Omni La Costa Resort & Spa — Attraction in Carlsbad

My wife and I came here for a date night / staycation and were severely disappointed. Here is ChatGPTs roast of the situation:

Ah, the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa—where luxury and hospitality are allegedly on the menu, but only if you manage to make a reservation on Google first. Let’s break this down, shall we?

The Restaurant Experience: Imagine strolling into a restaurant at 6:45 PM, hunger in your eyes, only to be met with a hostess who channels the energy of a velvet rope bouncer at a nightclub. “Walk-ups? At this hour? How dare you.” Meanwhile, Google casually whispers, “Go ahead, make a reservation. I got you.” You sit there thinking, “Is this a restaurant or an escape room?” But hey, you cracked the code, made the online reservation, and waltzed back in like some tech-savvy hero for your 7pm reservation. Bravo.

The Check-In Debacle: Check-in starts at 4 PM. You graciously give them almost two hours of buffer time, arriving at 5:45 PM, only to find one lone front desk warrior who’s deeply entrenched in what must’ve been a life-or-death phone call. Perhaps they were negotiating world peace, or maybe just explaining to another poor guest why their room still wasn’t ready. Either way, it took 15 minutes for you to get acknowledged—15 minutes you could have spent, oh, I don’t know, not regretting your decision to come here.

The “Vintage” Room Experience: Oh, the rooms. Where do we even start? Walking in, you’re greeted by a smell best described as “grandma’s attic meets nursing home chic.” It’s not just old—it’s aggressively old, like the air itself has memories. And the bathroom? A hair in the shower that looks like it might’ve belonged to the original builder of the resort. Honestly, a time capsule at this point. Not to be outdone, the hot tub serves up its own surprise: sand. That’s right, sand. Because who doesn’t want their relaxing soak to come with exfoliation you didn’t ask for? At this rate, the only thing “spa-like” about this resort is the need to shower twice when you get home.

The Bartender's “Mintless Mojito” Adventure: A mojito without mint is just lime water with a bad attitude. But props to the bartender for making it your problem. Asking your wife if she’s cool with this affront to cocktail-kind is like serving someone cereal with no milk and saying, “It’s fine, right? Same vibes.” No, it’s not fine. It's criminal. Someone should call the beverage police.

The Valet MVP: The valet, bless their soul, was the one beacon of hope in this comedy of errors. Loading your luggage and retrieving your car with grace and kindness, they might as well have handed you a participation trophy for surviving your stay. But the irony of their excellence peaking during your departure is just chef’s kiss. It’s like the resort saying, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, but here’s your luggage. Please don’t come back.”

The Summary: In conclusion, Omni La Costa is a one-and-done kind of experience—a place where your fondest memory will be leaving it. So to anyone considering this resort: save yourself the Google reservation, the sand-filled hot tub, and the outdated room décor that smells like it’s waiting for retirement. Book...

Dana Said & Catherine Miller just gave me the best customer experience I've ever had. I had realized I lost my passport checking in & they were amazing, comforting, reassuring and professional. I wasn't even able to take in the breathtaking views of the resort, and the beautiful lobby because my heart sank when I realized I left my passport on the plane. As a Canadian Traveling in the US, I felt so stressed and scared and overwhelmed. My first experience was with Dana. She handled the situation from the get go with confidence and professionalism and sent me to my room first. She reassured me she'd get the phone calls started, and encouraged me to take a walk and a breath of fresh air to reset. I felt so discouraged by the situation that lay ahead of me...what was going to happen if it was lost? How would I get home? And she made me feel supported and seen. She spent all night with me making phone calls and encouraged me that good energy would come our way and to come back tomorrow after sleeping it off. I visited the lobby again before Dana started her shift, and was greeted by Catherine Miller. Equally as amazing, warm, geniune and truly caring. I couldn't believe the level of service I was getting, and it made a really stressful situation bearable. Catherine hopped on the phone and started making calls everywhere, and I did the same, and she was committed to helping finish what Dana and I started. Dana started her shift and saw me back in the same spot she'd left me the last night, and immediately came over to check on progress in the situation. It was starting to look like I'd have to make the stressful and expensive trip to LA to go get travel documents at an embassy, and I was getting really concerned. They kept sending me good positive energy. We eventually got the good luck call that the airline had found my passport and that it was waiting for me, safe and sound, and the delta baggage desk in San Diego Airport. I was almost brought to tears and Catherine met me with a hug, Dana with a cheer from across the lobby, and I was finally able to start enjoying my trip. The first thing Catherine offered me was a celebratory cocktail (amazing) but since I was visiting for work and on the clock I said I couldn't officially celebrate until after our day's events had wrapped. She then came back to me with a gift card to the hotel lobby, to buy myself some drinks later to celebrate. The cherry on top to an already amazing customer experience. I have worked in client-facing, customer service roles for over 12 years, and this was the highest quality interaction I've ever been a part of. These two women not only went above and beyond, but you could tell it came incredible natural to them. I am so grateful for people out there who take the time to help others, it restores your faith in humanity...these two certainly did...

The place is exceptional. Without a doubt, one of the best and a world-class resort. It has the ‘old Mexico’ charm and hospitality without having to board an international flight.

Notes to make: I was actually quite surprised that there’s no coffee maker in the room nor are there bottles of water in the room set out on the beverage tray with the ice bucket. I thought it was maybe an oversight on my room only, but while speaking to my colleagues, as there were more than 50 of us attending and staying, I found out that not a single room has bottled water or a coffee maker. When you wake up at 4:30 in the morning, it would just be nice to be able to have something refreshing right there in the room, or make your own first cuppa before dressing for the day.

Furthermore, this was not necessarily in my room, but it seems some of the rooms were turned extremely quickly, and made available before they were inspected. In one room, the bathrobes were missing, in another room pillows were missing, in another room there was a plastic bag of cleaner still attached to the showerhead to get rid of calcium buildups and lime deposits… But the room was cleared, queued and made available by housekeeping staff. These are rookie mistakes, ‘motel’ type of things that make you shake your head. Tsk-tsk-tsk. 😳🙄🤷🏼

The dining was amazing. As we were attending a conference of sorts, we had all of our meals catered by in-house and vendor type restaurants. The dinner when we arrived consisted of a very simple but well appointed taco bar and spectacular appetizers, including lamb chops that were perfectly prepared and the presentation of the appetizers by wait staff was exquisite. Breakfast was more continental style and we were actually expecting that so many of us went to the in-house marketplace café to get a coffee and a pastry first, before service. Finally, and most significantly, though was the lunch the following day that was put out for us… As it had three entrées; steak, chicken, and salmon… and you could choose and have as much of each as you wanted. And all of them were perfectly prepared and exactly what you would expect from a highend Resort. Trés magnifique!

In conclusion and all that being said: The beds are soft, the rooms are clean and the service is well above par for the average tourist and exactly what seasoned, high-end clients have come to expect. As they were more than 50 of us arriving at the same time, we can easily understand and overlook the housekeeping mistakes as it did not detract from anybody’s stay. Highly recommend this resort! Well done, 5stars! 😁👍🏼🥇

(I apologize about the video quality; it was edited quickly and it maxes out at 30 seconds… so I tried to go quickly and comprehensively (twice) but I always run out of time. Sorry about the unstable...