Stilwell Hotel — Hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea

The Stilwell Hotel excelled on all fronts!! Let me start by saying my husband and I LOVED it and we are picky travelers. Let’s start with the free electric car charging stations conveniently located at the entrance. A lovely front desk and lobby with a welcoming front desk staff—Emely and Alison—who offer a welcome drink! The comfortable lobby has an impressive array of complimentary high end teas and an impressive selection of Nespresso coffee pods! There are bottles of wine and an interesting selection of boutique beers and canned cocktails for purchase. Comfortable chairs and sofas grace the clean glass, wood and stone front lobby where I would have been happy to pass some time but our room was ready! :) The property has been beautifully renovated with an eye to detail using high quality materials and finishes. There are fire pits with very comfortable seating in the court yard, baskets of rolled blankets (even a dedicated one for dogs) as well as a basket of fluffy striped beach towels. On one end is a sleek stone waterfall wall in another corner is a pizza oven and an excellent menu of offerings for casual dining. We had a pizza one afternoon that could have come from a 5 star Italian restaurant. And the complimentary breakfast is EXCEPTIONAL. The quality of the food—individual portions of beautifully arranged of cooked vegetables, chopped fruits, breakfast burritos, poached eggs, granola, fresh baked muffins, Greek yogurts, small smoothies in glass jars, fresh juices—even some special dairy free offerings! The rooms are very well appointed and have the details you would find in high end properties such as fluffy bathrobes and built in headboard reading lights. Linens, pillows and a throw blanket—all lovely. We really appreciated that there was NO wall to wall carpet—instead hardwood flooring and lovely area rugs on each side of the bed that were so spotless we made sure to remove our shoes. The room was sleek, clean, contemporary but warm and welcoming and a wonderful place to relax and unwind. The bathroom surfaces, fittings and tile selections are gorgeous. The hotel location is prime—just a couple of blocks from the hustle and bustle but SO close. Really the Goldilocks zone if you are staying in Carmel and walking to dinner and shopping. We are...

Rare that I ever write a review unless it's due to a horrid or amazing stay. Hands down, best hotel find we've had in years. Starting with Tom the 20 year old bellhop (yes, that's what I call them, lol) with the great attitude. Helped us lug of bags to the room twice. Front desk person made check-in easy. Very polite and acted like they were happy to see us and started us off on right track. Rooms, simply top end stuff. Finishes are amazing (I build high end homes) yet not crazy over the top. Kind of like a high end Tahoe/Carmel feel to them. Beds are super comfortable and thank God pillows were too. Bathrooms spacious, tile and fixtures higher end, towels super soft too. Now onto some of the great stuff. Breakfast is gonna blow your minds. If it didnt come with room, I would pay 35 bucks per person for it. Just that good and quality was beyond awesome.. Everything made from scratch with such a great unique flare to each items. It's a buffet, yet very small specialty items each day. I don't take pictures, yet trust me, it's simply healthy, fresh and unique. This is a smaller hotel, yet felt very very spacious due to the Zen feel to it: plants, lots of grasses, larger water feature in center of outdoor space plus multiple firepits to have a cocktail or glass of wine. Same area is a pizza oven station. We're pizza snobs, they get a 9.9 which is in rare air territory. The mushroom one is amazing..

Nice little coffee/tea bar in room. Multi phone charger inputs. Great headboards with reading lights. TV's are nice and easy to operate. Loved sleeping with windows cracked too..

It's also located right dab in center of everything. Walk to everything including beach. Met a great dog (Gold. Retrvr.) named Cooper there.

Tesla Chargers right by front desk.

There is no weak link in any staff members. Meaning every single one of them has a fantastic attitude.

I simply can't find one thing wrong with the hotel or experience.

For the price paid, value exceeds that price point. So, if you have a choice and even if this ones a bit more, hands down, spend the dollars. Yet, it wasn't expensive...

We booked a 2 night stay at this hotel and it started out really great. Emily at check in was super kind and had great interpersonal skills. After 30 minutes of being in the room, we received news about a family emergency. We were trying to figure out if we should stay until the morning since it was very late at night to drive back home (we live about 2.5 hours away). I went and spoke to Ayla at the front desk and told her the situation. She had a flat affect and showed no real reaction to my emergency. It was such a different experience than we had at check in. Then she told me she would relay the message to the morning staff member who would probably be able to refund our second night or make some type of accommodation with hotel credit. She said “ to me, it shouldn't be a problem, but I don’t have authority to provide either at this time.” Fast forward to the morning, I spoke with Laura? I can’t really remember her name. She told me since it was booked through Chase travel, I would need to speak to them instead. We spent 30 minutes on the phone with chase and they reached out to the hotel to speak to them about this situation and they declined to provide a refund or any type of credit. I basically got the runaround instead of just being told they couldn’t do anything. In this type of situation, that interaction was very unprofessional and unproductive. For a family owned hotel, that was quite surprising. We thought the hotel was really great and in an awesome location and spoke about coming back immediately after checking in. However, due to their lack of empathy especially in the service business, it was...