After all the mixed reviews I wanted to write a longer review of my five-day stay. To summarize, the property is a mixed bag, but overall I think the positives outweigh the negatives. I would return.

I stayed for five full days (early arrival and late departure on a four-night stay) on a point redemption, and yes, I wish I’d been able to use the fifth day free but schedules didn’t allow. Note a $50 resort fee plus required parking puts you at $110 a night just for crossing the threshold even on a points stay.

The location is fifteen minutes north of Santa Barbara proper, an easy drive up 101. Hotel is a couple minutes off the highway, near a park and a golf course but otherwise isolated. Like many Santa Barbara hotels it is close to 101, but unlike others above, I never experienced issues with highway noise. I think the location is largely positive - you’re far enough away from SB to feel unbothered but close enough to where you can pop in for dinner with ease. One downside is the beach is basically unusable due to seaweed accumulation. This is probably less of a negative than it would be many places since SB beaches in general are usually pretty “tarry” and therefore often aren't worthwhile. I spoke with a friend who stayed here two years ago and that person had no issues with seaweed on the beach, so perhaps it is seasonal or based on current weather patterns - YMMV.

The arrival experience is excellent. You pull into a large stone courtyard with fountain and immediately feel like you’re in southern Spain - an attractive and transformative setup. The valets were routinely excellent. Well-staffed, friendly, remembered me, always got the car quickly - a stark contrast to many resorts where valet service can be hit or miss.

Check in was OK - pretty quick, but a bit perfunctory as I didn’t really feel warmly welcomed. I did receive an upgrade from what I would assume is probably the worst room on property (since I booked on points) to a high floor king with a garden view in the middle of the property. I will note that the lobby here is truly one of the more pleasant lobbies. It was redone recently and nails the modern yet relaxed interior vibe perfectly. It has multiple fireplaces that are always burning. Just awesome.

Other reviewers are right - the rooms are too dark, and they are dated. They aren’t so dark or dated as to be *bad,* but they just aren’t as bright and modern as they should be. The lobby designer and budget didn't make it around to redoing the rooms. They clearly have upgraded the rooms to some degree relatively recently, but you get the feeling that whatever budget they had for the room refresh was cut by 50% and they made do. The upside is that all rooms seem to have working gas fireplaces, and it is a treat to come home to your room and turn the fireplace on. Closet space was adequate, all rooms appear to have balconies, and the WiFi worked well.

The property is relatively spread out, and it slopes down a hill facing a marsh and the beach/ocean. The lobby is on the top of the hill along with a coffee shop, a patio bar, a lobby bar, and a lobby restaurant serving Latin style tapas. Near it is the evening restaurant complex which has a steak and a sushi restaurant, both with patios looking out over the cliff to the water, and below the lobby area is a big banquet complex with patio. Below that is the club lounge, the spa, the adult pool, and then probably a dozen or so “villas” of various sizes that contain the rooms. Below that is the pool complex, the pool bar, and the bistro that serves breakfast and lunch. One of the best things about this hotel is the grounds. Every single inch of exterior landscaped area is gorgeous and the plants are all well-maintained. It’s clear that some of the buildings have been better maintained than others, but the landscaping was perfect. They do also have golf carts going around the property for folks that don’t want to walk up and down the hills.

About the pools: What had once been the “spa” pool is now the adult pool - and therefore you don’t need to be using the spa to use the pool. The two main (family) pools are down by the beach.

The upside to this setup is that the former spa, now adult pool is gorgeous, quiet, and relaxing. The downside is they never planned for it to have food and beverage service. So they serve a very limited menu of food that doesn’t have to be cooked, and very little booze. No bar and no real dedicated food and drink servers. You can get room service delivered, but it is slow. I ended up walking down to the main pool bar for draft beers and to-go food since the selection at the adult pool was so limited. As a for instance, they ran out of one of the three beers (and the only of the three I liked) at the adult pool. I said to the attendant, I will be here all week - can you please restock this beer for tomorrow (cans, not draft/needing a keg). It never happened... very frustrating.

At the main pools they require you to make a free reservation through iPoolside, but I am not sure why. At least during the week the family pools were never more than half full. They’ve also turned one of the two family pools into a cabana-only situation, which obviously are all for rent for $100s/day. Only a few were ever rented, so if I had kids with me I would be frustrated by that too. Also, having "pool sessions" from 10-2:30 and then 3pm onward is silly in Santa Barbara. You're giving 4.5 hours of prime sunshine to the early group, and screwing the last group into having maybe 90 mins of warmth before it becomes too chilly to swim. Totally brainless move by the hotel.

Changing gears, the food was a highlight. There was not a single bad meal, between the sushi restaurant (San Setto) which was fantastic, the main breakfast place called the Bistro, the coffee shop, the pool bar, and the lobby bar and restaurant called “O.” Every meal was excellent although the breakfast buffet was overpriced. In particular the nigiri at San Setto was a treat. Elites can get discounts in the coffee shop and by going early to the bistro (I assume to help with overcrowding, though it was never super busy during my stay) - a rare Ritz Carlton nod to elites. I didn’t get a chance to eat at Angel Oak, the steakhouse, but the setting was very nice.

The fitness center was excellent. Seemed to be completely brand new, all equipment was new, large and well-designed, with an outdoor area for stretching. A great place to work out. The spa was a pretty good experience, but not great. My massage was awesome, though a bit pricey, but unfortunately the locker room and some of the relaxation areas need a little refresh. The spa attendant was well-meaning, but basically out to lunch. Overall, a mixed bag.

So what are the negatives? I mentioned the rooms and the pool issues... and the service was all over the map. Some staff members were excellent and super helpful, others were either untrained or unable to do their jobs (or maybe just a little stoned?). It seems like the management of this hotel needs to work harder on a service culture that is consistent across departments and encourages staffers to go above and beyond, as opposed to in some cases just mailing it in, if they even know what they're doing at all. Some of the days by the spa pool, the service was laughably bad - not knowing what drinks were available, being unable to find menus, etc. I didn’t leave with a bad taste in my mouth service-wise, but it was definitely significantly short of where it needs to be for a resort that charges as much as this one.

There was also a major snafu with the room, though ultimately the hotel more than made it right. One night the smoke alarm went off in the middle of the night, I think due to a low battery - as an isolated issue, I can understand this. So I complained, and the front desk said they’d address it. It was annoying enough that I went back a couple hours later just to make sure it had been fixed so I wouldn't be woken up again - they said it had. It had not and went off again that afternoon. So I tried again with the front desk later, and was assured by a manager it would be fixed. Again that night, it wasn’t and I was woken up. So after being awoken two nights in a row, I was very angry and demanded to be moved rooms and compensated. To their credit, they did this and moved me to a much better, ocean-facing room - though it took a couple hours longer than they said it would - and they compensated me by crediting back two nights worth of points plus an additional 20,000 points for the trouble.

One note, though I didn’t get to use it, for people that book the club rooms, the Ritz Club looked to be one of the nicest I have ever seen, with a big patio overlooking the spa pool and a very large honor bar and buffet. Tempting for the next visit.

Overall I would happily stay here again and though the stay was quite far from perfect, it was a great trip, very relaxing, in a beautiful setting with amazing food. At some price point the mediocre hard product in the room and significant service miscues would make it not worth it, but on a standard points redemption it was worthwhile.