Pacific Edge Hotel — Hotel in Laguna Beach

Whoever is in charge of the operation of this hotel must have some dirt on the owner because otherwise it's a mystery to me how they still have their job. I should be able to go into negative stars for the performance of the front desk staff. I stayed here because I was to stand as best man at my friend's wedding. The couple booked about 10 rooms for their family to stay at the same venue as the wedding. Since check-in is at 4 pm & I would need to be ready for photos at 5, I decided to add 1 night before my pre-booked reservation so that I could relax & get ready at my leisure. The bride gave me the confirmation number for the reservation she had made & I called the front desk. Spoke to someone named Joelle who seemed extremely bored having to take my call. I explained the situation & they said I needed the credit card used to originally book my reservation. I again explained the situation that I don't have the bride-to-be's credit card, I just want to extend my stay by a day. They said I could just book the other night with my own credit card. I told them that's fine, but I don't want to have to check out then check back in. That defeats the entire point of me coming down a day early. I was assured (in the blasé tone of the entire call) that I wouldn't have any problem. I was given the exact same confirmation number for my updated reservation as the bride had given me. When I arrived to check in, the lady at the front desk couldn't find my reservation either with my name or confirmation code, so I was forced the explain the entire situation all over again. I, again, stressed that I do not want to have to check out & check back in. A luxury resort should be able to handle this. (Being a luxury resort doesn't just mean charging a lot of money. Service HAS to go above & beyond for your guests.) She also assured me I would have no problems & that they would keep my credit card on file for incidentals on the 2nd day. The next day, as I was bathing & relaxing in my room, preparing to get ready for the big day, the front desk sent housekeeping on me 5 times. I explained to them that I'm not checking out until tomorrow. If there's a problem, they can radio the front desk to sort it out. Minutes later, I get a call from the front desk saying I had to do THE ONE THING I repeatedly told them I did not want to do -- go to the front desk & check back in. As I grabbed my room key & credit card, there was another knock on my door from housekeeping (despite having explained I'm not checking out & having the DO NOT DISTURB hanging on my doorknob) & the door shut behind me & keycard was deactivated. So in bare feet, PJ shorts & a t-shirt, I had to walk across a filthy parking lot, an alley, up stairs back to the front desk where I found the groom doing his best to keep his cool. A different guy was at the front desk & they were giving the groom trouble because the reservations were made under his fiancée's name & credit card. He pointedly told the guy, "do you honestly expect the bride, who is getting married here in a few hours, to stop everything while she's supposed to be getting her hair & makeup done to come here & check in each of the 10 reservations we have made as they all arrive?" The guy working the desk had the temerity to ROLL HIS EYES at us. It was at that point I curtly told him I was here to do the one thing I explained repeatedly I shouldn't have to do but because of their incompetence, I had to do anyway. I put my room key & credit card on the counter & avoided eye contact because if I saw another eye-roll, I was going to lose my temper. After about 10-15 minutes of struggling with the equipment, they were able to reactivate my keycard. I asked the groom if he needed me to stick around & he told me he'd be ok. Plus I had to get back to my room & wash my feet as I was tracking filth from the parking on...

Very bad experience here detailed below that we firmly expect violates at least three state laws in California. If anyone else has similar problems, I encourage you also to do one of the following:

1. you can contact the California Attorney General, Rob Bonta’s office.
2. you can contact the non-profit consumer protection group Travelers United. (they seem to have great legal clout even over much lesser issues).
3. File a credit card dispute.
4. Contact California Consumer Affairs State laws we found applicable: California Unfair Competition Law (UCL), the California False Advertising Law (FAL) (False Claims Law), and the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA).

We leave many more good reviews than bad reviews (most are on Google) so we are pretty easy to please but Pacific Edge Hotel had deceptive marketing at least through 3rd party listing sites such as VRBO. Felt like a pretty solid bait and switch. They hooked us (and apparently others staying here from discussions we had with other guests) into non-refundable bookings, claimed they had no control of their representatives/listing agents, claimed they “didn’t care about reviews”, didn’t act like they cared at all to look into the details of our concern (it came across like this problem happens a lot), and forced us into a pretty rough room facing the alley upon check-in that didn’t match what the listing agent conveyed (since the reservation was now non-refundable we were cornered) unless we wanted to pay much extra for a room similar to what is depicted in photos when, per their website, that same room (and even an ocean front one no less) was showing to cost less than we paid for the rough room facing the alley (but costs more than the difference they were requesting from us for upgrade if that makes sense, so it wasn’t an option just to cut our losses and go through their website). That made it feel even more like a planned bait and switch technique (on top of their claim that they have no control over their third party listing agents, and expressed no desire to dig into the facts). Just a heads up… The room facing the alley also has very thin walls according to multiple other guests we have spoken with, and they only have valet parking but didn’t disclose that, no free parking on-site or within at least a block (you may be able to find street parking if you drive out a few blocks across the main street but parking is very tight and it was even the light/off-season). Many of the rooms have NO elevator access, only stair access. I’d hate for someone elderly to have this same issue. This is a compound of older hotels that share a lobby located in one of them in case that is not clear on their listing.

Update: Jeroen the manager did not want to hear any details of our complaint while we were at the front desk, he/she would not step out from behind the wall of his/her office, and in no way did he/she reach out to us afterwards to correct the problem as of yet. I will update my review if this ever happens. The public replies from Jeroen don’t carry much weight when the amount of care seen in person was zero. This conveys an extremely poor level of professionalism and care for the long term outlook of this business. And when you are aiming to enjoy a hard earned vacation, this is definitely not the chance you want to take. Apparently they don’t feel like any of this is fraud and/or in violation of California’s consumer protection laws that could carry legal consequences. Thankfully everyone else we have encountered in Laguna Beach have more than made up for the poor management...

After this stay at this hotel I will not let pictures fool me again. The pictures upon booking was beyond deceiving. I stay at the hotel for a weekend get away with my wife so we decided to book 2 different room for eat stay. First night was a standard "queen" bed room. Second was the "permier ocean front king bed with balcony". When we went to check in the front desk staff was rude. After checking in we went to our room and we were beyond in disbelief. Our standard room was not we were expecting. It was a small room with a bed that isn't even a "queen" sized bed. We didn't think much but it was not a room that we were paying for. After a few hours our light by the door and our cooler power just died. So we decided to just go to the front desk. Lucky they switched us to a different room because they stated that it never happened before. Our second room was really spacious and bigger bed. Looked more like a room we thought we were booking with the provided on the site. The next day we had to check out because we were going to a different of room course because we're switching room for a different night. Hours of walking around and touring the beach we went to check in. The staff that was helping up spoke little English and we couldn't really communicate well with. After checking in we went to go see our room. Again it was not a room we did not expect. It was a smaller room than our first night room. We were placed in a room right above the restaurant. The view we paid for was just a view of the restaurant right below us and the people swimming on the beach. I was beyond disbelief. So we went to the front desk to make an complaint and they told us there wasn't nothing we can do because they are fully booked. They told us there was nothing they can do about and offered up an "1 hour later check out" time. That was the best they can do. So we went back to our room because there was nothing we can do because everything else around was either booked or right over our budget. We decided to just stay the night because we already paid for it. When we got back into our room we had more questions so we called the front desk and they hung up the phone while we were in mid conversation because they couldn't help us. We also noticed that our room was connected to another room. That was not listed when we booked of course because this hotel falsely advertised alot of things. The door to our room all had gaps in them looks as if something broke in them before or what not. Lots of nosies due to the restaurant below our room. Glass door to the balcony didn't even lock. My wife and I had trouble sleeping because we felt really uncomfortable in our room. Just another side note is that the site of booking the hotel did not informed us that we will be having to pay for a vallet parking if we will be staying overnight. We had to pay two separate times because of the two nights we were staying. After this experience I don't think I will because going off the site that is advertised anymore and lean towards the reviews. Not a stay I would recommend even if it offers a great mid of...