Luxe City Centre, Los Angeles

LA LA land, if it’s not the international sporting event’s at the Staples Centre that gets me flying 11 hours over the pond, it’s the monkey bars at Santa Monica Pier, or the chance to act out my childhood dreams of being Billy Rosewood.

Location

As you have probably figured by looking at google maps, Los Angeles is huge. Unless you’re wanting to stay in Down Town LA there are hotels in better locations. From LAX, after dealing with the whole faff of a rental car it takes roughly 20 mins on a good day. Without the faff in an Uber the same time for about $30. If you’re in a rental, there is both on-site parking for an undisclosed amount or a parking lot next door for $17 a day if memory serves me correct. Alternatively, if you’re wanting a more scenic “experience”, take the number 40 bus which will run you $12 and take an hour through places like Crenshaw…

Over the road, you have The Staples Centre for any number of massive events. Same with the Microsoft Theatre for things like the MTV VMA’s. If you’re there in December, grab yourself a Starbucks and have a little ice skating session.

Superior Room

The superior room 1 king bed is Luxe’ entry-level room. As you can expect having neighbours like St Regis and JW Marriott, you get a lot of square footage even in their entry rooms.

The King size bed is perfect, genuinely a slog to get yourself out of bed in the morning it’s that comfy. The pillows are in 2 sets, 2 firm and 2 soft depending on your preference. I’m sure housekeeping will hook you up if there’s 2 of you and you both like 1 type. The duvet is warm and fairly light, though it does take a bit of effort to release it from under the mattress.

Unlike the bedroom, the bathroom is a little smaller but a decent size nonetheless. It is very basic however with no bath and no underfloor heating. Still, at least the mirrors are heated so when you grab a shower, you don’t have to worry about them steaming up.

Whilst we’re talking about the shower, the large head, plenty of pressure (which seems to be customary in the US) and enough room, so you won’t be bashing your elbows on the sides, leads for a nice experience. Just be wary of the tap, there aren’t individual taps for hot and cold, instead, you have to turn it all the way around to get hot. Basically, it’s a bit of a gamble when you turn it on as to whether it will be scorching hot or cold. When you turn it off, if you don’t do it quickly, you will get freezing cold water on you.

If you’re packing hand luggage only or for some reason your luggage doesnt turn up, Luxe have you covered with complimentary toileteries from Lather. They aren’t the best brand out there, but they’ll do and get you out of a jam if needed.

The wall-mounted TV was okay so long as you aren’t expecting 4K. There’s plenty of channels to keep you entertained and if you need to, you can plug your laptop in at the desk and screen share. The position of where the TV is mounted is a little perplexing. Halfway between the armchair and the bed trying to cater for both scenarios, in reality, it falls short for both. They should have just mounted it at the end of the bed like most hotels with a room layout like this.

The office desk and ergonomic chair is a great little feature of the room and very handy should you need to do some work. I put in an 8-hour stint of editing photos, emailing clients and planning/booking logistics and loved it. It has everything you need, my only 2 criticisms would be; the leather desk pad, wits nice to work on but using a laptop, leather isn’t good for thermals. The second would be the phone, holy shit do they charge a premium when ringing free to call numbers for booking flights!

A word of wisdom, don’t go raiding the mini bar, prices are eye wateringly expensive.

All in all, it’s a nice room. Yes, the power socket situation is very poor (2 Sockets at the desk and one on the right side of the bed) but the bed’s lovely and the shower is big and powerful. If you’re a creative type and you hit a block, it’s nice to watch the world go by out of the window for 5-10 mins looking down onto The Staples Centre

NIXO

The NIXO bar and terrace is a great place to be if you’re a fairly wealthy sports fan. You see the venue itself is quite sophisticated, the kind of place you’d expect to be rejected if you’re anything other than rather well dressed. This isn’t the case though and I’d hedge my bets and say you won’t spot at least 1 person not wearing a jersey.

Luxe leans into this with a total of 8 TV’s showing games meaning if you want to sample a beautiful sex on the beach whilst watching the 49ers dominate the Seahawks, you can. It creates a great vibe and a nice place to be if you’re a sports fan. Don’t read that as people going wild for a hail mary, just lots of sports talk. Couple that with some nice beats and there’s a great ambience even if you aren’t into sport.

The large terrace is a nice place to be. During the day it’s fairly quiet and relaxed should you want to have an informal business meeting. In the evening it transforms to a very cosmoploitan swanky cocktail terrace with plenty of patio heaters to keep you warm, not that it ever gets cold in LA.

This is where you want to be seated though if there 4 or more of you in your party. Sat around the fire, drinking away as the sun goes down. Though the photo above is shot in the daytime, I can assure you when it’s dark out, this area of the terrace is magical.

The Lobby

If you can, you ideally want to check in over the phone as the lobby can get busy from 12:00-15:00 with people checking in. I wouldn’t normally complain about having to wait to check-in but there isn’t much seating and with no TV’s or Magazines to pass the time, no complimentary drinks coupled with only getting the WiFi code when you check-in, it isn’t ideal.

The Gym

If there’s a good gym in a hotel, I’ll go out of my way and fit some sessions in. Needless to say, after walking in and checking it out, I walked straight back out. How can you call the above a gym? It just isn’t. If you’re a fitness fanatic then I’d recommend going for a run around the block.

A treadmil, step master, bike, no water and no changing rooms. Abysmal!

Summary

Well if we totally disregard the shitshow of what is supposed to be a gym, it’s a nice hotel that I’d recommend any day of the week. It’s not cheap with rooms starting at £200+ a night but the DTLA location is perfect for city drinkers and sports fans. The rooms are nice, the beds are comfy and the staff are accommodating.

For those that want to expereince Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive and the likes there’s hotels you can choose in better locations.

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