We've stayed once per year for the last 5 years, usually just before Christmas, with another couple.

There have often been missteps in our stays, so it was good that this one was pretty smooth. The staff all seemed to be in good spirits and we saw several servers at Sur House that we've had in the past. I know some people comment about slower service at Sur House, but everything seemed to be humming along at a good pace where it felt neither slow nor rushed at dinners. I thought the brunch & dinner menus were both above average compared to previous stays, with the one weakness being dessert -- which was fine but not as interesting as the past. Poolside lunch was decent in terms of the actual food, but suffered a bit because they only offered boxed rather than plated service at the time.

We're Globalists and used SUA for both ours and our friends' reservation. They don't have status and ended up in a Big Sur Suite as booked (though they got a top floor, which is nice) and we were upgraded into a Pacific House Suite. Our upgrades in previous years as Globalists have been King -> Big Sur Suite twice, and Big Sur Suite -> Spa Suite once. The Pacific House Suite is nice for its lack of potential above-or-below-you neighbors all being single level, and we didn't hear any noise from neighbors through the left/right walls. It also has a nicer hot tub than the Spa Suite, and is more private feeling on the balcony. Downsides were a very old-looking HVAC system (though it wasn't needed), poor water closet privacy without closing all the retractable doors around the bathroom areas, and the lack of a wet bar like other suites. Overall I think I'd prefer the Spa Suite we had last time as it was also single-level, though they may not all be that way.

A couple disappointments with the property: They removed the pool table in the Social House and replaced it with a long table, I guess for board games. The happy hour there also had no menu at the time and the guy running the happy hour seemed very inexperienced and the drink options very boring, so we skipped it. Last year at this time they were doing free hot chocolates in the Social House. Monday 12/22 had great weather even though it was forecast to be worse, and yet they didn't staff the pool area when it was 64, mostly sunny, and things had generally dried out from the misty day before. This included not offering plated pool-side lunch, as mentioned above so some things (quesadilla, tacos) arrived a bit soggy. My biggest gripe is their transition from their lovely rosemary mint toiletries to lemongrass for everything except one small soap bar. The lemongrass just reminds me of Pledge, and is very one-note. They should have gone with Aesop or similar if they didn't want to make their own branded toiletries any longer. The Sur House restrooms had one of the old soap bottles but it was filled with cheap floral-smelling junk.

Before arrival they sent us a link with the opportunity to pre-buy amenities such as drinks credit or activity credits. We purchased a $150 drink credit for $100, and while it did work out fine in the end they seemed for both us, and our friends, to not really be aware of it during check-out and simply made the deduction after we mentioned it... odd, but maybe they have to manually verify it since it's a newer feature, and aren't super proactive. The folio didn't distinguish between actual drink charges and the auto gratuity, so the drink credits counted towards both. We thought it might not count towards gratuity and forgot to ask at check-in. This is a nice offer in order to bring down drinks cost, though I'm sure it might get some people to spend extra at dinner given the $100 cost minimum. You can purchase essentially as many as you want of any of the packages.

We're probably going to take a break after 5 years. It's always a nice time, but the points cost is high and while the staff our great, management seems to make the property feel a bit less premium every year with other things we've all noted before, such as the $10 room service charge and removal of the free Marine Layer cocktail during happy hour.

One last interesting thing to note: In the past the property has always felt fairly empty. We almost never see anyone at the pools, infinity hot tub, or Japanese baths, at the Social House, and barely anyone just walking the property... even though it's ostensibly full. This time it felt like we saw people all the time. Maybe just random chance of the proclivities of the other guests at the time.