InterContinental San Diego by IHG

We booked the top-floor corner suite for three nights and spent approximately $3,000, plus an additional $150 for the birthday package as a surprise for my fiancée.

When we arrived, none of the birthday amenities that were purchased—balloons, decorations, chocolates, or anything else—were in the room. The surprise was the main reason I purchased the package.

I called the front desk immediately. I was simply told the concierge was responsible and had already gone home. There was no apology, no effort to resolve it that evening, and no attempt to make things right beyond agreeing to cancel and refund the package.

While the room itself was acceptable, it did not feel exceptional for the price paid. Combined with the complete failure to deliver a prepaid birthday package and the lack of customer service, this was a disappointing experience. Unfortunately, I would not choose this hotel again or recommend it

Enjoyed our time here like always! Warm, welcoming hospitality professionals know how to treat their guests. Excellent food and drinks in comfortable surroundings. Love the spacious, quiet, clean rooms, and central location. Looking forward to our next visit, certainly recommend!

Buena ubicación

Stayed as a family of 4 for 4 nights in July. Really good location just seaside the bay and very accessible for lots of nearby attractions, 3 minute walk to the midway (highly recommended), 10/15 min walk to little Italy which has lovely restaurants and short walk to seaport village along the bay which is lovely. The hotel itself is clean and rooms are spacious enough for a family. However, the service isn't brilliant. It's fine but not as attentive as other hotels we have stayed in in California and restaurant service for breakfast can often be a bit chaotic. The breakfast isn't included and is expensive and not particularly good, so would recommend going out for breakfast. The pool area is nice but very small for the size of the hotel and the amount of guests so can often get extremely busy. Not a hugely relaxing experience when there's more than a couple of guests as it just gets too chaotic. All in all, would recommend for location alone but it's pricey for what it offers.

For a hotel like this, I would have expected better service, or at least staff who showed a bit more enthusiasm when checking us in. It was the most rushed and impersonal checkin process I’ve had and I could barely understand the instructions. I had ask for the comp beverages on my own as a Platinum Elite member and my questions were only answered with haste and annoyance.

The room was nice, clean, with a good view. The hotel itself was fine, bar staff was nice as well. But service upon arrival and via text were disappointing . I’d dock another point but that just wouldn’t be fair for the staff members who were working hard and were welcoming.

Todo

We stayed in the hotel for the 4th of July weekend and man were we dissapointed. Check in was messy and chaotic as if they did not prepare at all for the influx of travelers for 4th of July. It took them 2.5 hours after 3 pm to get a room ready for me. Once the room was ready they took my luggage while I finished my lunch and said they would bring it to the room. 2 hours pass by and I had to come down to check. After speaking to 4 people turns out my bag was sent to the wrong room! I had to go personally to retrieve it which is ridiculous. The hotel was clean and rooms are big but definitely not what is expected of an Intercontinental in terms of service. Definitely will look for other alternatives before staying here again.

The hotel is located at a good location - 5 minutes walk from SD cruise terminal, 5 minutes from Santa Fe train station, 15 mins from SD Airport (drive), 10 minutes from USS Midway, 10 minutes from New Children’s Museum (drive), 5 minutes from Little Italy (drive).

Hotel upkeep of room and amenities are good and satisfied with the comfort of the bed, pillow and overall room condition. Room access is secured somewhat by the need for card key to access room floors.

The pool is on the smaller size and can get crowded when the weather is nice and it’s busy season - was staying just before 4th of July.

Overall good value for the hotel. As for water front view, it’s subpar unless you have the corner waterfront rooms, or perhaps the first 2-3 rooms on each side of the building. These would be the room numbering 01-08 (01-02 would be corner rooms) - last two digits with first one or two digits representing floor level).

Continental breakfast (cold food) is ok since it’s pretty much simple pastries, bread and jam, fruits, overnight chia seeds, though they have delicious yogurt. Full breakfast buffet (includes both hot and cold foods) is good especially if you have complimentary breakfast vouchers. Similar hot foods on both mornings we went, and they do not know how to make soft boil eggs (including this in case you wanted soft boil eggs) - soft boil eggs have egg whites runny as well whereas they make it more like poached eggs.

I stayed here for the recent music festival Into the Horizon and loved my experience. The staff was wonderful across the board. Erick at check in was kind, knowledgeable, and helpful. Casper, the houseman, was exceptional and helped with late night linens. I also want to thank the wonderful housekeeping staff, especially Beatrice from Haiti (my apologies if I spelled her name incorrectly). Hats off as well to Mike, the incredibly kind and helpful bellman, and to the two lovely ladies hosting the breakfast buffet, who were both absolutely "one derful”.

Thank you all for such an amazing stay and for a beautiful, clean hotel room. I truly appreciated it and look forward to coming back.

Way too many homeless people around this hotel. Especially at night I felt very unsafe. I have photos of a crack pipe and needle right in front at the park area. I was told that’s the hotels property so I was shocked they have no security.

As an avid traveler, I often see people take the time to share complaints about poor service, so I believe it’s equally important to recognize and celebrate exceptional service when it’s truly deserved.

We had an outstanding check-in experience at the InterContinental San Diego, thanks to Ariana at the front desk. From the moment we arrived, she was warm, professional, and genuinely dedicated to making our stay as seamless as possible.

With NASCAR weekend creating significant traffic throughout the area, Ariana went above and beyond by explaining alternate routes to the race location and recommending that we take the ferry instead of driving. She even took the time to show us exactly where the ferry terminal was located, helping us avoid delays and making our plans much easier.

In addition, she provided excellent restaurant recommendations and shared valuable local insights, including guidance on which areas were best avoided late at night. Her knowledge of the area, combined with her willingness to help, made us feel welcomed, informed, and at ease.

Exceptional service like Ariana’s is one of the many reasons we would gladly stay at the InterContinental again. She is a tremendous asset to the hotel, and we sincerely appreciate the extra effort she made to ensure we had a wonderful experience. Thank you, Ariana!

TL;DR: DO NOT STAY HERE. Two month expired food provided in room service. Security used to intimidate as part of their process to collect complaint information handled via their insurance.

1/ FOOD SAFETY + SERVICE
We stayed two nights at the InterContinental San Diego because the InterContinental is a refined hotel chain around the world that we have enjoyed because of its high standards. Not at this location. They served us condiments like this ketchup jar with 2 month expired date (we stayed early June 2026) with our breakfast room service order. When contacted on the in room phone, they did not take any action to address the issue nor apologize. Instead, they promised the good and beverage manager would arrive to our room to discuss in 5 minutes, but he never showed up. I walked down to the front desk and brought the expired condiment jars, and asked to see the food and beverage manager. He showed up in minutes, and stated he never got a call or email from the in room phone team to follow up with me. He was apologetic and stated he never saw this ketchup jar before, only the Heinz ketchup which we actually received the day before for room service. I assume he debugged this with his staff. He was clearly taking this seriously.

My experience with front desk and security was far worse and the reason why I am writing this review. Noah (sp) the front desk manager echoed apology, but also initiated their procedure to use their security staff to collect information from me because food borne illness claims are an insurance issue. It wasn’t clear to me that this was the case. And when security showed up, they made sure to treat me with the same aggressive, transactional, harsh manner they would treat someone they need to escort out of the bar for drinking too much. When I asked why I had to give her the info rather than start, she said, “I cannot tell you that.” This immediately escalated an already unpleasant situation. When I asked the security person to understand the next steps, she folded her arms, stood up straight, and said we will contact you when we are ready to. I clearly saw this sequence of events as intimidation and retribution for reporting a health safety issue. Noah was apologetic for this experience, handled the situation OK, but the security person never apologized or acknowledged how they escalated the situation.

All in all, I wouldn’t have left this review if it wasn’t for this uncalled for and intimidating encounter with security. I do not feel safe staying at this hotel… not only because of the food, but because how the hotel uses security to intimidate guests as part of their process for food borne illness complaints.

We reported this to the local public health authority.

2/ROOM
The room was very mid for an InterContinental hotel. It had the high class toiletries, but they didn’t have bathrobes or slippers. When you call room service, they can bring bathrobes. They didn’t give us slippers because they said the slippers haven’t been ordered yet. The pillows were flat and lifeless. Very different from the full down pillows at other InterContinentals. Windows are thin. We could hear the trains and cars outside thru the late night. The AC white noise helped muffle this.

3/LOCATION
This is the main reason why to stay here. It’s 10 minutes drive from the airport, 5-10 minutes walk into Little Italy, and there’s even a small farmers market on Saturday morning just outside the hotel. You’re also about 10-15 minutes from all other locations you’d want to see around the city, like Balboa Park, Ocean Beach, and Gaslamp.