I had the opportunity in March of 2009 to visit Irvine, CA. The Embassy Suites Santa Ana, CA was the perfect place for my family to stay at during our visit. It was our first trip to California and after a day full of cancelations of our flights due to the blizzard that was heading up the east coast and a very long 6 hour flight, it was nice that Embassy Suites was close to John Wayne International Airport. It was less than a 10 minute drive up the Costa Mesa Freeway to our exit for the hotel. Not only was Embassy Suites conveniently located to John Wayne Airport but it was a 15 minute drive to Disneyland, 30 or so minutes to Laguna Beach, and less than 5 minutes to a grocery store and restaurants. It was also just an hour drive to LA and Hollywood.
The hotel was very beautiful and quiet even though it was right of the freeway. The lobby was grand and very pretty but what was even prettier was the atrium of the hotel. It was 1o stories tall and all the rooms were on the outer edge of every floor, most floors even had viewing decks on all the corners of the building. The 10th floor provided a beautiful view of the mountains that were on the edge of the valley.
The rooms were nice and big, very spacious and clean. Like most Embassy Suites it was a split room like a suite, it had a living room with a sleeper sofa and chair, coffee table, TV and table, coffee maker and sink. A door leads to the bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom had two double beds, TV and vanity table/ desk. Nice if you need to do some work on a laptop. Some rooms had a balcony, ours did but it wasn’t much a view as it was on the north side of the building facing some other buildings and a road.
The hotel had a large pool, sauna and hot tub and an exercise room with nice big windows to let light in during the day. It also had a full breakfast bar and fix to order omelet bar every morning and also a full service restaurant. In the evenings they also had free drinks and snacks. A business office was right off the pool area with some desktop computers and cable hook up for laptops. They also had very large banquet rooms and some conference rooms upstairs. The hotel did offer laundry service or you could wash your own but the machines messed up a lot of times and took a long time to dry and wash clothes. Off the check inn area there is a small connivance shop that sells drinks and snacks and things you may have forgotten from home.
Over all I would recommend this hotel to anyone looking to visit southern California.