This is the first time I have ever written a review. I have stayed at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott five times for corporate events. This resort had a special place in my heart because I had my first date at the with my husband to be at a Christmas party for his company. The hotel is beautiful, the location is breathtaking, the customer service was luke warm, but am not one to complain. I have always considered this location for my very large group of family and friends to stay for our wedding festivities. The wedding planner said to stay away from the Laguna Cliffs Marriott, but I had my mind set.Over the course of our engagement I made numerous attempts to meet with someone in person to check out the suites and block a number of rooms for our event. Each person I spoke to gave me some cheezy sales pitch and seemed too busy to answer any questions. Brushed it off, figured they were understaffed. Today I finally met with a catering and sales manager. She seemed like a sweet person, but her customer service skills were not the best. The rates were high of corse, but in the budget, I still wanted to stay at the Marriott. Every request we made she had a robotic rebuttal. Straight out of a handbook. Can we reserve a block of rooms on the same floor? No, she replied because other guests might extend there stay and it would be rude to ask them to move to another room??? Then she mentioned that we couldn't take family pictures with me in my wedding dress anywhere on the Marriott grounds, because we weren't getting married on site and "her" brides should feel like the only brides. Don't they have multiple weddings scheduled in one day? I wasn't even planning on having any wedding photos taken at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. I'm getting married at a beautiful home. Then it clicked, why would we give this hotel our business? We left and booked the block of rooms at the St. Regis. It's so unfortunate, the resort is a beautiful waste of money if customer service isn't a priority.

This is our 4th stay at this hotel. We love the grounds, view, and the harbor below for morning walks and our coffee and breakfast bagel outside in the sun. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful setting. However, since the renovation a few things have changed. One is the valet parking which costs $29/day. Everytime you want to take your car out for sightseeing or to go to dinner you must wait for your car to be brought to you (and tip the poor guys who run like crazy to accommodate you). In the past, you could walk to the garage to retrieve your car and check out at the booth at the entrance to the garage.
The other change since the renovation is the air conditioning system. In the past, we have been able to turn the heat down at night and sleep comfortably in a cool room. During this stay, we could not cool the room below 74 and had to have maintenance come to our room because the air conditioner FROZE and was not working properly. We ended up buying a fan to give us the impression that there was "cool" air. If a cool room at night is important, this is a deal breaker. We probably will not return, as we lost 3 nights of sleep on our 9 night vacation (and yes, the other 2 hotels at which we stayed were able to provide comfortable sleeping conditions). If you like to sleep in a warm room, don't pay attention to my rant. We love the location, but cannot justify paying the costs for no sleep.

Our room was clean, well appointed and we had a balcony overlooking the bay. The personnel were very accommodating - especially the driver at guest services who took us up and down the hill a dozen times, suggested great restaurants and told us about local lore during our short drive. There is an old "Woody" station wagon sitting in the courtyard - very cool. Breakfast was very good with the usual omelet station and excellent baked goods. I can't tell you how the hotel dinner fare is as we went to the marina every evening for dinner. The hotel is well located for excursions to Capistrano and San Clemente. We enjoyed our stay and if I am on my way to Catalina in the future I would certainly return.

We stayed at this Hotel the last week of December 2011, what a way to end the year! We have stayed in Dana Point many times before but never at this location and we now know what we’ve been missing…. The location is absolutely perfect, the beach and marina are close enough to walk to (there are some stairs but you get a great view of the harbor) as for the Hotel, the grounds a perfectly manicured, the lobby is clean and modern, the rooms are nicely appointed and spacious, beds were awesomely comfortable!. We only ate once at the Hotel, breakfast on our last day, kids ordered off the menu and adults did the buffet, both were good but nothing to rave about… its breakfast hard to make it real exciting!

Every staff member we encountered was professional and accommodating, all charges were explained upfront during check in.

Only concern was lack of self-parking, we knew going in that Valet was additional and the rate was similar to other hotels we’ve stayed at but to not have an option was a little disappointing, Wi-Fi was available for a charge, we didn’t use it as cell service was more than adequate.

We will definitely consider this property when planning our next visit to the area.