Let me first state that I love trip advisor and use it frequently. Although I've never posted a review until now, I felt it was very necessary to let the users of this wonderful forum know about our unpleasant experience at this hotel.

My husband, 5yr old son and I just spent last night there. We read the reviews and, since there were some good ones, figured we would give it a try. What a big mistake. When we made our reservation, we requested a quiet room towards the front of the hotel as suggested in this forum. When we checked in we again made our request to assure a quiet room in the front of the hotel. The young lady at the desk assured us she had assigned us the best room she had available. When we got to our room we were surprised to discover we were in a room facing the rear courtyard. The hotel is shaped roughly like an "H" with the elevators located in the center of the H and the rooms along the "uprights" of the H. Our room was near the elevators and facing inside the H at the rear of the hotel. When we called down to ask why we were in the rear of the hotel, we were told that we had been put as close to the front as they could get us and that they put us there because we are Hilton Honors members. We checked out the room which was perfectly nice, and thought it would be fine. Then we heard a train go by with whistles blaring. We were happy to discover that our window was open a couple inches and allowing the noise in. We were also happy to see the window was double-pane glass, which is usually pretty good at reducing noise. We closed it and waited for another train to test the now closed window. We also called the front desk to see if there were any rooms on the actual front of the building available and were told there was not. No train came by in the next few minutes so we headed out the door to explore San Diego and get dinner. We returned to the room after dinner, set the air conditioner as high as it would go to drown out any noise, and went to bed hoping the trains would come by infrequently. That was wishful thinking. The train whistles jolted us upright in bed several times through the night. Our son woke up upset around 1:30, and, trying to come to our bed for comfort, tripped in the darkness and hit his head on a drawer pull. The sound was so loud we couldn't believe it. We just could not figure out how the sound could penetrate the structure so thoroughly. It seemed as if there was no glass at all in the window opening. The design of the building just intensifies the sound as the sound waves reverberate off the courtyard walls. I am a light sleeper and travel with ear plugs, but my husband who can sleep through a lot, thought the window must somehow still be open and got out of bed 2 times during the night to open and re-close the window to make sure it was actually closed. It may as well have not been there. Or, maybe the sound gets in through the AC unit - who knows

We stayed in bed late into the morning trying to fall back asleep and may have gotten three hours sleep because the trains came through frequently, at least during our 1 night stay and they blast their horns not once, but 5-6 times!!!

My husband went down to the front desk late in the morning hoping someone on the front of the building had vacated a room we could move to for the 2nd night of our stay. The clerk said there was none, so my husband told him that we were checking out and not paying for our miserable night. The clerk claimed we were given a room “towards the front” as we had requested but refunded our money.

We stayed in room 549, if you stay there, do not stay in this room or any other room on the rear of the "H", or the outside of the "H". The tracks run right behind the building and any room not protected in the inside of the H at the front of the building is subject to incredibly loud train whistles intensified by poor building design and inadequate soundproofing.

If you must stay at this hotel, demand to stay in the area on the lower floors that overlook the pool, this may provide a barrier from the train noise but only a few rooms per floor are positioned on the front where the pool is.

I would never ever think of taking another chance on this hotel at all as there is about a 90% chance you will get a nightmare room and the employees are obviously trained to play down the problem and pretend to give people rooms not affected by the train noise. After all, the clerk could have said " I know you've requested a quiet room, but all we have are rooms on the back of the hotel and train noise may be an issue for you."

I hope this helps users of this forum avoid the same mistake we made.
 

I just got back from 3 nights at the Embassy Suites at the San Diego- Downtown. I stayed at this hotel 3 yrs ago for a conference at the convention center and I loved it! So when I went back to San Diego for vacation this year I figured I might as well stay where I knew I had a good room. The room was nice, although it wasn't as nice as remember last time, the bathroom lighting wasn't that great, infact I found the bathroom to be pretty dark. The bed was very comfortable, however it was hard to get a good nights sleep when a freight train whistled by at 2AM the first night!! Then 11PM the two following nights. Our city view room was one of the few with a balcony so I am sure that made the sound even more intense since we had sliding glass doors. When I complained to the front desk they told me that I shouldn't hear the train because I was on the 9th floor!!! YEA RIGHT!! I felt like the train was next to me, I could even see it from my room when I looked out at the train tracks and since it crosses over a lot of streets when it come through downtown it whistled a lot!

All in all the room was a good deal because you get a suite and a full breakfast. The $22 to valet the car (the only choice) wasn't as pricey as other downtown hotels. And the ability to walk to the marina and the shops was really nice. With the full breakfast we were able to fill up in the morning and then just get a late lunch- early dinner, so that was nice.

If you are going to stay at the Embassy Suites ask for a marina view room, that way you probably won't hear the train.