Hotel Californian — Hotel in Santa Barbara

UPDATE: In response to Joseph: You are not providing an apology I see your hotel will not take accountability for the inconvenience this has caused us and instead deflected it back upon me which is very insulting. I have traveled to other places in preparation of my wedding day and never had this experience. If in fact, we would have brought roaches in our room please explain how the other rooms that were provided that day did not contain ROACHES. I am very disappointed with your response. This has caused me irreconcilable hardship on a day that was supposed to be memorable and happy.

See my YELP REVIEW FOR DETAILS: I have very mixed emotions about staying at this hotel. I first have to say this was MY WEDDING WEEKEND (9.22.23-9.26.23) when all of this happened, and I truly expected a lot more from this hotel. I gave them plenty of opportunity to try and go above and beyond over the situation and they just swept a lot of my issues under the rug. If I hadn't required anything from them, they would not have offered to help. WE FOUND ROACHES IN OUR BATHROOM. The first two nights we were so excited and didn't think to check the room thoroughly because we never thought something like this would happen at a "five-star hotel". We were greeted with chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of wine. We were so happy because had saved up for 2 years to have the best wedding weekend. By the third day (OUR WEDDING DAY 9.24.23) I woke up at 4am to use the restroom only to find baby roaches and a larger roach crawling over and underneath the bathroom mats. One had crawled into my makeup bag and a larger one we found by the wall of the tv. At that point I knew the whole room was infested with roaches! I cried my eyes out! The photos I posted are after I squashed them. I called the front desk, and they couldn't move me into any rooms because they were at full capacity, but he would try and put us in a larger room. As upset as I was, I calmly asked if they could please see what they could do because it was my wedding morning and we had hair, makeup, video and photography arriving back-to-back. They said they couldn't do anything until a room became available and that they would call me AFTER 12PM! I was terrified I was going to find them in more of my things! They opened up a smaller room across the hall and the person at the front desk was asking for me to give up my original room and for all of my bridesmaids and vendors to squeeze into a 10x14 bedroom. Please keep in mind that the larger room was not available yet. I said no. I was pissed at this point. When the larger room was available it was 12:30pm! I had to be ready at 1pm for photos!! The following day the key reader didn't work on our larger room either. It was all a mess. THEIR SOLUTION: The hotel comped a bottle of Champaigne for the trouble. A bottle. That's it. Which I had to request. I had to call early the morning after my wedding to ask if I could have an extra night for robbing me of my wedding morning. They wanted me to pay half the rate or do a late checkout of 8pm. I practically begged them and had to reexplain my situation and informing them that I wasn't comfortable on how they did not realize the gravity of the situation. They finally agreed and let us stay the extra night. They still charged us for our entire stay after having to move our belongings out of 2 different rooms. They charged us for parking as well. I wanted to love this place so bad because I've seen other brides rave about their stay here, but this is the memory that I will have to take with me forever. Unfortunately, I know they will bypass all of this and ignore that maybe simply "writing about my experience" and "reviewing their property" isn't the solution but actually giving us what we requested as an honest couple and making us feel better about our stay along with a very sincere apology from their manager would have made us feel better. For now, they have our phone number and card information. If they are a company with any kind of a heart, they would do the...

This is solely a review of the checkin and first impressions of the hotel and room. The hotel is located in one of the more beautiful areas of Santa Barbara. Literally across the street from the beach within the Funk Zone area. The valet individual was nice. I have to mention that I had booked the room through preferred hotels which this hotel is a part of. During my booking process I had requested a crib and with an additional charge $50 I had to bite the bullet since I didn’t have a choice ( even though there are many surrounding hotels that don’t charge). I will not name names but the front desk staff experience was very underwhelming. If you pay such a high price for a stay I would expect a little more welcoming experience. While waiting for my turn, I couldn’t help but to watch the front desk interaction during a check out process. All I can say is that the guest who was with a 4-5 year old child didn’t leave with a smile. Little things but as an advertised 5 star establishment, I was a bit taken aback. I arrived with my family after a fairly long drive so was hoping to be greeted with a smile. Non was offered, and honestly being tired with a two year old who needed to be changed (parents understand the dilemma) my priorities were elsewhere. I forgot to mention that at the time of the booking I was promised an early checkin and usually when you have a baby certain exceptions are made to make your stay a bit more comfortable. What I was told was “our checkin is at 4 pm and your room isn’t ready and we’ll message you when it is”. I thought that shouldn’t be a big deal because my daughter and wife were hungry so we were excited to explore the funk zone for a delicious bite. The first problem was when I asked for a private area to change my daughter given the room wasn’t ready. The lobby bathrooms provide no baby changing areas. I was looked at with blank stares like I was an alien by three different people when I asked for a more private area. What I was offered was a lobby couch. “Fine that’ll do” I said hesitantly and my daughter was soon on the go with a clean diaper. Nevertheless I didn’t feel like I was at a 5 star hotel. We were notified of our rooms availability around 1:15 pm and we were happy to head back to the hotel for an afternoon nap time for my daughter. Upon coming back to the front desk I was looked at with a couple of blank stares even though I was there a little over an hour before. Also there aren’t many people checking in so opportunity lost on welcoming me back to check me in. Again no smiles or “hello welcome to hotel Californian” of some sort were offered. I assume the front desk staff don’t have much experience working at 5 star hotels. I was checked in, wasn’t given any information as our dining, hotel in general or Santa Barbara or even a something as simple as Wi-Fi password. I wasn’t even asked if this was my first time at this hotel which it is. Was given the key and pointed toward the building where my room was located. Once we arrived in the room I realized the crib wasn’t delivered or setup as expected and at this point my daughter was crying and extremely tired. Keep in mind that not only I had asked for the crib during my booking but had requested it at the first initial checkin contact about 2 hours before the room keys were issued. I called to ask for the crib and no apologies were offered after I voiced my frustration about another missed opportunity for a more pleasant experience. All in all it took an additional 30 min for the crib to arrive. The room itself aside from a few stains on the carpet is very welcoming and open. The front desk service needs major retraining. At this point I won’t be revisiting this hotel until I see reviews that prove to me there has been major changes made. Tap far this is not a family friendly hotel given the extra cost of crib and the lack of empathy from...

We stayed at the Hotel Californian for our wedding weekend. Our initial thoughts on the hotel were great. The grounds are beautiful, it's a large hotel, the pool view is amazing, the food is good and the majority of the employees are great and very helpful. Although, we did have higher expectations for the hotel when it came to some of it's employees. The employees that we were not impressed with was the security team. While it's an absolute must to have security on the grounds of the hotel, we expected to be treated fairly as paying guests. We constantly felt like we were walking on eggshells and being watched (watched like that big brother feeling), especially when security was around. To be more specific, when Irene was around. You would think that guest would feel comfortable 100% of the time at the hotel but that wasn't the case. We first noticed security the night before our wedding which was the first night we stayed at the hotel. The day of our wedding is when the security team, particularly Irene, gave us our first encounter.

Like I mentioned, the grounds of the hotel are beautiful, so of course as paying guests and the wedding couple, we wanted to take our first look photos at the hotel. Not only were we paying guest but we had about 15 other wedding guests stay at the hotel. We thought that we had access to taking photos as paying guest, turns out we were extremely incorrect and rudely corrected by Irene. As Security Supervisor of a high end hotel, we expected a much different scenario that what we received. We had no idea that we weren't allowed to take pictures at the hotel. Instead of informing us, Irene decided to scold us, talk down to us and give us a rocky start to our wedding experience (we were literally already in our dress and suit). She exhibited very little respect, let a lone gave us room to learn more about the policy and ask her questions. I would understand her side of the experience if we were harming someone or causing a dangerous situation but we were just taking photos. That's it. Just photos. That's all. Instead of coming at us like we were criminals, she should have approached us in a friendly and informative manor. Her approach to the situation was way more escalated than what it needed to be. Her approach made me nervous and scared, like we were about to be kicked out of the hotel and would need to find somewhere else to lay our heads on the night of our wedding. Never have I thought that an individual could make me feel the way that she did just moments before walking down the aisle. She was successful in those efforts.

And for that reason, we do not plan on staying at Hotel Californian again. Which is extremely unfortunate because we already had plans to relive our wedding experience and stay at the Hotel Californian every wedding anniversary. If the hotel is open to any recommendations, I would recommend vetting the staff (especially, customer facing staff) more thoroughly. And if they actually read reviews, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to our experience as I can only hope that other guests don't walk away from the hotel experience feeling the way...