Elena N.
Yelp
Dates: Saturday, December 21st, 2024 to Tuesday, December 24th, 2024
Booked Thru: Hilton website less than 3 months prior
Room Booked: KING PACIFIC VIEW
Upgraded To: KING OCEAN VIEW
Room Number: 641
The hubby and I try to take one beachy vacation a year. Since we didn't get a chance to around our birthdays, we decided to do a late bday celebration over my holiday break. I have Hilton Diamond status and have always wanted to stay here. I was doing some random searching and found three nights open for a standard reward redemption at 120k points a night. I had a free night certificate as well, so I thought why not?! Let's do it. Their cancellation policy was 3 months out, so once I booked it, it was a done deal. It ended up being 240k points plus the FNC.
I have to admit, I did stalk my reservation a bit. At one point before our stay, we were upgraded to King Deluxe Ocean View, but that was taken back and we eventually ended up with the room above. The room was on the top floor in the back of the resort, so we still had a nice view even tho we were far from the beach. The room itself was a good size. The plunge pool was an awesome perk as we could chill outside while enjoying the atmosphere.
When you arrive, you get a welcome margarita. When you get to the room, there is a cute pink bottle of tequila with nuts. (They no longer do clase azul.) You also get a daily delivery of two mini coronas with chips, guac, and salsa. If you're not in the room, they'll leave it there for you to enjoy later. The mini fridge was stocked daily with two each of - diet and regular soda, beer, sparkling water, and I think some kind of juice? They also have glass bottles they refill with drinking water. Upon leaving, you get a sugar cookie shaped like a turtle which was very cute. Since we were celebrating our birthdays, they did give us some cute candles and a bday dessert during our last breakfast.
While here, we did Room Service, Pool Service, El Farallon, and Don Manuels. Room service was tasty. We got a cobb salad with lobster, side of chicken, and fries for $107.42. This included tax and a 15% service charge as will all the totals below. Pool service was nice while lounging. Two casa amigo blancos, a macallan 12, and the pedregal burger for $153.27. For dinner at El Farallon, we just went all out and ordered whatever we wanted - a large water, a glass of bubbles, one wine tasting, the oysters and caviar, the surf and turf, and the snapper for $637.97. Afterwards, we hit up Don Manuels for a woodford reserve, macallan 12, and two cigars for $135.96. After we checked out, since our flight was later, we killed some time at DM again and got a mitchers rye and macallan 12 for $81.22. All prices above are in USD.
Our personal concierge Danna was awesome. Avail via text any time. We'd let her know when we were gone so housekeeping could drop by. I believe we only did turndown service once. They left a cookie each as part of this service. We didn't finish our tequila bottle, so they bubbled wrapped it for us to take home.
Due to my diamond status, we had free continental breakfast every morning. I believe it ended at 11am. The hubs and I did breakfast together the last day. Upgraded to the buffet for two for $52.40. By upgrading you get hot food, so we were able to have eggs, sausage, pancakes, etc. One of the days, I asked if I could get breakfast to go so we could eat it at the beach. They happily obliged. The packed up breakfast included - pastries, fruit, cereal, granola, yogurt, coffee. The service at all the restaurants and bars was amazing.
Where the service was lacking was the pool and the beach. I'd have to flag someone down if I wanted to get chairs set up, food / drink service, etc. Also, if you like sitting on the beach, you may have a hard time finding a spot. The hubs and I are beach people, but the beach area for chairs is tiny. There were only about six chairs set up that initial day. When I asked about sitting there, they said there was no more room. We ended up in the pool area. Another day, they had about eight chairs, so luckily we got a spot. (Tho not sure why they couldn't have added two more chairs the first day.) The day we were leaving, they had even more chairs! Idk the logic as to capacity, but it seemed odd to be denied that first day.
Don't get me wrong. This resort is beautiful. And most of the service was excellent. But considering this is a beach / pool resort, it shouldn't be that hard to find places to lounge by the beach or pool. They definitely need improvement on that. I did look and see how much this would have cost to book with money and it would have been close to $10.5k. I know we went during the holidays, but I don't think it's worth that price.
For value, I probably would have rated this spot 3 stars, but I'll bump it up to 4 based on the beauty of the resort and service outside of the beach / pool.
REVIEW #3663