Oeno Wine Lodge — Hotel in Baja California

So I originally was going to give 4-stars until the one issue explained on the bottom.

1st issue with this place was the Air conditioning in Room 6 was too weak. I reported it July 8, 2019. So if that specific unit still has a weaker AC, it goes to show how well they listen to their guests. I tried to open the double doors for circulation, but the second door was stuck. We decided to leave the AC on for when we came back from lunch and fortunately (?) the weather cooled a bit and we forgot about the heat and requesting a new room.

The television in the unit is useless, literally no channels at all. Not even music. The WiFi is lacking, I had to use my own mobile data for a stable Netflix connection.

What is with the parking situation? This needs to be explained better to the guests. Because there is none near the rooms. We had to walk all of our stuff back and forth around two football fields distance because the single lane road was blocked.

Finally, I hope the $20 to get my ID returned to me was worth this review. Gave my ID to the receptionist to check in and when I asked for it back I was told he needed another moment. A minute later I was given a very long explanation that distracted me enough to make me forget my Document.

I understand where it’s my fault for forgetting. But I have to say: “out of sight, out of mind”. The receptionist had all the opportunity to yell for me to come back, I mean I was the only guest there on a Monday. He could have taken it to my room. He could have left a note for the next receptionist to hand it to me when I checked out. I didn’t realize that it was missing until I arrived at the US Customs booth. I called them and was told to wait for a call back.

They gave me two options. Pay $20 and an employees brother will deliver it in person that same Friday. I told him, it’s totally unnecessary to go all the way to the business address on my ID. If he can’t make it before 8pm, Just drop it off in any USPS mail box and they are legally obligated to deliver it to me at no charge and I will pay them their $20 over PayPal, Venmo, or mail a check whatever. Or pay $40 for them to ship it through DHL(?) and it’ll take two weeks. I needed it sooner.

Friday, guy texts me and says he might be late. I reminded him of just dropping it off at a mail box. Of course I was ignored and he also never showed up. The week after, he apologizes and we setup another appt to meet, and I reminded him a third time, any USPS mail drop box at any location in the US. I’m left hanging a second time. Two weeks after my stay he randomly shows up to my work and finally delivers it. Unfortunately, by then I refused to wait another day, I had already reported it as lost and paid for a replacement the day before. I should have left word with my work colleagues to refuse it, but oh well.

Again, I hope that $20 was worth this review. Because I do not believe I should have had to pay for something that could have been avoided with a bit of professionalism from a hospitality service. They had enough opportunity to properly take care of it and instead decided to inconvenience me further to get more...

PROS: Beautiful location, my wife and I stayed there for a wedding about a month ago. The location was perfect. Close to most of the places we wanted to visit. Service was quick. Food & drinks at iPetra (inside the ranch) were top notch. Didn't try anything that wasn't delicious. The event staff and the wedding was all great.

CONS: The Service seemed to be a bit disconnected, we'd set up the reservations through whatsapp, and they had the additional days we added, mixed up. They were able to accommodate us, but it wasn't as smooth as we would have liked.

I also ordered flowers for my wife through the front desk, and they quoted me a price for 75 roses coming from Ensenada. When they got there, they sent a picture and said it was less flowers than they had expected, but it ended up being 45 flowers and 20 chocolates. Still a nice bouquet overall, and they notified me it was short when they arrived, but since I had to pay in advance, and needed them at a specific time, there wasn't much I could do about it without spoiling the surprise, 40% less flowers is a fairy large discrepancy without a discount. We also had to

Now on to the major issue. We left a gold wedding band in one of the bags we left in the room while heading to a wine tasting off property, and it went missing. Waited a month before posting this to allow time for us to thoroughly go through our luggage, and have time for the lodge to change their response if they had found it. Took them less that 15 minutes to tell us the housekeeping staff didn't find it originally, and upon following up they said they disassembled the bed and didn't find it anywhere, unsure if that would be something they just say, but that info wasn't offered until I reached out again recently. It was the only jewelry she had left behind that was marked with a quality rating engraved, i.e 12k. There's little chance we dropped it, and don't want to accuse anyone of stealing without direct evidence. If it was stolen it could have been the maid or one of the 3-4 guys who were driving around and working on the property. The doors used a keypad. Seemed that everyone had the code. Overall the service was decent, but don't leave anything behind that's easy to ascertain value and easily pocketed.

The layout of parking is a bit dysfunctional. It's easy to walk through the row of grape vines to get to your car, just inconvenient. I'm sure eventually they will use some heavy equipment to make a parking space next...

We've been to OENO four times before this past trip. All trips were successful and while the cabins have experienced more wear since our first trip - the place was well run and a really nice central stay for the Valle. However, on this last trip we encountered too many problems to repeat a visit here ever again. ||We paid for a three night stay. On the first night we found our power flickering and no Wifi accessible accordingly (this caused our cell phone bill to be much higher than we had anticipated - an extra cost to our trip thanks to OENO). They promised they would fix by the next morning. No such luck. Now our phones are not charging (which is not a good thing in the Valle - if you need to use Google to find your way around). That night, not only do we have lights flickering (see pictures attached - I can send you videos if you want), but now music is blaring from the restaurant until well past midnight (our cabin was closest to the restaurant but I walked outside and could hear it all the way at the last cabin. Now the A/C and Heater are not working because they draw too much power - it's February and it's cold (not a pleasant temperature in the cabin). They have workers pounding on stuff underneath our cabin for over an hour - things are not going to get fixed tonight either. ||After the second night, we talked to the front desk about leaving early and they said that we could move cabins but that they would not refund our money for the third night. I wasn't about to pack up my entire car full of all of our stuff and move to a cabin down the way where we would still hear music until the wee hours of the morning. I talked to the front desk person who was on the phone with the manager who refused to give us any sort of money back for our troubles or for the third night stay because we were leaving. ||Terrible business and terrible experience. I would not stay here again and would not recommend it to our friends (as we have in the past). There are lots of options in the Valle of wonderful places to stay and we'll be doing that...