were very helpful and patient in reaccommodating us to a room that was on the inside facing the lush pool and beautiful jacuzzi. Still 2 queens tho as all the 1 kings were the rooms being renovated.
Our stay at the Ramada Hotel & Conference Ctr was wonderful.
The room for this class & price of hotel was very clean, very quite, no Bugs of any kind were seen.
The bathroom was immaculate. The bed linens were freshly pressed & the beds were comfortable ( have not slept this good in a long time ).The hot water was eternally hot ( yes ! ). The room had a mini refrigerator, ironing board and iron, airconditioner and color cable tv.. ALL of which worked perfectly.
The outdoor pool and jacuzzi were ( from what we could tell ) crystal clear and super clean and HOT.
Gotta say that for the $77.00 per night that it cost us to stay here we would give this hotel a huge thumbs up and highly recommend it as a wonderful place to stay if you want a clean, safe, bugfree, semi-luxurious (for the price), easy drive to get to everything and relaxing place to come back to.
We will certainly be coming back to the Ramada Hotel & Conference Ctr. Again.