The Hard Rock Hotel San Diego Reviews

If you are looking for a wedding venue that makes you feel like a Rockstar for your bigest day of your life. Please do not overlook the Hard Rock Hotel. Contemporary Awesome Rock and Roll wedding like you cannot imagin. None of that frilly, prissy, girlly stuff.

We are so happy we chose the Hard Rock Hotel! From our very first visit we knew it would be the perfect place for our wedding. We just love everything Hard Rock! After our initial consultation we were convinced they had everything to suit our needs. The hotel is modern, edgy and all about music!

The food was very good. Not a single person complained about anything which was awesome! We got to choose two meat entrees and there was also a vegetarian option available. Everything was yummy and filling! During our tasting I wasn’t really happy with the chicken entrée I initially chose, so the chef offered to make something a little different which ended up being perfect. The alcohol and food prices are a bit high, but that was not unexpected for a hotel in downtown San Diego. You do have to use the in house catering which might be an inconvenience for some but was perfect for us.

One minor inconvenience we encountered is in order to use Elevation you must rent both the suites connected to that area. It ended up working out well for us, but was a tough pill to swallow initially. Also, parking is pretty high so we suggested our guests be on the look out for other options.

Our consultant/catering manger, Erin Rudolf, was just awesome to work with! I’m so glad we had her to help us through the contracts and details. She was very honest and forthcoming about all the services and associated fees. Overall the Hard Rock staff was very accommodating and super nice to work with. Everyone had a phenomenal time! Best night of our lives!

The Hard Rock was great, once we got an event planner. The first one we were contracted by disappeared, and I had to call for weeks to get my Save-The-Dates in time to send them to my international guests. They are like a blank canvas, allowing you to create your dream. They accommodated lots of little extras we wanted, like a changing room for Storm Troopers.
My biggest problem was with food service.They cleared plates without checking to see if people were done and almost a third of my guests didn't get cake because they were dancing and the crew cleared untouched plates. The food was not very good at the wedding. It was amazing at the tasting, though. My risotto was burnt.
So, since you have to get the food through them, I was not happy, especially since I paid $125 a head.
If you want fun atmosphere and a great experience, check it out. Just don't expect the food on the day of your event to match the tasting.

I loved my wedding, and while it had its hiccups, most things went smoothly. However, leading up to the wedding, working with the Hard Rock was a nightmare and if I could do it over, I would have gone somewhere else.

The responsiveness and communication is absolutely maddening. Voicemails would go unreturned and emails could take weeks for a response. Things as simple as a room block took months and constant harassment, and I didn't ask for a deal or anything fancy, just simply to book one (I finally got so fed up that I called two other hotels and got a room block in 24 hours and at better rates even though I wasn't having my wedding there!). And requests are forgotten--such as when we scheduled a walk-through with our personal coordinator and the Hard Rock two months in advance, we find out the day before that the Hard Rock booked our reception room to someone else and that no one at the Hard Rock would be available to show us the room (and we were only informed because my personal coordinator sent a reminder email to the Hard Rock about our meeting). And this unresponsiveness and incompetency continues for the entire process--even my banquet order, which we nearly pleaded with them to get us, was provided a couple days before the due date and was completely wrong (as in the number of meals and seating arrangement was made up).

Watch out for pricing--initial costs was ok--not cheap, but what I expected. However, if you add any extras, they will try to gouge you. We had an open bar, but wanted to purchase some nicer scotch for our guests and the prices were shocking (e.g., $375 for a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black that costs $25-$30). Same goes for any other upgrades.

To be fair, the venue itself is beautiful, and the service staff for the wedding was fantastic (only reason for any stars). The food was solid and drinks were tasty. It's a shame because the hotel has so much potential, but given my experience I would warn others to stay far away.

My wedding day turned out absolutely amazing and I could not have asked for anything better for the day of (most of that was a lot of hard work on my part). However, everything leading up to my wedding day was pretty much horrible. The Hard Rock is such an amazing hotel and they host huge parties and concerts weekly I would have thought that having my wedding there everything would go smoothly. I was completely wrong. Their lack responsiveness and professionalism just blew me away, and for what they charge I expected much, much more from them.

First, my contact at the hotel left shortly after booking with them, only no one ever told us. No out of office on the email, no courtesy email/phone call with who my new contact would be, nothing. Then it happened AGAIN! My second contact there left and it took me two weeks to find out and get a new contact.

It took over a month to get my tasting booked and they were not flexible at all. If they had just let me know early on when they could schedule tastings I could have made arrangements but they were so hard to get a hold of and took forever to respond to anything.

When we went for the tasting we saw that there was a huge stage being erected on the Woodstock Patio where our ceremony would be. They "forgot" to disclose that the stage would be there all summer and could not be taken down or moved. They did offer to drape it in black fabric to help with the look but the whole thing was a nightmare to deal with.

I won't get into too many more details....I could go on and on. There were many times I wished I could have had my wedding elsewhere and absolutely would have if it were a possibility. It makes me sad to think of all the stress and tears they caused when this was supposed to be the happiest time of my life.

I would tell anyone considering to host their wedding here to reconsider. The only reason they are getting a star at all is because my wedding day did turn out great.