The Capistrano Coast House

I was lucky enough to stay at El Caminante Bar and Bungalows the first weekend in March. I was traveling alone for work and I cant say enough great things about this place. From the staff, to the rooms, and the atmosphere they've created. The attention to detail is unmatched. Does the train come by a couple of times overnight? Yes. Does it matter? No. The beds are so comfortable that even if you're a light sleeper you go right back to sleep. Thank you to the El Caminante team for a wonderful and relaxing stay.

Staff location room setting and patio

The outside patio area Also the deco

Great location other than train going by.

Staff members speaking Spanish very loudly while working by patios. The night shift employee on Friday evening was very odd and intrusive. Bed wasn't comfortable whatsoever. Room was too tiny for such a large bed, couldn't sleep.

Great view of the sunset over the Pacific while relaxing over drinks and dinner. Chiminea and relaxing on the patio at night and morning.

El Caminante has a great vibe, good taste and a cordial staff — not to mention mixologist Paul’s original cocktails.

Poor internet connection.

Love this recently restored Spanish hotel. If you are like myself and appreciate historic details and beautiful early Californian antiques, you will not be disappointed. Ocean views from the bed and every window in the suite. The fireplace adds ambience and warms up the room. Bathroom is small but nice. It’s right on PCH but not too noisy. Grounds are lovely with fire pits and a large fountain. No pool but nice that they have lounge chairs on the lawn to look at the ocean. Beautiful bar/check-in lounge area. Overall a nice romantic hotel. Looking forward to our next visit.

The bed was comfortable. The staff people were personable.

A lot of reviews describe the charming tile work in the building, but there's not much more than that going for this place. It's fundamentally a very old motel right on the busy Pacific Coast Highway (and dead level with it) with a view of the road, a railroad track, multiple layers of rusty chainlink fence, and a parking lot before a fairly unappealing beach. There's nothing you can reasonably walk to in the immediate vicinity other than the beach, so you have to drive to get breakfast or anything else. I suppose if your goal is to be halfway between the Mission at SJC and the town of San Clemente, the location puts you midway between them. There's inadequate parking for all the guests so if you're a late arrival, you have to park on the highway. Although they serve meals, there's almost no proper area to sit and eat; to be inside you have to eat on a 15" high coffee table, and outdoors it's too cool at night unless you are lucky enough to snag the one table by the lone heater. Even then, eating right by the highway on patio furniture that looks like it came from a garage sale isn't especially charming. We got the premium room that has a separate lounge room, and the furniture there is equally tired. There are three tiny tables too small to even set up a charcuterie board. One good sized table would be far more functional. The place tries to save electricity by putting low wattage bulbs in the lamps, making it difficult to read at night. They charge extra for in-room coffee and tea, which I've never seen in a hotel. We stayed two nights and they didn't service our room in between...I guess their policy is that you can ask for it, but they didn't tell us that when we checked in. We're generally not that picky about room details if we're getting a place for $139 a night, but we paid a LOT to have a nice Valentine's weekend, and this place failed.

Breakfast & coffee was great. Bed was super comfortable. We loved the little patios and how clean & fresh everything was, and the decoration/style was amazing and unusual. So much more interesting than a chain hotel.

Wished we had known about the trains earlier as we needed ear plugs, and the bed was a little tight in the room.