We stayed here for 6 nights back in November and it was the most luxurious and gorgeous place we have evern been. After booking with the American Express Platinum card we got a free upgrade to a beach front Junior Terrace Suite- unbelievable. We HIGHLY recommend it, the services, pools, beaches, staff and spa are beyond words....

Our stay over the Xmas holiday here was very mediocre. The grounds are beautiful! We stayed in a Terrace Jr. Suite which was nice, except for the teeny closet for 2 people.
The staff was nice, but not 5-star quality - very robotic and didn't seem to SINCERELY care about you or your needs. There were a bunch of celebrities there who, I guess, commanded more attention than li'l ol' us paying over $2,000/day with food, which was 2-star quality. Beautiful restaurants, but the food was a REAL disappointment, especially with all the hype about Charlie Trotter's C restaurant. Nothing special AT ALL!! Average $200-300 dinners for 2 with a couple of $18 drinks included.
The spa is nice, however. Word of caution, you cannot reserve a lounge chair at the pool for more than an hour. There were some disagreements there regarding this policy - so beware. You put your book on a chair @ 8am only to find someone else laying there at 9:30am.
In closing, I would not come back here - I can't understand all the hoopla about this resort. The food, the staff are very mediorce, at best. The property is lovely as are the rooms. My experience is that this place is WAY IN OVER IT'S HEAD to rise to a 5-star luxury resort. It tries real hard, but fails miserably to keep up with its peers.

I want to express my complete dissatisfaction with the reservations process at Palmilla. I made a reservation to visit the hotel in May 2005, that I had to cancel within 5 hours of making it due to a last minute change in schedule, and I then made a new reservation the next day, to visit in early June.

Not only did my two email confirmations quote the WRONG two night stay rate (they overcharged me by more than $1000 in each separate reservation), but then, when I got my credit card, two charges for the completely wrong amount (the amount didn't match the wrong email NOR did it match the quoted two night price) had been made. I have now made over 8 calls to resolve this and after 3 weeks, nothing has yet been fixed. The first person I spoke to, at the reservations office, told me she had no idea what had happened and referred me to the accounting office (even though my instinct says that she should have called accounting since this was there screw up). I then called the accounting office and they never called me back. I then called Palmilla directly and a kind woman, the on-site reservations manager, said she completely understood my frustration and would resolve everything. She then sent her assistant to talk to me the next day and that assistant told me all would be fixed that day, apologized for the mess, and told me I would be getting an email and a fax confirming that all was fine that day.

It has now been 4 days and I am still waiting for a resolution to this complete mess, NONE of which was caused by me.

To be honest, I am this close to canceling everything, b/c if the hotel can't get a simple reservation (and a simple credit card charge) done right, what guarantee do I have that I won't get there and find a problem there, such as a lost reservation?

I have heard nothing but great things about this place, but based on this nightmare, I think I will stick to the Four Seasons for my next trip...at least they can handle a simple reservation. For over $500 a night for a room, you would think customer service would be able to handle their mistakes promptly and efficiently.

My husband and I spent our honeymoon at La Palmilla in October. I was astonished to see a poor review about this hotel. It's hard to describe how much we loved this hotel. It was truly more than we could've imagined. The service, the food, the beaches, the spa, the impeccable grounds... Everything was beyond. Beautiful rocky beach, and a perfect swimming beach. There was no reason to leave the hotel, but were curious about their competitors, so we had dinner at Las Ventanas, Esperanza... (Although they were very nice, we felt relieved we had chosen to stay at La Palmilla). We have made a pact to return there every year. can't wait til next October!