We had our wedding room block at this hotel, along with our rehearsal dinner and welcome party on Friday, and our farewell brunch on Sunday. The hotel itself is stunning, gorgeous,... captivating, modern, trendy, and worth it. The event planning staff were fine. It took repeated requests to get updates on our room block: how many rooms were booked, which types, which nights. The report they exported was messy and not all that helpful, even after putting in all the effort to have them send it. There were things they said they would do which they didn't get around to doing, or it took lots of persistent requests: such as balancing out the availability, moving quantities of available rooms from Sunday to Thursday, if Thursday was booking up quickly. We saw a decent amount of turn-over of staff on their side. Our first rep was new to the hotel, she left before long so we were handed to someone else new. By the end we were handed to the boss. Maybe we got unlucky. Maybe we started our planning especially far in advance (toured 16 months in advance, signed contract 12 months in advance). Maybe the turnover is an indication of something going on within the hotel.
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was that right as we went to sign the contract, we were given an updated price list that was absurdly higher price than what we'd based our decision on to go with this hotel. Ultimately they did negotiate with us and meet in the middle. They were accommodating in that way. And by the time the event came around they had an even more updated price sheet that was a little more reasonable. They were willing to honor the best price.
If you go with this hotel--and I wouldn't recommend against it--be prepared to take an active role in communicating with the hotel, and making sure they're providing you the information you need.
Once we moved into the hotel for the weekend (did feel like a "move-in" with all our stuff), it all went smoothly and all the staff was nice. The Manager introduced himself to my wife and me, and to our parents. The actual event servers were professional. No complaints. Honestly by that point I was blind to a lot, overwhealmed by the excitement of the events themselves. Nothing bad stands out though, so must have gone well.
Key-cards did keep de-magnitizing for lots of folks.
All guests loved the pool, as did I. Such an incredible vibe, and an excellent California experience for anyone from out of state.
It all did feel rather expensive, but that may just be in comparison to our actual wedding venue which was remarkably inexpensive for being somewhat of a landmark location.
We had the dinner in the Waterfront Room, which felt a little more like a business room than I would have liked. But our dinner had quite a large headcount for a "rehearsal dinner", 50 people, so maybe I should have expected different.
Our Welcome Event was cocktails for all guests, in the Marina Garden. Could not speak more highly. Even on what turned out to be a rather overcast night, it was a beautiful setting, without needing to add decor. It was a little windy, so the projector screen for our slideshow of childhood photos was swinging in the wind a bit. And the mic and speaker we used for speeches weren't very high quality, kind of scratchy. Some of that may have been the wind. But in all an excellent venue, that Marina Garden. Definitely recommend. That and the pool were excellent high notes that weekend.
