Christina D.
Yelp
Our stay here wasn't horrendous, but the weeks leading up to it were atrocious. My husband and I had to postpone our Carmel Valley wedding three times--long story short, Carmel Valley Lodge was the closest hotel to our venue that had enough rooms to accommodate our wedding party and family. Getting a hotel block was easy enough, but that is where the ease stopped. For reference, postponing a wedding three times was incredibly difficult logistically, we moved across the country, and I started my medical residency in the middle of a pandemic. We are used to hard things. Carmel Valley Lodge was the most difficult and stressful part of my life for the last several months.
Being that it was a wedding, we had many guests with the same last name. Several times, Theresa altered the wrong reservation because she either did not remember the person's first name or maybe she didn't even ask. We asked three times for a list of names, rooms, and dates for our wedding block. When Theresa sent us a list, she including the reservation number and names only. There is no way for us to look up the reservation number--we were told by the woman at the front desk that their internal system allows them to look up the reservation number and see what rooms are booked. In short, she sent us information that was completely useless to us.
After countless emails, phone calls, and alterations made to the wrong reservations, about two months prior to our wedding, Theresa finally sent us a list of rooms and the names associated with them (no dates though). The number of rooms and reservations worked out, finally. Just to be sure, about three weeks before the wedding I asked for the list one more time. This list was the most comprehensive we had received, which included the status of the rooms ('held', 'paid,' etc). I then saw that a room we had booked back in APRIL was cancelled (it was August by this time). I called immediately. Theresa told me that someone had cancelled the room back in April, and she could not tell us who or why. I asked her why this room was included on all the lists she had given us when we had asked for confirmation of the rooms under our block. She simply answered with "I don't know." She made no attempt to provide a solution. We asked what could be done for us since we were under the impression, for FOUR months that this room had been booked and there was NO correspondence prior to this that indicated otherwise. Theresa kept repeating "well I don't know what to do." Great. She told us the only accommodations available was a three bedroom cottage. She promised that she would block this room off so no one else would be able to book it, and would make a note to her staff that this room was held for us. We told her we needed a day to think it over as it was much more expensive than the room we originally booked. We called back a day later and she said she could not give us the cottage as the owner of the hotel (her sister) would be staying there that weekend and she had only promised us the cottage because she hoped her sister would not be in town. ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME. First, as the owner of a hotel, if your staff screwed up, it should be on the owner to make it right and forfeit the room--YOU ARE IN HOSPITALITY. Second, the fact that Theresa made almost no effort to provide a solution upon realizing their mistake, is beyond me.
After some harsh words from my now husband (he regrets letting his frustration show), Theresa offered to call other guests to see if they would reschedule, which I was surprised and grateful for. Until she called us 4 times to ask if a certain guest was in our block, when their names were included on the list she had given us of OUR WEDDING BLOCK.
In the end, we actually ended up with the right amount of rooms (I attribute this to the fact I started praying because of this place). Which is where the next part begins. We had booked a room for my dad, and upon arriving to his room, the door was wide open. We had paid $400/night for a suite that was dated, had lightbulbs missing from one of two lamps in the main living space, and a half-broken kitchen light so needless to say it was extremely dark in our living room. One two light bulbs in the bathroom was screwed in so loosely it fell out while I was showering. Literally half of the light bulbs in this place were either broken or missing. Glasses in the cabinet were mismatched and dirty. They give you two dirty, old washcloths in a plastic bag with a sticker on it that says "I'm clean!" which they say is an effort to save on pristine white towels, which I guess is more environmentally friendly but a little odd. To top it off, there was a lizard in our room.
The few pluses: there are two firepits on the pool deck and there is a space to hang out by the event center, which includes ample, comfortable patio seating and is well lit. The location is within walking distance to everything in downtown Carmel Valley and the views are great.
