We stayed here for 5 nights at a conference held at the hotel for two of the days, and some vacation for the last two. The hotel is elevated on a cliff with lovely views of Dana Point Harbor. The exterior of the hotel is in keeping with the architecture of the surrounding homes and buildings, though its drab dark red roofs with gray and white trim is not an exciting color palette. The location seems close to shopping and restaurants if you view it on a map, but the reality is that to get to those businesses, one has to either traverse a long staircase, or take the long way around using a steep driveway to get up and down from sea level. This presents both a physical and mental barrier to going down the cliff. Nonetheless, there are some great restaurants at the bottom of the cliff. The shopping is minimal in the Dana Point Harbor shopping area. We didn’t have a car, but ride share services were easy to use and much less expensive than renting a car and paying for parking.
The meeting room was excellent with comfortable temperatures, good seating and lighting. The catering for the meeting consisted of very good food, presented well, and served at the right times, with multiple stations to handle 300 people. The food choices were obviously chosen by the conference organizers, because it was all gluten and dairy free, and healthy. Bravo to everyone involved.
Check-in was quick, and our room was ready at 2:00 - 2 hours before the usual check in time. But, the room was a disappointment. The room itself was called a King Executive Suite with Ocean View, Balcony, and Eating Area, and was quite expensive. Unfortunately, being in the basement level, it had no view of the ocean, no balcony and no eating area. The room was pretty dark and gloomy. It was spacious, however.
The bathroom was adequate. Towels were somewhere in-between luxurious and thin. Robes were cozy. Amenities included pump bottles of products and a hairdryer, and no other grooming items. The shower has one of those rain showers (which I don’t like) but a nice handheld unit. Unfortunately, it is a rectangular shower with only a wall in the front half, which does a very bad job of keeping water in the shower when using the rain shower, and a terrible job if using the handheld. There is a nice lighted mirror and a nice lighted magnifying mirror.
The king size bed was comfortable, pillows were very nice. There were good charging ports and bedside lights. Room storage was ample. The decor is bland and neutral with lots of hard surfaces. Much of the wood furniture showed wear. The WiFi was slow and spotty, and overall unsatisfactory. The flat screen TV’s were large, but worked extremely slowly, which may be reflecting the poor WiFi signal.
The only windows in the room were the sliding glass doors which looked out onto the service area behind the pool. This would have made stepping out to the pool area quick and easy, but of course one couldn’t leave and lock the door behind you, which negated this possible advantage. There was a sliver of ocean in the distance, hence the “ocean view” designation. There were two chairs on a patio that must have met Marriott’s loose qualifications for a “balcony“. We did discuss this with a hotel manager, and he gave us a token and unacceptable discount on the room rate.
I don’t believe that there is a complimentary coffee station in the morning (at least we never found one), but there is counter service in the OverVue restaurant where one can get coffee and limited breakfast items; pastries, bagels, and (in a separate refrigerated unit) yogurt parfaits. A full breakfast can be found in the main restaurant downstairs. This upstairs area is also a restaurant and bar area later in the day. The staff are great. The prices are egregious, and a 20% gratuity is added to everything, eg. cocktails can be as much as ~$16.00-23.00, plus the ~$3.00-4.00 tip.
Overall, the decor and atmosphere of the pool, common areas, and restaurants are all adequate, but bland and unexciting. There is no real gift shop, but the Marketplace store has some snacks, toiletries, and some sweatshirts and souvenirs.
Overall, this was an excellent business hotel for a conference. But, as a place for a vacation, I wasn’t impressed. I thought the decor was unexciting, the location awkward because of its cliff-side elevation, and the cost of food and rooms was not justified by the quality. Our stay was specifically adversely affected by their rather loose definition of “ocean view” and “balcony”. I wouldn’t recommend this hotel for a vacatio
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