The Hollywood Roosevelt

The day before we arrived, I chose to pay $100 for early check-in, as offered to me on my check-in form. We drove from Phoenix and I was excited I had opted for that because we arrived at 2pm- an hour before the scheduled check-in, and $100 for even just an extra hour in the room felt totally worth it. We were coming to the hotel for a 4:30 wedding on the roof, and after a 6 hour drive, I was hoping to touch up my hair, wash my face and do my makeup. Easily done in the over an hour from 3pm check-in to the 4:30 ceremony, but more time is always great! The woman that checked us in seemed annoyed that I even mentioned that I’d paid for early check-in. She cut me off when I began mentioning it, saying “we’re fully committed, and that’s based on availability.” The front desk person helping us was the one with a moon tattoo’d on her forehead. Sorry we didn’t catch her name. We were disappointed, but didn’t yell at her or anything. We sat in the lobby patiently waiting for the text she said we would receive when the room was ready. The text never came. 2:30 ticked by, 2:45.. we assumed of course it would be ready by 3. Nope! We never got a text. By 3:15, there were several front desk staff and a line of angry people. We didn’t think to pester the very busy front desk staff (because we were told we would receive a text) until 4 when we went up to check up on our room and they immediately gave us keys. What did we do wrong? Genuine question! Getting to our room even at 3 would have been great. Receiving the text we were sassily told would come would have been great. I’m in customer service myself, so we were apprehensive to take a spot in line when the staff were dealing with a lot of angry customers, but we paid enough for the room that we would have appreciated getting in at *least* at the check-in time advertised. Not the fault of any staff, but the elevators were in poor order for most of our stay so getting to and from our 8th floor room was a struggle. The valet was great, though the “text ahead” feature didn’t seem to be working or be kept up on. They seemed surprised when we mentioned we had texted ahead every time. We likely won’t be back, but the wedding was stunning, the majority of the staff were helpful and sweet, and the proximity to the walk of fame was fun.

Despite everyone telling me LA is a dump don’t go there, I was keen to scratch a 30-year itch during a family west coast road trip vacation. I liked the retro look of The Roosevelt and was certainly attracted by its history and location. You literally step outside the lobby onto Hollywood Boulevard and the walk of fame. We arrived after a drive from Santa Barbara and were soon checked into our room about 2pm so headed down to the Tropicana pool to relax. Maybe it was a little naive but as a family with older teenage sons, I don’t think we expected to find ourselves gaining access to what seemed quite an exclusive poolside “scene” on a Friday afternoon in Hollywood! Initially it felt very uncomfortable as the pool host wanted to see our room key and advised us there was a wait for sun-beds. In fairness it wasn’t a long wait and soon we were mingling with LA’s beautiful people 😉😂. Thankfully we soon relaxed as it became clear the beautiful people were ably-assisted by a lot of plastic surgery and our money was as good as anyone else’s there. I really enjoyed the vibe, the DJ was dropping some great tunes (I think the theme was 90s retro dance) and soon had my Shazam set to auto to curate a playlist for myself when I got home. That evening we tried the 25 degrees restaurant and really enjoyed it, the service and food were great and seemed reasonably priced considering where we were. Later that night my wife met Lindsey Lohan in the hotel elevator who looked to have been enjoying herself at her movie premiere of Freakier Friday! As I mentioned the Roosevelt is ideally located for that part of LA and very close to the Hollywood bus tour we took the next day to explore the greater LA area in the short time we had there. Saturday afternoon at the Tropicana pool was in higher demand and my wife had cause to complain as the host seemed to be very obviously taking tips to accommodate people cutting the line for sun-beds. The rooms were in good order with nice AC, comfortable beds but felt a little cramped for a family of four but it wasn’t much of a problem for our two nights there. I would like to pass on a special mention to Chief Concierge, Nicholas Niboucha who replied to an email I sent to the Hotel before arrival with some questions as he provided very comprehensive answers and was extremely helpful. I also feel I should apologise to the actor, Daniel Dae Kim who kindly asked my wife if she would like a selfie in the lobby on the Saturday night but she abruptly declined saying she didn’t know who he was 🤦‍♂️😂. Overall a very enjoyable stay and somewhere I would recommend if you want to stay in this part of LA.

Georg, carlos and Alexis made my stay here. Service was amazing. I stayed here for one week. I came from New York. Everything was top-notch, but those three people aforementioned made my stay feel above and beyond the hospitality was amazing.

The location is right on the walk of fame, but this is noisy and sketchy- not a good place to base yourself. I did regret staying here and choosing this hotel. The hotel itself is a lovely and historic building- the pool is nice and relaxing and the beds comfy but the bad outweighed the good. I booked 2 rooms for 4 nights each and they both had the same issues: aircon too noisy to keep on during the night, could not open window for air due to noise outside, Toilet kept flushing unless the lever was flicked back into the perfect position, combo bath/shower had too much pressure so bath would fill whilst showering and take very long to drain, phones would not make local phone calls even after several attempts to input the correct codes, TV would turn off during the day whilst watching, BUT at night it would turn on (3 times during the first night). This made me feel very uncomfortable and I mentioned the issues to the front desk after the first night- I asked for the TV to be disconnected from power to avoid night time disturbances. The hotel was aware of the TV issues-these are common occurrences and the hotel was fully booked so we could not move rooms. Their response was to refund the resort fee- I assumed that this would be for all 4 nights as we remained in the same rooms. Upon check-out I saw that only 1 night resort fee was removed ($35), and I asked why not all 4. After unnecessary and uncomfortable negation with customers waiting behind me, the hotel manager (who did not come out to speak to me face to face) agreed to 3/4 nights resort fee being refunded for both rooms.

The Hollywood Roosevelt is a beautiful, iconic place to stay and experience Hollywood Boulevard and all it has to offer. You'll love everything about it, especially the pool and the elegant lobby. UNLESS, someone with more money than you would like to keep these wonderful amenities to themselves. I booked a weekend at the Hollywood Roosevelt for me and my son. It was to be the epic father-son weekend, with time at the pool, and lounging in the lobby after dinner. I booked our trip many months in advance. The day of our check-in, I received a text informing me that the pool would be closed for the entire weekend of our stay. Not for an emergency. Not due to some unplanned, unavoidable act of God. For a private event. Someone booked their wedding for that Saturday night and wanted the entire pool for their party. So, all the other guests at the hotel were simply barred from the pool. On Saturday morning, we were informed (again via text) that the lobby would also be closed to guests for the rest of the weekend. The wedding party would be hosting their reception in the lobby. The ONLY compensation for this total loss of hotel amenities? They deducted the $35 "Resort Fee" from my bill. I've contacted the hotel no fewer than six times to try to speak to a manager. Not once did I receive a call or email in response. Go ahead and book your stay at the Hollywood Roosevelt. If you're lucky, you'll love it. But there's a non-zero possibility that someone with a bigger pile of cash than yours will lock you out of the best parts of the hotel. And the management won't care in the least about the thousand dollars (or more) you wasted.