My wife and I recently spent two nights at the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach in Dana Point, California. We used a free night certificate for one night and paid 95,000 points for the second night.
Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Bottom Line Review
This is a very nice and well run resort. We had a nice stay, but this style of resort isn’t really my thing: it’s very large (~400 guest rooms) and too perfectly manicured for my tastes. Everything at the resort, including the surrounding Dana Point area, was Disney-like perfect, but I prefer the more rugged beauty found in nature (like in Big Sur, for example). Still, the Waldorf Astoria resort (which used to be a St. Regis) did a great job of doing what they do (i.e. catering to the rich who like this sort of thing). My favorite feature of the resort was the beach club, which is about a mile away (with free tram rides back and forth), but the weather was such that we didn’t get to enjoy the beach during our stay.
- Points Price: 95K per night. Hilton dynamically prices awards, but when standard rooms are available, they typically charge 95,000 points per night.
- Resort Fee: $55 per night. This fee is waived if you book an award stay with points or free night certificates.
- Parking: $60 per night for valet parking.
- Turndown service: Yes. Includes chocolates packaged as Monarch butterflies. Very nice touch.
- Housekeeping: Daily service.
- Internet: Excellent.
- Dining: This resort has multiple dining options. We tried the following:
- Aveo for breakfast: Very good. Included unique and tasty options.
- Monarch Bay Beach Club for dinner: Excellent. This was one of my favorite meals of our trip. Plus, it was fun to go “out” to dinner via a tram ride but to remain within the resort. I believe that the beach club is accessible only to resort guests and Monarch Bay Beach Club members.
- Spa: Yep, but we didn’t try it.
- Fitness Room: Yep, but didn’t visit it.
- Hilton Gold/Diamond Elite Benefits:
- Upgrade: Not much. At the desk they told us that they basically upgraded our view. In other words, they kept us with the same room type that we had booked, but gave us a room with a nicer view. The hotel didn’t seem crowded during our stay and so I’d bet that they would have upgraded anyone similarly, even without elite status.
- Club Lounge: No lounge.
- Free Breakfast: Nope. Within the U.S., Hilton currently offers food & beverage credits instead of free breakfast for Gold and Diamond elite members.
- Food & Beverage Credit: $50 per day ($25 per person). This was not enough to cover breakfast charges. For example, one morning we spent $71 at breakfast. It’s tough to stay within $25 per person when drip coffee alone costs $9!
- Late Checkout: We didn’t need it and so we didn’t request it.
- Welcome amenity: We were given a small bag of candy. I don’t think this was an elite benefit, but I’m not sure.
- Would I stay again? Maybe. I’d be happy to stay again, but there are other resorts in the area that I’d rather try first.
- Would I travel to the area just to stay here again? No
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Was this place BYOPC…..bring your own pillow chocolates?
No they brought chocolates that look like butterflies