Advice re. location of hotel

We will be staying in LA for 3 nights in April next year, and are planning to see all the famous tourist places while we are there :-)

We have been looking at booking the Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown Hotel, as we can get a pretty good deal there, but are a bit in doubt about the location.. Is it a good base for touring the city?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks and happy new year all.

Advice re. location of hotel

Will you have a car? What is your budget per night?

3 days is pretty short time for all of LA, as each sight is far from each other. Try seeing London in 3 days - not possible. But if that%26#39;s all you have, then you%26#39;ll want to be more centrally located. West Hollywood is a good location.

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Advice re. location of hotel

We do have a car, as we will drive around California for around 2 weeks before ending our trip in LA.

Can you recommend any reasonably priced hotels near West Hollywood?

It depends what you%26#39;re planning to see and do. The hotel is in a perfectly fine part of Downtown L.A. It%26#39;s a good location, especially if you%26#39;re planning to go see things in what we call the west side (like Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, etc.) as well as the Orange County area (like Disneyland, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, etc.), because you%26#39;d be centrally located to both. You%26#39;d be in the middle. But the bad thing about staying in Downtown L.A. is pretty much everything shuts down at night, with the exception of a few restaurants. So you can%26#39;t just go out for a stroll at 8:00 PM and go check out all the shops and things.

What do you mean by reasonable? LA hotel rates are on a par with London hotel rates.

If you have a car, its an ok place to tour LA. Frankly speaking, LA downtown is not much to stay at. Its basically business, courts, city government, street people, and more street people; and some hotels. Its not a place where you will spend any time except for sleeping. If however you have Sheraton points (free stay?) and a car, it can be perfectly fine place to base your vacation knowing you won%26#39;t spend anytime there and you will be fighting the traffic if you come or go during work commute hours (5 - 9:30 and 3:00 - 7:00).

I would recommend checking for a place in the Hollywood area. Touristy things to do in the area; without a car, Hollywood is a good place to stay as easy to go on tours from there.

Yes, I think downtown is a perfectly fine base for exploring greater Los Angeles. It is at the hub of the regional freeway system and the mass transit system. (Yes, there is a subway. Two more lines are opening in 2009 and 2010.) It really depends upon what it is you%26#39;re interesting in seeing. Understand, three days is very little time to see the city. Very little. Moreover, if you think the city is just about Hollywood and the beach, you could not be more mistaken. There is so much more to see and do.

As for the Sheraton, it is a bland corporate property in the heart of the Financial District atop a very bland mall. The parking structure is extrodinarily ugly. (Dynamite, please.) There are plenty of excellent restaurants within walking distance. (You must dine at the Colori Kitchen.) There%26#39;s also an excellent grocery store a block from the hotel.

As for the comments of jcena and mini, they are really out of date now. Downtown is still very much an unpolished diamond in the rough. However, the knock that it closes down after 8 p.m. is simply no longer true. I was at L.A. Live on Saturday night and the newly opened restaurants were packed with lines out the door. The public plaza was thronged with crowds. There are now dozens of new nightclubs, bars and restaurants in downtown. In the past year alone, 62 new restaurants have opened. 62! Even I was impressed when I learned this. I%26#39;d point out aside from all the bustle at L.A. Live, there%26#39;s also the Music Center and Disney Hall. Little Tokyo is quite lively in the evenings now. Like L.A. itself, downtown is spreadout. But, you can now see pretty young ladies clubbing into the wee hours of the morning. Still, a car is handy, which is pretty typical for L.A., because the clubs and bars are not all within walking distance of each other.

So as a base, yeah, downtown is good. My question is will it fit your vision of Los Angeles? If your visions of L.A. are Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the beach and Disneyland, downtown isn%26#39;t really these kinds of places. It is, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the city. But, like any city, it is full of grit and commerce and culture and history and absolute vitality. (Check out the Fashion District.) I love it. Is this the L.A. you are looking forward to?

Be more specific as to your expectations and your requirements. It will be easier to answer your question.

If there%26#39;s any way to add another night or two to your stay in LA., it would help a lot!

Hi guys

Thank you so much for all your replies.

We might be able to add another night, but depends on how the first part of our tour goes.

We would like to see Universal Studios, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Santa Monica and do some shopping while we%26#39;re in LA, but I guess they are just the usual tourist things.

The reason we%26#39;re looking at the Sheraton Downtown is correctly because we have got the points to get our stay almost for free, so I think we will go for that hotel.

Any other suggestions for what to see, where to eat etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again to you all.

Here%26#39;s story from today%26#39;s USA Today about downtown.

usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-12-25-鈥?/a>

While downtown is changing a lot, it is pretty much stil deserted at night in most areas. But if you get a free stay, go for it. Hotel is ok and also right across the street from the subway. So if you are planing on visiting Hollywood for example, you can just hop on the subway for 15 minutes to the center of Hollywood and avoid traffic along the 101 fwy and the hassle of finding parking in Hollywood