Have you read any print reviews of the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel? Tear those suckers up! They lie like a dog at your feet!

Maybe they don't mean to lie, but they can't help it. Not when the facade of the hotel is so superficially pleasant. Not when management checked off every "service" imaginable. Not when the hotel buys full-page glitzy inside-cover advertisements. And certainly not when the hotel announces "newsworthy" gimmicks like the world's most expensive hotel room, which by the way includes a brand new Mercedes. (Yeah, I know, what stupidity...but such is the nature of marketing...)

Frankly, the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel is an overrated hotel with perfunctorily rude service, a mediocre location that's boring as all get-out, and ridiculously over-inflated prices. If you want a dull, boring place to go and like paying Rolls Royce prices for Ford-level services, than you probably do want to be at the Ritz-Carlton.

Forgive Me If I'm Unimpressed
I read a review of the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel that raved about its outstandingly beautiful setting "high atop a 150-feet bluff" over the Pacific. I think the author of that piece needs to travel a bit more.

Sure, the setting on the ocean is nice enough, but 150 feet isn't really that high -- heck, there are places in Acapulco that sit on 450-foot high bluffs -- and the setting, while pleasant enough, is really nothing much different than you'd find in a thousand other places on the Pacific Coast. There's no bay, or cove, or mountains, or fishing villages nearby to add visual color, and while any ocean view can be romantic and pleasant, it takes something more than just the ocean view to make a setting "dramatic".

The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel does not feel dramatic. Nice, but not amazing. And without local color, it's really a rather antiseptic place.

Location CAN Be Beat
Maybe someone really likes the location of the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. I don't. It's about as inconveniently located as possible in Southern California, over an hour drive to both Los Angeles and San Diego. The hotel is really in the town of Dana Point, which is known for its marina and not much else. Frankly, the place is nice enough in an average sort of way, but there's nothing in Dana Point that I'd go out of my way to see, and there's certainly nothing worth doing that's close to the hotel. (How many times should I go see the old spanish mission?)

Yawn...wake me when it's time to check out.

Service with a Shrug
Most of my contacts with hotel staff were pleasant enough, and efficient enough, but they lacked the genuine warmth that I expect in true 5-star properties. When I've stayed in top-quality places like the Greenbrier in West Virginia, or at top hotels in Mexico City, I've always gotten much friendlier, more efficient service than here. It's not that there was any real problem -- there wasn't, it's just that there was nothing extra either. The check-in and bell staff all seemed to do their jobs well enough, but the service was not really any better than you'd get at a Holiday Inn.

When Service Becomes an Insult...
Service is the cornerstone of every great hotel, but some hotels seem to see it as more of a checklist that you complete than as a state of mind. They offer lots of "services" but no real service. It's like they're doing a pre-flight check-off in a plane's cockpit: "Maid service?" "Check!" "Gourmet restaurant?" "Check!" "Valet parking?" "Check!"

It's one thing to have a service, it's quite another to force it on people when it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. At this point, service becomes disservice, and that's how I feel about some aspects of the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel.

Take valet parking. In a lot of hotels it makes sense. In mid-town Manhattan, valet parking is more of a necessity than a service, and I would never rank a hotel higher than 3 stars if it did not offer valet parking there. On the other hand, a hotel located out in the middle of nowhere that has acres of land available to it really has no need for valet parking. When that same hotel forces patrons to use the valet parking, it becomes a bothersome nuisance. And that's exactly what the valet parking is at the Ritz.

They've got a large surface parking lot smack dab outside the front door. Most guests would probably prefer to just pull their cars in there and park -- if they were allowed to -- but they aren't. Hotel policy requires that all guests have valets park their cars. What utter stupidity! But such is life at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel...

Average Rooms
Of course the rooms were clean, comfortable, and well furnished. I expected nothing less. Unfortunately, I did expect something more -- after all the price of the room was over 300 clams a night! The room was a standard room which didn't have an ocean view. No biggee since I was there on business, but the downside was that it was also dinkier than a Motel 6 room. Remind me again -- what am I paying for?

Lots of Amenities Though...
When you look at a Ritz brochure, it seems like this would be the perfect place. "Romantic settings" ... what kind of Scrooge can't like that? Golf course ... okay, so I'm not the only person in the world who doesn't golf. Lush garden paths ... okay, that's good for 15 minutes. Overnight shoe shine ... here's my Nikes, Buddy, just do it. Car rental available ... great, then I can get insulted by the valets. Airport shuttle ... sure, for $40.

Glad the Boss Paid the Tab...
I spent a week at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel as part of a business conference. Good thing too! Usual room rates start at about $375 on up (Expedia prices). A real bargain at 80% off ! If I were looking for a romantic getaway, I could do one HECK of a lot better elsewhere for that $375 a night! Heck, I could probably afford airfare to a real resort destination -- one with little niceties like beaches.

Overall, I thought the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel was a pleasant enough place, but an absolutely horrible value for what little you get for such a huge price tag. Stay a night if you must, but I think that anyone with any common sense would avoid this over-priced, over-rated hotel. If I believe the articles in magazines like Gourmet or Conde Nast, then I know I'm supposed to like places like the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, but somehow it's hard to be happy when I get insulted by bad service, have a small room with no view, and get socked with a bill that Bill Gates would gag at the sight of. Why can't I just be satisfied??





Recommended: No