El Camino Memorial - Sorrento Valley & Memorial Park — Attraction in San Diego

Sadly I've been meaning to write this review since February 2nd but have not found the strength to do so till now.

My dear mother, Farideh Nazari, passed away on January 27th and I was the only surviving immediate family that she left behind. I had less than a week to plan for her memorial and called El Camino with an incredibly short runway to get things in order.

I spoke to Nicholas Valentin who was very direct in utilizing what little time we had to get things scheduled in a very knowledgeable and professional manner. I was in a poor emotional state, as can be imagined, so it was good having Nick there to provide a voice of compassion, reason, and comfort in providing needed assistance in arranging what would work best with my limited time and budget.

My mother had donated her body to science and the cremation was to be handled by a third party but we wished to honor her memory at El Camino being that we had both shared in many solemn memories there throughout the years and have honored the memory of many loved ones there who have passed away over the past 2 or 3 decades. These events were always difficult to endure but the staff at El Camino and the beautiful facilities helped us both get through those tough times so it was only fitting to pay homage to my mother at El Camino as well.

Even though we had a limited budget, Nick and the El Camino staff truly went above and beyond in helping me to facilitate the event. Rachel and her colleague Sabrina were assigned to help lend a hand with my mother's memorial but I wasn't expecting them to do much more than help make sure the tables and vases El Camino was to provide were placed out in time. I had opted to bring in numerous more photos than the one requested and additionally there were a number bouquets that we hadn't planned for all of which had me scrambling until Rachel and Sabrina came to the rescue.

Rachel was instrumental in going above and beyond in helping me to arrange things, put up numerous poster sized photos, arrange flowers, put out memorial cards, help ensure all of our guests were attended to and directed to the appropriate areas, in addition to simply helping to honor my mother's memory. Sabrina helped Rachel as well in going above and beyond in facilitating and this was a common theme in working with the rest of the staff at El Camino as well.

The event itself was a very beautiful memorial and truly helped to honor my mother's memory. When all was done and said, Nick even assisted me with putting my mother's remains in urns which was not something I was prepared to do on my own.

I will always be indebted to Nick and his amazing team at El Camino. Death is a sad reality in life and knowing that there are people like Nick and his staff out there to help us in our time of grief to get through such difficult times is a true...

Had a very disrespectful experience which I can't believe from the El Camino Memorial Cemetery today. Just lost my mother and after services the park removed all the flowers and mementos from the grave. SO VERY DISRESPECTFUL TO THE FAMILY. SHAME ON El Camino Cemetery for employing such a unprofessional, disrespectful person.

Chris the General Manager was so rude, disrespectful and un to my mother who passed and our entire family. This person should not be working at El Camino Cemetery. We are saddened to have to report this, but other families shouldn't have to be abused like this.

We will be reporting this experience to the State of California.

Thanks for responding to this situation. The rules were not the issue. The issue was the attitude, demeanor and "I DON'T CARE ATTITUDE" displayed by your subordinate to the family. The communication and they way it was given, including the body language was unacceptable. The words used in conversation were poorly used in a demeaning fashion. We were also told if unacceptable items, including flowers were left on the grave, that "THEY WILL BE THROWN IN THE GARBARGE". This type of unprofessional communication and very poor concern for the family after the passing of our loved one is just not acceptable. Another employee "Mark" give the family permission to place the flowers and items on our Mother's grave. We understood that only in March and October each year that those things had to be removed. When I spoke with Anna after the items and flowers were removed, she told us that Mark was just filling in at the front office when we came in to "Ask Permission" and that he was not informed as to policy. Well, we are the client and can't guess if employees know or don't know the proper policy as communicated to us. Also, since our family member was just recently buried in the cemetery, I would think that someone in management would use common sense to reach out to the sales person who was helping the family to make a simple call and communicate a policy issue to the family so that it could be resolved directly with the family. Instead, all items including our Mother's flowers were totally removed from the grave. Of course, this was a shock when family went to the grave still grieving our loss. This along with no compassion by your subordinate and just down right rude exchange made this one of the worse experiences ever. We have family at other cemeteries in San Diego and have never encountered such a poor, unacceptable communication and violation of our family religious freedoms with such dis-respect. Thank you for sending your email of which I will write to further this issue. We are still recovering from this violation of trust and religious expression along with the dis-respect towards our Mother at...

Please, do all a favor - don't die! But if you have to, for a mercy to survivors – DO NOT have El Camino Memorial Park (the "ECMP") as your resting place. Don't let the time of grief and reflection be overtaken by brutal awakening of dealing with the management of this cemetery. My parents died in 2016, 6 weeks apart. Paying an extravagant price for the interment place, we expected an adequate service. To our astonishment, the burial vault (paid $$$ separately) collapsed during my mother's funeral ceremony. As a result, the burial ground showed significant sagging and instability. Complaints about poor workmanship and pleas to correct the problem fell on deaf ears. Constantly changing ECMP's "counselor" stuff contributed to poor management, professional incompetence, and frustrating unaccountability. Finally, 2.5 years later we decided to install the monument. Again - unanswered daily calls, empty promises, blunt unprofessionalism. It's probably understandable why at that point we've decided to use an outside contractor. Not so fast - ECMP met our intent with a set of cemetery rules and regulations. ECMP management didn't care that we were never introduced to these rules before signing the sale contract... We could continue with our nightmarish experience and ongoing fight. But we think you've got the point. You can be sure that at the ample of your complaints, somebody, like the cemetery manager, Mr. D. Trobaugh will float out with his "... we want to be part of your family ..." and assurances of their ability to feel your pain - just adding an insult to the injuries. What a travesty. Complaining to DCA won't alleviate the pain – apparently, we're not alone in our dissatisfaction. The bottom line is - You and your loved ones deserve Better....