Tomales Bay Resort — Hotel in Petaluma

We’ve been coming to the Tomales Bay Resort for many years now. It changed owners a few years ago and we were hoping that the chronic problems in the resort might get fixed. It’s been a few years, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. The good points of the resort are its spectacular location and lovely grounds. However, the resort has been tired and rundown for many years, A number of years ago the restaurant associated with the resort closed. Because there is a great scarcity of restaurants in the area, particularly during the middle of the week when the several close, the restaurant was not only a boon, but very necessary. ||In addition, when the restaurant was operating, the resort provided a continental breakfast there. It no longer does so and very few of the rooms has a kitchen facility. So those people who don’t have those few rooms need to drive into Point Reyes Station, over 6 miles to get any breakfast.||I held off giving a review of the resort for a number of years in the hopes that this situation would be remedied. However, it seems as though the owners have other priorities. Even after a number of years standing empty, the restaurant is still not operational. The rooms have continued to deteriorate. And even when the rooms have not deteriorated, the decor and furnishings are old and tired. The kitchen unit in the room we were just in over the weekend appears to be at least 50 years old and desperately needs replacing. Meanwhile, the only work that seems to be in progress is around the pool, which very few people used, even in the past when the resort was crowded. ||This lack of care and investment is beginning to show quite obviously in the drop off in patronage. Even though the resort is only an hour and a half from San Francisco, this Easter weekend, there were only a few cars on the premises. It seems as though fewer than 20% of the rooms were rented. It’s really sad to see a beautiful property like this existing so far below...

This is nice hotel right on the bay, not far from Point Reyes. The room was very clean and comfy. It’s obviously been updated. Love that they left us 2 fire logs and it was all set up (and clean!). This place also has Tesla chargers, which was a bonus for us. We stayed in a room over the water, but didn’t realize there were rooms above us when we booked online…and for some reason the people above us were up all night walking the floor. They woke my husband and I up a lot! This was more noticeable than most of the places we stayed along our 15-day road trip, so it’s probably worth mentioning. If we stay here again, we will look at getting a room with no one above us as there’s some of those (again, didn’t know that was an option before seeing the property in person). Also, we were driving down hwy 1 to get there and had no idea there were so many construction spots—it took us many extra hours to get there. I just happened to get in a spot with cell service and checked our one and only email from the hotel and noticed in fine print that they close at 5pm on Thursdays! I would never have thought that I had to be at a resort to check in by 5pm. I happened to reach someone on the third try right before 5pm and she was kind enough to leave our keys for us. We were planning on getting there at 3pm but didn’t get there until 7:30 because of the roadwork. We heard a little about landslides as we live in SoCal, but had no idea the roads were still messed up or that nothing is really open late. Just wondering what people not from CA do about getting to this hotel by 5pm. Maybe a follow up email close to check-in day would help clue people in about arriving early, etc. Wish we had more time at the hotel. Pool looked nice and I know there’s good hiking nearby. Restaurants are far and few between and ones open on weekdays closed around 8pm, so plan...

This is an email I sent to the owner after our stay mid January, we are in April and still no response from them, very poor customer service too

"Hi there, we checked out this morning and wanted to share our experience with you. We are very disappointed of our stay especially for the price, the hotel was pretty pricey (almost 1300CAD for 4 nights) but we knew the location was great and a friend recommended it (he probably booked a better room). For this price we were expecting something decent but it wasn't the case, the room itself was super basic and kind of old. When we arrived on day 1 it was super cold inside as the heat was completely off, I understand it's important to save on energy but someone could ask our arrival time and put it on a bit before, it took 2/3h to have a decent temperature so taking a shower wasn't really enjoyable (no heat at all in the bathroom). I know this is California but it can gets cold. About the heater, we barely slept the first night because it was making an awful noise, like cracking sound, we had to turn it off the last 3 nights to avoid it but the morning were chilly. Maybe it's time to replace it.... I know you don't control guests but the last 3 nights just before 11pm a lot of people were outside going into the rooms making bunch of noise : rolling suitcases, slamming doors, talking loud, throwing stuff inside... same thing on the last morning from 6 to 7am... apparently it was a filming crew, maybe staff should talk to them and remind them that other people are around, it's very disrespectful and selfish. Anyway I just wanted to share what happened for us, your hotel has good reviews but probably about the most expensive rooms, the "cheapest" one are pretty bad. And the Wi-Fi was pretty bad...