Monterey Beach Hotel, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel

"There’s a lot to like here but also some shortcomings too. Location is awesome. Right on the beach and I mean front row seats. We were in an ocean facing room on the third floor the sound of the ocean breaking drowned out the AC throughout the night. Views are phenomenal. Soundtrack is brilliant! Check in was clunky with delays with all sorts of reasons. Nearly missed our dinner booking in town. But was only 10 minutes after the guaranteed 4pm booking time so no biggie. However throughout this trip to the US many hotels were able to accommodate check ins well inside the guanteed check in period! This one was the only one we encountered where they couldn’t get us in. And it was Sunday night. It was like there was not of organisation at checking in. Apparently when you check in you get an additional card. This is for the wine dispensing machine adjacent to the bar. We used this on the second day of our stay. It’s a neat idea but it wasn’t explained to us on check in. So effectively wasted 2 glasses of wine. Good or bad? No biggie for me just a pity it wasn’t explained clearly to us. Room is ok but shower/toilet area is very tight with not much room to swing a dog! Shower runs all over the floor too. Speaking of which there were dogs in the bar/foyer area whose owners were intent to let them bark at will. I get this is the US but really, people? We’re spending $4-500 a night here and you can’t stop your dog from yapping indoors?? There is a coffee machine in the room but they supply 3 coffee pods. In our world we enjoy 2 coffees each in the morning. Thankfully the lovely lady servicing our room was happy to leave an extra pod. The king bed was comfy and pillows very soft. Tv huge with all the usual movie channels there. Oh no robes either. Breakfast as ok and the food quite good. The server forgot the side of bacon and the two OJs. She did offer the OJ at no charge to her credit. We had dinner upstairs on Monday night and our server, Cameron looked after us admirably. Thank you Cameron and the crew. A great job all round! The starter serves were huge! Luckily we had 2 starters for starters and then another 2 starters for mains! More than enough food! Muscles and the grenadier for the starter starter! And the Duck and prawn salad starters for the mains, great food and plentiful too! We enjoyed an intentional 30 minute break between the starter starter and the starter mains! Honey and salted caramel ice cream followed. Oh we enjoyed the Paysan rose during the meal as well! There are outdoor areas with gas fires and comfy seating. There appeared to be fire pits beside the wall to the beach but I was far too lazy to investigate! Whilst advertised as the only beachfront hotel and it is, it’s an Uber rider downtown. This is not a criticism just an observation. Would I stay here again? Doubt it."