- A video review of the Marriott Marina del Rey hotel.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
And in this video,
I'm gonna tell you everything you need to know,
if you're considering a stay around this hotel.
We'll take a look at the neighborhood around the hotel,
the common areas of the hotel.
And we're gonna take a look at the inside
of one of the rooms.
This room, a king size room
on the eighth floor with a Marina View.
So, first of all,
let's talk about the neighborhood.
Located in Marina del Rey, Marina del Rey,
this Marina back here,
is North America's largest Marina home
to 5,000 folks.
Marina del Rey is a 1.5 square mile neighborhood
that is right next to Venice Beach.
So, this is great,
if you're coming to the Marina.
It's also great,
if you're coming to Venice Beach.
Walk into Venice Beach,
it's just about a four block walk.
You'll be right at the Venice Beach Pier
in about 10 minutes.
About a 20 minute walk down
to the famous Venice Beach Boardwalk
with all the shops,
crazy restaurants and street performers.
The Marriott itself, is located on Mother's Beach.
This is not an ocean facing beach,
this is on the Marina.
So, it faces the bay.
It's great, if you've got little kiddos
because the water doesn't have any waves.
I don't know if it's the world's cleanest water,
but if you wanna walk to the beach by the ocean,
that's just a 10 minute walk.
Not too far away.
Marina del Rey itself,
if you're looking to walk and you like walking,
along the harbor here,
there's some neat Promenade's,
where you can walk around here and jog around here.
Pretty safe at all hours.
Venice beach, maybe not so much,
but Marina del Rey pretty safe.
Now, let's take a look at the inside of the hotel.
Let's taking a look at the front of the hotel,
is the valet drive.
It is 100% valet parking.
It is $45 per night to valet park.
There is a circular door to get in,
but it's being cleaned right now.
Coming into the hotel lobby
on the right here.
You see the check-in area for the hotel,
for check-in stands.
In the back here,
there's a little bit of a courtyard.
You would think the swimming pool might be back there,
but there is no swimming pool in this courtyard.
You just see there's a few chairs and a place to sit,
but you see the pool be in the back.
The hotel's restaurant and bar,
is right here in the center.
And in the morning they've got a small Starbucks stand,
set up right there for coffee.
Now, the swimming pool is located
on the front of the hotel.
It's a small swimming pool,
with a jacuzzi in the back.
Note there is plenty of space for lounging.
Now, just inside from the swimming pool,
appears to be the hotels lounge,
was currently closed due to COVID.
When I was here, there are the guest room elevators off
in the distance.
There's a large ballroom in the back,
and then heading down these stairs,
there's a whole host of lower level meeting rooms.
And the hotels basement level gymnasium
and fitness center.
This gym has a number of machines,
but there are no windows down here,
just mirrors.
Not really a place that I would want to work out.
Now, that we've seen around the hotel,
let's check out one of the guest rooms.
First, let's head into the elevator,
and you can see the vintage of this hotel
by looking at these elevator buttons.
They've put some interesting blue lights in here,
but these buttons are similar to before.
So, we're heading to the eighth floor
and you might actually notice
the light works on the right,
but it doesn't work on the left.
Heading out of the elevator on the eighth floor.
If we spin it around here,
we'll also see some of the wallpaper
is peeling right here next to the elevator.
And the guest room,
floors themselves look recently remodeled,
just like most of the hotel.
The hotel has this interesting undulating shape,
which, I think, does a good job of helping
to keep the sound noise down on the hallway,
because it's got some bends and curves.
Now, that we've seen everything around the hotel,
let's take a look at the inside
of one of the rooms.
This is the king size Marina Bay View room
on the eighth floor.
Gonna switch to wide angle so you can see more.
Here is the king size bed,
nicely appointed sheets, nice and clean.
There is a little seat here in the corner.
There's a great view.
We're gonna come back to in a second,
once we take a look at the other amenities
in the room.
Here on this wall,
we've got a refrigerator down there,
big screen television, nice desk,
and a mirror where you saw me start this video.
So, now, let's go ahead and take a look
at the Marina View.
I'm gonna switch to a normal lens instead
of wide angle.
So, you see this as normal.
This is looking out, England from Marina del Rey,
you can see the Marina right there.
There's a little beach in front of the hotel.
There's a public beach parking lot.
And then the beach, beach with the ocean,
is just down there.
So, it's about four blocks
to the Venice Beach Pier.
This is a pretty nice view.
The balcony in and of itself,
you know, you can't put any chairs out here.
It's pretty small,
just enough to stand on and see the view.
Now, heading back in the room,
let's take a look at the bathroom right here.
Oh, there's a small closet right here.
You know, it's got some hangers
and iron in it,
as most closets do.
The bathroom is a pretty good sized bathroom.
Sink there, toilet over on the right.
And then just over here,
we've got the bathtub and the shower head.
I will point out, I don't like this.
But it's got the common soap and conditioners,
no little bottles,
just these shared ones right there.
Nice grab handle though,
that you can hold onto when you go in the shower.
Now, that we've seen all of the hotel,
let me give you my final review of the hotel.
And I've decided to do it out here at the beach
because I think it looks nicer
than the inside of the room.
Well, if you've watched my reviews, regularly,
you'll know, I rate things on a scale
of one to five Topher's.
And so, how many Topher's does this hotel get?
It gets three and a half Topher's.
So, now let me tell you the pros
and the cons of this hotel,
why it got three and a half Topher's.
So, the first probe, great location.
I love how close to Venice Beach it is,
but I love that it's out of the craziness
of Venice Beach,
and it's in this nice Marina del Rey place.
So, my room was quiet.
I slept quite well.
And you can walk around Marina del Rey,
nice at night.
Another pro, it's been recently remodeled,
so it has kind of a clean new vibe.
Another probe, the staff was really friendly.
Everybody interacted with the check-in staff
to the valet, to housekeeping,
all super great.
I also think, that this is probably the best hotel
to stay at,
if you like normal hotels near Venice Beach.
I like Marriott's.
I like plain, boring, nice hotels.
If you're looking for something that's more
in the middle of it all.
You might consider the Hotel Erwin,
it's right in the middle
of the Venice Beach Boardwalk.
It's this four story hotel you see right here.
Although, you like to sleep quietly at night,
then you might not like the Hotel Erwin.
And in that case, you would like the Marriott.
Now, let's talk about the cons.
First con, it's an old hotel.
They've tried to renovate it,
but you can tell it's old.
The wallpaper was peeling.
Just kind of weird things in the room,
weird things in the elevator.
I wish they would have done a better job
on the remodel.
I also don't like that everything is valet parking.
I like to self-park my cars.
Now, if you don't mind parking across the street,
you can park in the Mother's Beach parking lot.
You can park here overnight.
The rates are somewhere between six to $15
for 24 hours.
It just depends on whether it's winter,
summer or the weekend.
I also don't love that there's not a lot
of stuff immediately around the Marriott.
Like if you're looking for a supermarket
or things like that,
it's a bit of a long haul
to those different places.
If you're looking for something
to eat directly behind the hotel,
there's this neat little strip mall.
There's a number of restaurants in there
that include a Ramen Thai Japanese.
I really enjoyed the Kebab restaurant.
Though, my favorite place to eat,
and it's just about a mile down the road,
is called C&O Cucina.
All of their pastas are super delicious,
so are their garlic rolls.
So, if you're looking for a good dinner option,
head over to C&O Cucina,
a little bit of a long walk,
but super easy drive.
I did have one more issue,
and that's what the air conditioning in the room.
It's got one of those thermostats
that you can set the speed,
low, medium, and high.
Though, medium doesn't seem to exist,
so the air conditioner could only be
on Gale's Force, wind high or fairly blowing low.
I had to keep it on high the whole night,
and build like a pillow fortress
to keep the wind off my face.
I mean overall, I slept well and it was cold.
I just wish there was actually the medium fan speed.
You know, and I also wonder all
of the rooms have balconies,
but you can't actually put anything on the balcony.
You can't sit on it.
You can stand on it to see the view,
but it would've been nice
to have some tables and chairs,
out on those balconies.
So overall, should you stay
at the Marriott Marina del Rey?
Well, if you're coming to Venice Beach,
and as I said, if you're looking
for a nice normal clean hotel
that you can sleep well in,
checkout the Marriott Marina del Rey.
If you want something in the middle of it all,
check out the Hotel Erwin,
or check out something in Santa Monica.
But speaking of Venice Beach,
if you wanna know more about Venice Beach,
you can find my locals guide
to Venice Beach right here.
Or are you gonna explore the Canal District,
the Historic Canals of Venice Beach.
You'll find my video on that right here.
That is just two blocks in this hotel.
So, a neat thing to explore, if you're here.
As usual, I won't say goodbye
because I'll see you in one of these videos.