Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort

Great location, OK facility

Timeshare trade to a 1-bedroom unit. Carlsbad Inn is OK for an older facility. Very convenient location. Pleasant staff all around. Small pool, small hot tub. Plenty of kids. Nice interior lawn and lawn chairs. No WiFi in the units. Access to the two, slow computers in the library was in competition with teenagers. The facility is under renovation, with some warnings about construction noise, but we weren't bothered. HVAC was out of commission throughout the units (March 2008), so the front desk offered extra blankets and electric space heaters. The weather was moderate, so we didn't need the extra's. Parking in the underground area is $5.50 per day.

Timeshare unit was OK. The units are oriented to face north and south, and unless you get an upstairs unit, there is no view of the ocean to the west, and only the west end upper units have any direct view to the west. Ours was on the first floor.

Comfortable pillow-top bed, lots of pillows, and plenty of drawer space and hangers in the closets. Nice little patio outside facing the side street. Well equipped kitchen, but we hardly used it due to the many places to eat in the vicinity. VCR and DVD players in the living room and bedroom, with a small selection of rentals in the hotel. We appreciated the daily voicemail messages about activities. The bathroom is cramped, with a kiddy-sized toilet. The bathtub/shower is inconvenient, built diagonally into a corner and with a shower door--not friendly to older, arthritic users.

At the front desk, we agreed to a "one hour casual tour presentation" for the new Marbrisa Resort down near the Flower Fields, sold by the same company. Ha! Lovely model, but it turned into a serious, two-hour, double-team, full-court press sales job for Hilton Vacations, probably because we are timeshare owners elsewhere. Timeshare presentations aren't new to us, and we switched to another mental channel even before the second salesman joined the effort.

Unique Quality: This is a good jumping-off place for exploring the coast from San Diego to Long Beach. Several old missions within easy distance. Wild Animal Park, beaches, restaurants, San Diego cultural events.