Hey - I went to a school on the west coast in San Diego that I would not recommend. However you have to remember that I went about 4 years ago so it MAY have changed since... but I do believe the owner is the same so you might wanna ask someone who's been there recently.
So I dont upset the mods with name dropping and all that PM if you wish to get the name.
My reasons for not liking this place basically hung on the fact that my booked slots were given away to pilots coming in off the street looking for a few hours here and there to hour build... i.e they pay more for the hour than I did as I paid in small installments.
But as far as flying in that area goes it was brilliant. I flew from Gillespie airfield and you have good busy air traffic to deal with so you pick up your RT pretty quickly. The west coast is less prone to those nasty florida thunderstorms too however the only weather problem I encountered was haze during the mornings, but once the sun came round it burned through and all was fine.
I'll also echo whats been said about getting your ground exams out of the way, do ones like Human factors, principles of flight etc first as they're quite easy. I always thought that doing the navigation and law etc were easier once you'd been up for a few lessons as you have first hand experience.
Personally, I found the 4 weeks really really intense with having to study for your ground exams too. Flying for 4 hours a day takes it out of you and you really dont want to have to read through the technical book after a long day!!
Hope this helps - Good luck with whatever you decide
Ian