Alila Ventana Big Sur on Points in 2022

Overall impression: solid A, and an A+ if this is a Hyatt point redemption.

Three night stay. Used Chase UR points, converted to Hyatt points. Total of 30,000 points a night for the 'basic room' which was called 'One King Bed: Wood Burning Fireplace: Private Deck: Walk in Shower: In Room Safe'. If you are looking on their website, it would be under their Guestroom section. If you were booking this room in cash, at the time of booking, it was going for the three night average of $1,768.43 a night using the cheapest available rate I saw. So overall great redemption value even at the newly announced Category 8 award effective March 22, 2022. (I won't go into the devaluation since there already is a huge thread on this here ). Basically you can't get a better redemption with your Chase points than this! Now I know there is lots and lots of comments about how hard it is to book a 30k point room at this property, and I will not lie to you. It really is tough, hours of time! I booked this room in August 2021 for a February 2022 stay, but even then there were some random redemptions at 30k in the middle of the week in February but none for the time I wanted to book. With the Hyatt T&Cs in hand, (since it states if the basic room is available for booking in dollars there is no blackout with points and this property is not on the exception list) I spent multiple calls with Hyatt representative trying to get this booked. After multiple hang up and call agains, I got a helpful representative who knew exactly what I was talking about, and got me to book the rate with dollars and converted the stay into a point redemption. (** I will caveat that after booking the rate, I was automatically refunded the cash and a new confirmation was sent to me with the point redeption during the booking process. BUT 2 days after checking-out I was also charged the cash rate in addition to the point withdrawal on the first day of my stay. A 30 min call to Hyatt confirmed it was a point stay and the manager of the property said a refund would be reissued to my credit card within 7 days. I have not yet received this refund, but I mention it since if you go the painful route in booking this place, keep all of your email confirmations in case an issue arises like mine and a charge back is possibly needed.**)

Received an email from the concierge a few days before check-in with some property background. During this time I recommend you book a restaurant reservation and the activities you want to do. Restaurant is probably not needed, since they did have space, but they seemed to ask every time. I would book the activities though since those do get booked up (more on this later). Email of the concierge in case you want to reach out: .

Arriving at the hotel is a beautiful drive down Highway 1. The hotel location for reference is in the heart of the "main" areas of Big Sur. Note- If walking to the beach is something you want to do, this isn't the property, it is not on the beach side of Highway 1. Since I am talking location, one suggestion I have, is download an offline copy of Google Maps for your drive down. There are multiple spots during your drive down where there is no internet, but this hotel does have at least good AT&T service.

Now I have an electric car, so just a little bit of info. There are both plenty of Tesla Supercharges on property and normal wall like chargers (looked like a standard Tesla Destination Charger). One more tip, when I pulled up and the valet took my car (no parking fee including for valet) he asked what type of charging I wanted to which I said whatever was more convenient; the valet selected Supercharging which I did get an email from Tesla once charging was done within 30 mins with a bill of the $11 dollar charge. Given I was staying on property for 3 days and in no rush, I suggest saying standard charging which I am pretty certain is free.

Arriving at the gate even the security guard knew it was my wife's birthday, (mentioned it during the pre-arrival email), so that was a nice touch. Arrived at around 4pm and had 2 folks before us being helped, so we waited maybe 10 mins while seated in the lobby before we were helped. They explained all was included excluding alcohol and included things like mini bar items and room service. Had  a welcome drink of lemonade. They acknowledge that they would put a hold on our credit card and only charge $150 for our dog as a fee. Side note- this is a dog friendly property and we did see a few dogs. I have read others getting a dog bed,  bowls and treats, but I did not get any of that, didn't matter to us, but maybe ask if you want those items. I have zero status with Hyatt, so can't comment on welcome amenities or upgrades or any of that help information. They assigned us room 18 (on the map it is the section called 'Valley House') basically right next to the reception area. The only other thing I will mention is you do get 2 free reusable bottles that you can keep, which I do like since I do drink lots of water while traveling (there is also 2 'boxed' water in the mini fridge if you don't want to use the reusable bottles).

Overall the room was very nice! Felt like a good use of space, the tv had tons of channels,  the shower would pass the Brian Kelly TPG test, bed was comfortable, a place to charge your phone was next to the bed, best hotel hairdryer I have used, toiletries smelled nice (rosemary and spearmint, a theme on property), and the view of the forest was nice. I will only say one negative, if you are a light sleeper, ask for a room that isn't on the end of the building since there was some woodpeckers who loved to peck at the building wood siding starting at the crack of dawn (you are in nature but FYI).

Photos of room 18:

Door to room:

Hallway entrance of room:

Closet:

Bathroom sink:

Bathroom toilet room:

Bathroom shower:

Bathroom tub that has windows that open/close to bedroom:

Toiletries that are rosemary and spearmint smelling:

Desk area with coffee/tea machine and free snacks:

Mini bar with also free items:

Shelf with books, binoculars, and glasses:

TV and fireplace (with bags of firewood for you to use and is replenished by housekeeping, which we did use for smores which we got by asking room service to bring us for free instead of going to the main firepit in the evenings):

Seating area:

Bed:

Outlet and USB ports on bed:

Balcony:

View from balcony:

Unfortunately can't speak to the spa and gym, but there are two pools and two jacuzzies. The pools and jacuzzies  are heated (if I remember correctly to 83°F and 104°F), so even in 70°F weather it was enjoyable. Basically the pools and jacuzzies were really nice with my favorite being the infinity edge jacuzzi overlooking the forest.

There are various activities you can do that are complimentary including: morning exercise classes, morning & late afternoon hikes, beekeeping, falconry, astronomy and social/s'mores. Can't speak to all of them since I didn't do many, and when we check-in they explicitly told us beekeeping wasn't happening during our stay contrary to the weekly schedule. But what I did: morning hike, falconry, and s'mores.

Morning hike- an 1  hour and 25 mins long, just around the property with some history of the property and the plants lead by the manager of activities who was a former park ranger. He was very kind and personable.

Falconry-  2  hours long. My understanding was they used to charge for this, but note this is now complimentary. In my opinion definitely worth it. When we checked in this was no longer available since they were booked, to which they told us, they would notify us if space became available. They didn't notify us of any change, but we just showed up… And the falconer was kind enough to let us stay. He took his job very serious, saying he was just there for educational purposes, which could come off a little abrasive, but I thought he was just doing right by his birds. Showed us 6 birds, let us touch the owl, and had a falcon fly onto your arm. Overall a very neat worthwhile experience, so book this in advance (and if you forget like me, just show up and hope you can stay like us).

S'mores- we just did this in our room, by calling room service/front desk and asking for them to bring the ingredients and a hot chocolate to our rooms. There is lots of good food, so you can skip this, but honestly when in the forest, this is such a nice little touch, so I enjoyed this!

Link to the activities can be found here .

Now to what everyone cares about in an all inclusive… Overall I really did enjoy the food! I have attached some photos of the food, sorry for the bad photos, I wasn't planning on sharing this, so the photos were really meant to capture my wife, not the food. But the review needed details on one of the main reasons you book this place!

Link to the menus, where you can see breakfast, dinner, beverage, late night snacks, lunch/poolside, and others. Only thing missing from this link is their BBQ place, the 'Big Sur Smokehouse', but that place was just okay so I say unless you want a heavy meal or are staying plenty of days and want to get variety, maybe just skip this. This is just my preference and maybe all you want to eat is BBQ!

Breakfast, at the Big Sur house once and room service the other 2 times:

Highlight from here was the 'Chorizo Scramble'.

Lunch, once at the Big Sur Smokehouse where we had a 'salad' with meat on the side, but the meat was just okay, and twice by the pool:

Highlight from here was the nice light 'Grilled Fish Tacos'.

Dinner, all three times at Big Sur House:

First night-

Second night-

Third night-

Highlight from here was the 'Spanish Octopus' for appetizer, the 'Seared Scallops' for main, and 'Lemon Tart' for dessert. One tip, which we didn't know the first night, is you can call the front desk and request a golf cart to take you (instead of what we did which was walking in the dark through trees on small little rocks and dirt for what seems like 10 mins isn't what I would call ideal with my wife wearing her nice dinner shoes).

Also note you can order as much food as you want.

Not making this a dog review, but in case you care. My wife let my dog walk a few feet off trail for a few minutes the first day, and when we returned to the room we found 2 ticks on my dog. I'm positive they were ticks, BUT I am NOT holding this against them, you are in the forest and this is nature. My dog had received his monthly flee and tick medicine a few days before we went, so I wasn't worried but we did shower the dog right away and only walked on the concrete not the trails from then on.

Staff was friendly, so service was good.

There are things you can borrow like beach blankets etc, which looked high quality and basically brand new.

I am also sharing the link (which the room QR code linked to) that list out menus, activities, other paid activities, spa menu pricing, map, etc. With this, you have everything I know about the property that was provided by the hotel.