We visited Alila Ventana TWICE in the past 3 years. The changes made it not worthwhile to stay at Alila Ventana again
After our first visit to Alila Ventana in Big Sur in 2024, we absolutely wanted to go back as soon as we can. Our 2 night getaway at Ventana’s cottage offering was perfection! So it was a no brainer deciding whether to go back or not for my wife’s birthday and Valentine’s Day celebration.
Service takes a – big – hit during these busy days
Service between our first visit and this one is almost night and day when you’re considering these are $2000 dollars+ per night. Our initial visit had touches that made the price tag a bit easier to stomach.
Arrival Process and Service was abysmal
We noticed it when we first arrived at the resort. Alila Ventana confirms with you when you’d like to arrive, I’m assuming this is to try to accommodate early arrivals when possible. However, there is a gate at the entrance of the property. If you’re visiting for the first time, the gate is pretty unassuming. If you hadn’t been there before, you’d never know there’s a resort there other than the Tesla Superchargers.
Back in 2024, our arrival process went something like this: A greeter/security guard is waiting at the gate, confirms you are on the guest list and lets you in. If you choose to self park (valet is better choice though), an employee with a cart will meet you at your car and helps you out. Your luggage will then be brought to your room, or held, during the check in process at the Social House, aka main reception/club house.
Fast forward to 2026, we arrived at the resort; no one is at the gate. We had to buzz in with a telecom to the reception to let ourselves in. When you’re let in, they never confirmed with us if we’re self parking or valet. There are no road signs on site by the way. If you’ve never been, you’d naturally end up at the valet – maybe that’s what they wanted all guests to go. We ended up leaving our luggages in the car only for the front desk to ask “Oh, have we already helped you guys out with the luggages?”
(Oh also, our dinner for 1 of the nights took 2.5 hours lol. I get that they want you to slow down and relax, but our server literally went missing for 45 minutes.)
Dinner Plans (or lack thereof?)
As returning guests, we knew we had to reserve dinning ahead of time. As with any “all-inclusive” resorts, most guests would dine onsite, since it is included in price of the stay. Sur House, the only restaurant on property that’s open for dinner, is reservation-only. For our first stay, a concierge contacted us via email to ask for various amenities – including helping you book dinner during your stay. However, for our most recent stay, this personalize email has turned into a Google form. This feels cheap. To switch from an email that someone could have written in 5 minutes to a generic Google form is just cheap.
Back to dinner reservations. Just know, if you happen to not book reservations, they will not accommodate! You will most likely have to order room service. We are luck enough to secure our reservations for both nights of our stay through… the Google form… But for others, especially if you’ve never been to the resort and might have mistaken the email for a phishing attempt, you might be SOL. A very real example happened to another family during their checking in, while we are waiting for our turn. That family did not have any dinner reservations coming into their stay. And since it was Valentine’s Day weekend, the Sur House – open to non-resort guests for paid dining – was completely booked full for Valentine’s Day dinner. Although the front desk did try calling the restaurant for openings, they were ultimately not able to book dinner. All they were offered was a place in the waitlist; we hope that family eventually got a reservation that night! But to say that an all-inclusive resort was not able to offer you dinner at their only restaurant is just unacceptable.
By the way, Sur House food tastes good. If it’s your first time, you won’t be disappointed. If you eat it for more than a couple days, things will start tasting the same. Reason is their menu reflects what the restaurant can get their hands on depending on the season. In our case, everything started tasting like romesco sauce.
The Little Touches has faded – dramatically
A bunch of other little touches and changes further degrades the experience.
Yes, the $10 room service delivery charge is an interesting and odd nickel-and-dime strategy. For cash rate of $2000 – $4000 per night, why charge $10 additional for room service delivery? If the goal is to reduce the amount of orders, then limit the food that can be ordered during each meal period. Adding a $10 room service charge feel petty.
The Social House (front desk) used to also have s’mores packages to pick up. Since there are fireplaces in rooms, we can take the s’mores pack back to our room to enjoy. This, however, have changed. S’more are still available, but they no longer provide bags to pack to bring back to our room. These changes are small but are definitely noticeable.
Another perk was that Alila Ventana used to provide reusable bottles to refill at their water fountains as part of their nature sustainability initiative. This time? A bottle of PATH water…
Or could these changes be a result of “This is why we can’t have nice things”?
Maybe these changes are a result of past guests abusing the amenities? Maybe guests are ordering everything under the sun for room service and only eating a small portion of everything? Or maybe guests are taking stacks of chocolate, Hershey’s .. gross, and handfuls of marshmallows with them? There are ways to curb these behavior like limiting entree orders, etc. But yes, we get it. There are guests out there that will abuse the all-inclusive-ness aspect of Alila Ventana. If it’s abuse of the system, then this is really why we can’t have nice things.
As much as we loved the room and resort itself – the private hot tub, the spa, the various pools and hot tubs. It’s a shame that we don’t think we will revisit Alila Ventana Big Sur anytime soon.