Timber Cove Resort — Hotel in Guerneville

Timber Cove has one of the most beautiful views I have ever experienced at a hotel. We stayed on the second floor and it was truly majestic and breathtaking to walk in to a beautiful ombre sunset and wake up to the blue ocean view with a soft breeze on your face. Our room had a sofa, record player, and window facing bed and the shower was also very modern.

Now here is why this is not a 5 star review: the service. While all of the staff were polite and friendly they were very forgetful. Here are a list of incidents that just made our stay... not as smooth as it could have been.

1. Dinner on the first night We had reservations to eat at their restaurant at 8:00. We let the host know that we had reservations and were told to hang out a bit in the lobby. So our party ordered drinks and waited... and waited... and I offhandedly said, "I wonder when we're getting seated?" A passing staff member said, "I can seat you? Do you have reservations?" Apparently there was a miscommunication or someone forgot! Because the person we had checked I with was actually gone- as in gone home! So we got seated. By the time the food came out it was close to closing time at the resto. The food was very cold as if it had been sitting out on the table for a while. The food (starters, small plates, main dishes) ALL came out at once but BEFORE the wine. So we had a bunch of cold food on our table with nothing to drink. We did explain this situation to the person in charge for that night and they comped a couple of items off our bill so, that was remedied in a way.

2. Drink containing Dairy Products I saw my friend having an espresso martini while we were waiting so I ordered the same. I asked the bartender if there were any dairy products in the drink since I have a pretty bad sensitivity where I almost immediately get nauseous, dizzy, and short of breath. He said there were no dairy products so I got my drink. Soon after, I felt exactly the way I feel when I drink milk and went back and asked if he was sure that no dairy was used. He said, "No, just Bailey's" ....I googled it and well, Bailey's does have cream in it 🙄. Luckily I only had a little so I wasn't feeling too bad but isn't this something the bartender should know?

3. Next morning: we were trying to make coffee but we had no filters and no regular coffee. So while ordering breakfast room service on the phone we asked for them to being coffee and filters for us. Our breakfast came but no coffee and no filters. So to the staff member who brought it, we asked him again if he could bring us the 2 items. He said alright and then.... we never got it. We called the front desk again and asked for coffee and filters and we... never got them. Fortunately, iur friends traveling with us were right next door and they could easily pass over their leftover coffee and extra filter from the porch.

4. No cleaning services during the stay. This is actually due to COVID precautions but honestly, the policy doesn't make sense and plenty if not all the hotels Ive been to are still cleaning rooms. You don't even get fresh towels unless requested.

This is an extra but weird note: Our room had square pillows. 1 pillow was squished in the case to make it look like a square and when you fluffed it, it became a "normal pillow" but the rest were like an equilateral actual SQUARE pillow lol.

However, dinner on the 2nd night was superb. The manager for that night (I want to say steve..??) was so apologetic about the previous night's mishaps and sincerely made sure our food and wine was perfect. The quality of the food and service was top-knotch. He even gave us winery recommendations for our trip and called his personal connections just in case we wanted to visit them as well. It was a complete 180 from the night before. So Timber Cove is a great place but with patchy service. Unfortunately we were never able to procure coffee and filters. But I do recommend this beautiful venue...

Our stay was sept. 8th through the 10th.|We are a retired couple, well traveled and foodies.|Booking: Different. You book a view rather then a specific room number. Except for the suites. We booked the Timber Cove Room. Details said it had a fireplace which was a must for us.|Rooms: The first room they showed us was #11. It had a queen bed, one nightstand, no table or chairs and the end of the bed was 3ft. from the wall. No fireplace.|We are traveling with a 70lb. Doodle. No place for the dog bed. We picked this place because it has in room dining, which we were looking forward to using. I went down to the desk and asked how were we to have room service without furniture? They said they would bring us a table and chairs. I asked where they were going to put them. I then asked what else was available. They took us down the hall to room number 17. Much bigger and had a fireplace. I expect that they try to rent #11 to see if they can get away with it, the rooms a joke. New room ok but still had nowhere for room service. Only one chair was table height, the other a useless modern low slung model. Our view was over the outside event area and of a large boulder formation with a public path 2ft. from our window. Had 2 chairs brought in. The bed and bedding are excellent. The lighting was horrible. Dim chandelier over the bed with a reading lamp on both sides. The entry area lights consisted of 2 sconces with dim bulbs. We had to use our phone lights to see well enough to make a drink. The fireplace was a joke. A sad little 2 in. flame. As it was foggy the whole trip we were very much wanting to sit around a nice fire. Extremely disappointing. |Dining: As we had the dog and room service was impractical we had to dine in the lodge. It has various tables and stools and one table with 4 chairs that had a back and arms. We dined around the availability of that table as it really was the only one with any comfort. The food quality and service were spotty. They didn’t pay enough attention. The black cod and burger and the tomato salad were great. The chowder and fish & chips were not. On Wednesday evening I ordered the pork chop and my wife the heirloom tomato and fruit salad. One bite of the pork chop told me it was left in the brine too long. Way over seasoned. My wife agreed. I explained to the server and he didn’t want to taste it. Fifteen minutes later they brought another of the same. I ended up ordering the hamburger which I had before and knew it was great. Fifteen minutes later they brought my burger entree. Mind that my wife’s meal was now over 30 minutes old. I found this almost impossible to believe, but they did not insist on replacing her meal with a fresh one. No class. Not only that, after causing us a 30 minute delay they offered nothing but apologies after admitting that the pork was indeed over brines and off the menu for the evening. No comping of the entree, no glass of wine or free dessert offer. These people who are in the hospitality business have no idea what they are doing. The highlight of the trip was the wonderful local talent playing in the lodge Wednesday evening, it was lovely. This place calling itself a resort is a stretch. Vinyl record players, billiards and board games do not a resort make. I find their lack of info at booking to be purposely misleading, as the rooms by modern standards are small and if shown truthfully would lead to much less bookings. Despite numerous complaints over the years they still have not put up signage to direct you to the reservation desk from the parking lot. Great location on the coast,...

Great part about this place is that it's on the beautiful Timber Cove cliffs. Frontdesk and bar service seem both lazy and incompetent. When we checked in, we asked what our room rate was given we were supposed to receive a discounted rate for an event that was being hosted there. After frivolously searching for 10 minutes, the woman at the front counter informed us that she couldn't tell us but she would email us a receipt that includes what the rate would be. We give her the email, and to this day have not received anything from Timber Cove.

After a moment of hesitation given her general inability to answer any of our questions coherently and succinctly, we ask for a printed receipt. She proceeds to print one out and gives us a receipt with a BLANK price. We ask how she could possibly not know how much we're being charged for our room, and what purpose could a receipt without a price possibly serve. She lazily looks around as if she is bored with the conversation and no longer wants to be there. She says she'll let us know later, which she of course never follows up on.

Proceed to the evening in the bar area, around 8:30 / 9pm, our friends are informed by the bartender that only well drinks or beers are available because she's winding down. There are at least 20 people making their way to and fro the bar. We then go over to get our own drinks, to which we are informed that the bar is now closed. We ask when the bar closes given the listed hours say "Late," and she tells us that generally when things start getting quiet. This is while looking out at a crowd of again, 20 people all drinking and enjoying themselves both inside and outside. We move on, but when we retire a couple of hours later, we see she is still hanging around the bar, which seems to indicate her job requires her to still loiter around the area. Maybe she doesn't care for tips and can't be bothered, but it was bizarre and felt like someone phoning it in that wanted to collect a paycheck while doing as little as possible.

When we checked out, we were finally informed as to the price we were paying: we had been charged the daily rate that was listed on Google Hotel price aggregator for that very weekend, as if we had booked it on Friday morning for a Friday afternoon check-in, despite reserving months in advance. We simply paid and left because we didn't want to be a bother to the event organizers. I'm sure others were similarly taken advantage of, however.

Rooms were okay, lacked character unless you got the best suites. If you had a sea view, could be nice. Facing the shore has an extremely mediocre view. Internet was poor and we overhead the kitchen staff talking about how the overall connection was fast but the wifi sucks. Best part of our stay was the burger at the restaurant. Truly delicious. Front of house management needs to be replaced as mentioned. No spirit of hospitality.

Overall, this place is overly expensive for what you get and dealing with most of the staff is an exercise in tedium and frustration. There are much better hotels along the coast that are worth how much you would pay for Timber Cove Resort. They want your money but don't want to put in the work for it, making for the worst combination of greed and laziness. Recommend skipping or park nearby to enjoy the nearby hikes, which are not exclusive...