After falling in love with the Alila Ventana Big Sur, I was excited to try out another of the three Alila hotels in the U.S. (the third is Alila Napa Valley). Alila Marea is a brand new resort near San Diego with gorgeous ocean views. My wife and I stayed three nights. We very much enjoyed our stay and we loved some aspects (especially the restaurant!), but didn’t fall in love with this Alila property overall as we did in Big Sur.
There is a lot to love at the Alila Marea Beach Resort: wonderful views, awesome balconies, fantastic food, and more. It’s hard to put a finger on why I didn’t fall hard for this property. Physically, the rooms are very nice, just not as nice as what we experienced at Ventana. The views around the hotel are very nice, just not as nice as around Ventana (but the in-room balcony views at Alila Marea are much better if you’re lucky enough to get an ocean view room like we did). At Ventana Big Sur, you’re completely surrounded by beautiful nature. At Alila Marea, yes, you have the beautiful ocean on one side, but you also have a busy street on the other.
Alila Marea Beach Resort Bottom Line Review
Bottom line: Alila Marea is a very nice resort with a fantastic restaurant. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the resort is location challenged: it has direct access to a beach, but not a great one; hiking trails are nearby, but you need to go a mile across a busy road to get to them; great dining is nearby, but if you want to walk, you have to go along a busy street to get to them; and it’s near San Diego, but if your intent is to go downtown, Alila Marea is not very convenient.
- Points Price: Category 6, 25K points per night standard, 21K off-peak, or 29K peak (Hyatt currently plans to roll-out peak/off-peak pricing in July 2021).
- Cash Price: Varies. On dates I checked, prices started at around $700 or $800 per night.
- Points Value: Excellent!
- Resort Fee: $50 per day. Fee is waived for all guests who book their stay with Hyatt points or free night certificates. Fee is waived on paid stays (booked through Hyatt) for top-tier Hyatt Globalist members. Resort fee includes: pool and fitness center access, free electric bike rentals, morning yoga classes (8am weekdays, 9am weekends).
- Parking: $52 per day for valet parking. Fee is waived for top-tier Hyatt Globalist members who book their stay with Hyatt points or free night certificates.
- Turndown service: None at this time (presumably due to Covid).
- Dining: Great service and food! The hotel’s main restaurant, Vaga, is beautiful inside and out. There’s plenty of outdoor seating with heat lamps and a few firepits. Coastline and sunset views make the setting awesome. The real star is the food. We ate dinner at Vaga two times, breakfast three times, and lunch once. All of the food was fantastic (To be honest, I didn’t care for their take on Eggs Benedict, but that speaks more to my breakfast expectations than the quality of the food). Regarding our one lunch experience: we ate by the pool. The poolside restaurant’s kitchen wasn’t yet open and so they brought food over from Vaga.
- Spa: My wife got a massage and said it was excellent. The spa’s showers and sauna were not yet open due to Covid.
- Hyatt Elite Benefits: I was top-tier elite (Globalist) at the time of this stay. A friend who stayed at the same time was also Globalist. We enjoyed the following elite benefits:
- Free parking on award stays (saved $52 per day)
- Waived resort fees (saved $50 per day)
- Free breakfast for two. We were told that this was limited to $32 per person per day, but they actually erased all of the breakfast charges even though we went over a couple of times. We saved at least $60 per day.
- Room upgrade: We were upgraded to an ocean view King room with balcony. Our friends were upgraded to a studio coastline view with balcony (the studio rooms are bigger than the king rooms).
- Suite upgrade award (no luck there): I tried before the stay to apply a suite upgrade award, but no suites were available. The hotel fact sheet shows that the entire resort has only 5 one-bedroom suites, so this wasn’t surprising. There are also only two suites larger than the 1-bedroom ones (Ponto suite and Grandview suite).
- Welcome Gift: None (unless you count a little alcoholic drink offered at check-in)
- Would I stay again? Yes? I would certainly enjoy staying again if circumstance warrants it, but I wouldn’t seek it out as a vacation destination, and if my intent was to spend time in downtown San Diego, I’d pick a hotel in town instead. See my thoughts about this resort being location-challenged above.
- Pros:
- Ocean views
- Fantastic balconies
- Super comfortable robes
- Each room is stocked with two hard seltzer drinks in the fridge
- Excellent food
- Lots of outdoor dining with heat lamps and firepits
- Free electric bike rentals (we didn’t get a chance to do this unfortunately)
- Morning Yoga outside (we didn’t take advantage of this, but it looked like people enjoyed it)
- Cons:
- Balcony light: There’s a light on each balcony that is turned off centrally some time in the middle of the night (ours was still on as late as 12:30). This is surprisingly annoying because it would be nice to sleep with the sliding doors and curtains open so as to enjoy the ocean breeze and the sound of the surf, but the light shines annoyingly brightly into the room. We called the desk about it, but were told that nothing could be done other than to close the curtains to block out the light (and unfortunately, the way the curtains are mounted, it’s necessary to pull them all the way closed in order to block out that light at all).
- Technical issues with the A/C: The A/C is cleverly designed to turn off when the balcony door opens and to turn back on when closed. In our room it didn’t always work that way and instead we found ourselves one night having to open the door in order to turn on the A/C. Given how new the resort is, I’m not surprised that they still have kinks to work out. I didn’t consider this in my overall assessment of the resort because I’m sure they’ll fix this soon.
- No dedicated walk/bike paths: This is not the Alila’s fault, but it’s unfortunate that biking involves sharing the road with cars, and walking to town involves walking just next to the busy road (The 101). Venturing out on foot or bike would be so much more pleasant with dedicated off-road paths.
- Some of the floor 1 rooms lack privacy.
Picking the best room
If you book a base room with points, you may not have any choice as to which particular room you’ll get. But if you do have a choice, keep in mind the following considerations:
- Room type: There are three levels of room types going from smallest to largest: 1) One King or Two Queen; 2) Studio Rooms; and 3) Suites. Here are the number of rooms in each category:
- One King or Two Queen: 116 rooms
- Studio: 9 studios
- Suite: 7 suites
- Garden, Coastline, or Ocean View: In my opinion the views from the ocean view rooms are way nicer than the coastline views. I didn’t see what the Garden views looked like.
- Floor 1, 2, or 3: The ocean-view section of the hotel only goes up to floor 2 whereas the coastline section offers 3 floors. If privacy is important to you, note that the floor 1 ocean view rooms were not very private. People walking along the exterior resort path could easily look straight into each room unless the curtains were pulled closed. This is unfortunate because you probably wouldn’t want to block out those great ocean views. The floor 1, north-west corner suite appeared to be the least private room of all since people could look in from two directions.
While everyone differs in their preferences, here is how I would prioritize room choices (if I was given a choice of upgrades):
- Floor 2 ocean view suite
- Floor 2 ocean view studio (I’m not sure if these exist though)
- Floor 2 ocean view King or 2 Queen (we had the King version of this one)
- Coastline view suite (prefer floor 3)
- Coastline view studio (prefer floor 3)
- Coastline view King or 2 Queen (prefer floor 3)
- Floor 1 ocean view suite
- Floor 1 ocean view studio (I’m not sure if these exist though)
- Floor 1 ocean view King or 2 Queen
Photos and Captions
Alila Marea Beach Resort Encinitas Exterior
Alila Marea Beach Resort Encinitas Pool and Fitness Room
Alila Marea Beach Resort Encinitas King Ocean View with Balcony
Alila Marea Beach Resort Encinitas Studio Coastline View with Balcony
Vaga Restaurant
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Would love a comparison or review to Park Hyatt Aviara. They are pretty closeby to one another, similarly priced in cash, and same amount of Hyatt points. Obviously the PH is farther away from the ocean, and that may determine the issue for some, but I think comparing the soft and hard product still makes sense.
Great review Greg. I watched them build this as my kids take surf lessons below on that beach. I was excited when I heard they were building an Alila as in Bali they are over the top nice. But it always looked kind of like a generic “boxy” building. Nothing special. Especially considering it is supposed to be the flagship Alilia in the USA. That area is nothing too special.
View of the parking lot? No thanks. It looks just ok. I’d MUCH rather take the points and go down to The Cape in Cabo which is 1000% better with amazing views.
Looks very meh. I think I’ll skip this.
We were there this past weekend (left on Monday) – must have just missed you!
Generally agree with your thoughts, but a one note about breakfast that I didn’t see you mention: we were actually able to order anything from the “Daytime Menu” for breakfast, and dine anytime until 3pm since there’s no set timings for just Breakfast. This was really great, as we ended up having brunch each day (w/ both breakfast and lunch dishes); hand rolls were a favorite of ours too! The entire bill (approaching $150 for our party of 4 per day) was erased – probably one of the best hotel breakfast benefits I’ve seen.
Bike was one of the better electric bikes I’ve tried; I was also hesitant about the bike lane issue, but we went at times when there was less traffic and it was fine.
Also, I do have copies of the dinner & snacks menus if you’d like those.
We arrived on Sunday so we didn’t overlap much. That’s awesome that you were able to use the breakfast benefit that way. It’s crazy that everyone was told different things:
Both of those things were wrong!
Yes, if you can send a pic of the dinner menu to me via email that would be great. Greg at frequentmiler dot net
Just sent the menus. Yeah, we weren’t informed about any restrictions for breakfast other than we couldn’t order room service, so decided to take a more liberal interpretation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start cracking down a bit more as occupancy levels increase.
Also, forgot to ask – did you take the A350 from DTW-LAX? That was another one of the motivating factors for this trip 🙂
Thanks, got them! No, we flew to PHX, drove to Tucson and stayed there for 8 nights before driving over to California. Our flight to PHX was supposed to be a 767, but an A350 was swapped in, so that was awesome. At PHX, though, they didn’t know how to open the A350s doors so we had to wait about half an hour before we could get off.
Such drab decor – depressing grey and black tones – no sign of life. where is the sandy warmth and ocean / sunset color.
It didn’t seem drab at all to me except in the hallways. That said, I would have preferred more colorful splashes like at the Kimpton Seafire:
You need to get less shy about disassembling things like annoying balcony lights. I would’ve taken it out of service on the first day.
LOL
Wife and I stayed here a couple of weeks ago. We had the same problem with the balcony light. It took until night 2 to figure out there were closable flaps above and below the light bulb in the light fixture itself. The front desk explained it to us. That solved the problem.
Actually, I forgot to mention that the desk agent did say that when I called, but my light didn’t have closable flaps. Instead it had lots of cobwebs.
thanks for the review, the picture of waves crashing from the room is amazing. we fell in love with Alila brand pre-pandemic in Bali, so its interesting to see its expansion in the US. Looking at the cost, they obvsly wanted it priced the level of Park Hyatt Aviara which is more inland; and a notch lower than Alila at Big Sur, but it’s still very expensive and personally I compare it to GH Hong Kong. Its good that Hyatt is expanding its footprint, but I wouldnt rush to stay at this brand new property at the price even with automatic savings fr 150$ for globalists.
IMO, *none* of these, not even Ventana, compares to the breakfast & service experience in the GH HK Lounge 😉
Hotel rooms look nice but…
1. That’s the worst hotel menu I’ve seen for breakfast. No options at all but a few froo froo items.
2. A $32 limit on breakfast? Other hotels in the area are 3 times that.
3. No self park? I don’t like tipping valets all day long as I go in and out.
4. Not enough suites. Why would you build an expensive hotel like that?
5. Points are too expensive. This ain’t Hawaii. It’s North County. Off Peak is the only option here.
I’d rather stay at Aviara or Mission Bay and because of this….I’m out.
I could never understand why American restaurants offer so many options. It’s almost impossible to have a menu with 15 breakfast dishes that are all different, creative, well-prepared, and high-quality – the overhead is insane. Doing 5 things well is perfect in my book.
Are all of the meals free just like ventana? And will the one in Napa be the same all inclusive hotel as well?
No. Ventana is unique among the Alila properties (in the U.S. at least) in offering all-inclusive meals. The Alila Marea’s restaurant is great but expensive. You can see breakfast and lunch pricing on the menu I posted. I didn’t take a picture of the dinner menu unfortunately.
Great review! How come you didn’t try out the bikes? I have an upcoming stay this weekend and I hope to bike around the property.
Mostly we ran out of time, but also we weren’t too excited when we realized we would have to bike on 101 in a section without a dedicated bike lane. If you mean to bike on the property itself, you can do that but you’ll cover the entire thing in about 90 seconds. I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
The entire right hand lane on 101 is a bike lane. Drivers here are very used to seeing dozens of bikes in the right hand lane.
Yes, but it is both a bike and car lane. I understand that it’s probably safe, but I still find it more stressful to bike in that situation than with a separated bike lane
Our dedicated bike lanes are all filled with joggers!
It seems like most reviews of this property agree that it’s nice, but not amazing. It’s a bit of a disappointment, after the long-awaited opening.
I’m not clear -if not globalist- but booking on points, are you still in for over a $100 a night plus taxes, so maybe $120 ish if you park? Or for no resort fee, but still huge parking fee?
No resort fee, but still huge parking fee. If you’re not Globalist, the trick is to find a friend who is so that you can give them your points and they can book your stay as a Guest of Honor stay. That way you’ll get breakfast and parking for free and not have to pay the resort fee. https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-get-top-tier-hyatt-elite-benefits-without-status/
Thanks for the heads up, not feeling it too, guess I will save my 25k points per night for other properties…
I live a couple of miles from there. I would have said hello if I had known you were in town.