John F.
Yelp
My wife and I have been to the Headlands five times over a period of a few years. The location is hard to beat, and the views from every room are amazing. But the prices have risen dramatically and the quality of our experience has fallen significantly since our first visit. Our last trip was the least enjoyable one yet. At this point, the Headlands charges luxury prices but does not offer a luxury hotel experience. A great location does not mean you can skate by on subpar service. The hotel was well worth it a couple years ago but now is overpriced and probably not worth a visit.
Our room on our last visit was very clean and comfortable, as always. But we were right next to a stairwell with multiple, heavy doors leading outside and into other areas of the hotel. The noise from the stairwell and doors was loud and fairly constant in our room during the day and well into the evening. We also were on the lower level for the first time and had an upstairs neighbor who seemed to be stomping around their room for hours at a time. If you aren't on the top floor, expect loud, irritating noise from the room above you. If you are hoping for a relaxing, peaceful experience, a whole lot of unexpected noise can really ruin it, as we learned.
We also were disappointed with room service. Dinner was nicely plated, but the food was bland and overpriced. We also noticed that the menu states that they don't charge an extra fee beyond 20% gratuity for room service, but all the items are a couple dollars more than on the in-restaurant menu. It seems disingenuous, and even dishonest, to claim there are no fees when the fees are just rolled into the cost of each dish. Worse yet, we ordered room service breakfast on our final morning. Service start at 8, and we called at 8:08. We were told it would be 45 minutes for one dish (a trio of toast with pate, smoked fish, and avocado) and two pastries. A long wait, but not too unreasonable. In reality, the food took nearly two hours to arrive. I even called after a little over an hour and was told it was almost ready, which obviously was completely untrue. That kind of wait is just unacceptable, and there was no explanation or apology. And when the food arrived, the avocado (1/3 of the dish) was so underripe it wasn't edible. I would guess the hotel is understaffed and probably not paying enough to attract more workers. Regardless, the wait completely derailed our final morning. If they had only been upfront about how long it would be, we would have found breakfast elsewhere. Instead, we sat around getting hungrier and hungrier as our our checkout time approached wondering when we would get to eat our overpriced toast.
Another weird issue - we brought a nice bottle of wine to enjoy in our room. When I asked for wine glasses at the bar, I was told they could only give me stemless. The bartender refused to give me stemmed wine glasses to bring to the room. At $550/night or more, there is no excuse not to accommodate such a simple request. Most hotels that I've stayed at at a lower price tier already have wine glasses in the room.
As mentioned, the hotel is obviously understaffed. For instance, you can ask at the spa desk to order drinks for the hot tub, but in our experience the desk was empty most of the time, which meant having to dry off and go upstairs to the bar to order. That wouldn't be a problem if the hotel charged less, but again at the prices they're charging they really should be offering better, more efficient service.
We had a number of other small issues as well. Perhaps most galling, I emailed the hotel with some of my concerns when we got home from the trip. I never got a response. No apology, no acknowledgment of any issues. Nothing. I normally would not post negative yelp reviews, but it seems like the Headlands doesn't care about guest experiences anymore, and I feel like at this point people should be warned away. If the hotel was more like $350/night, it would be worth it. But their prices keep going up and no longer correspond to the quality of the experience.
