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Tina and Brett
Hotel Rating
Located at:
The Montage
30801 Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651
Staff Rating
If you’re visiting Orange County for the first time and you want to do luxury right, come to Laguna Beach. More specifically, stay at the Montage Resort. This hotel has it all: an unbeatable location perched above the Pacific Ocean (hello, perfect sunset views), a world-class spa, and a concierge team that can arrange paddleboarding, whale-watching excursions, snorkeling, nature walks, hiking, and more!
From the moment you walk down the marble entryway of your room, you know you are staying at a five-star luxury hotel. The coastal white design is both elegant and modern, and the splashes of understated gray exude an invigorating brightness to the accommodations.
The first thing you notice when you enter your room or suite is the French doors that lead to a private patio with expansive ocean views. Even though we live in California, and we’ve seen our share of California sunsets, the view from the Montage in Laguna is a view that never ceases to make you go ‘wow.’ It’s great in the morning for coffee or in the afternoon or evening with a glass of your favorite wine.
In fact, one of the best features of the rooms at the Laguna Beach Montage is that all of the rooms have partial or sweeping ocean views. The staff, attentive as ever, took great care of us, and we received a complimentary upgrade upon check-in from a partial view to a full view.
The Montage Hotel brand knows a thing or two about how to create a home-away-from-home experience. The bathrooms are spacious and include a marble soaking tub with specialty soaps and a standalone shower. A tray atop a sleek wood bar console is filled with 375 mL bottles of Belvedere vodka, Clase Azul tequila, McCallan 12-year, Woodford Reserve, and Monkey 47 gin.
If you want to relax a bit before venturing out into the hotel, the rooms have a comfortable sitting area with a plush sofa and armchair. And, if your clothes need a little touch-up, you’ve got an ironing table, iron, and steamer at your disposal.
The spa at the Montage resort deserves its own special nod. This wellness and pampering retreat encompasses 20,000 sq feet of space and includes revitalizing eucalyptus steam rooms, dry redwood saunas, ocean air whirlpools, and inviting fireplace lounges in addition to the menu of luxurious services that give you an idea of how invested the resort is in delivering a world-class wellness experience for its guests.
While the spa offers site-specific treatments like the California Wildflower Ritual, a 90-120 minute experience with heat-healing flower poultices and an array of therapeutic aromatic essences, the team here will also custom curate a treatment based on your needs.
Whether that means a spa service that focuses on revitalization, relaxation or refreshing your senses is up to you.
There are good hotel lounges, and there are great hotel lounges. The Lobby Lounge at the Montage, which the resort describes as “a symphony of sights and sounds,” is a must at the end of the day.
The live musical entertainment varies, but if you happen to visit on a night when David Allen Baker is playing – he is usually in-house Wednesday through Saturday, you’re in for a real treat. David sings, he plays piano, and he also plays the acoustic guitar. But many lounge musicians do that, so what makes the quality of the entertainment at the Montage different?
Let us give you an example of what we’re talking about. We asked David to play a song that he happened not to know. Now, instead of leaving the request dead right then and there, do you know what he did? During the 15-minute break, he learned the song, played the song, played it well, and totally blew our minds. He’s a very talented musician and very entertaining.
When it comes to dining or just kicking back and getting settled with a cocktail and snacks, the resort has several excellent options. We enjoyed glasses of crisp Champagne and free nibbles in the Lobby Lounge, took in the elevated coastal cuisine of Executive Chef David Serus at The Loft – and had lovely Espresso Martinis, by the way. And we stopped in at the Mosaic Bar & Grille to take in that famous Laguna sunset.
The service and quality was, across the board, excellent everywhere we went.
The heart and soul of Montage Laguna Beach is the commitment to delivering an unforgettable, five-star experience for their guests. This extends to the dining options, the amenities, and the spa. Overall, this luxury beachfront resort gets five well-deserved stars from us.
As a final thoughtful gesture, as we were leaving, the valet had two baseball hats with the Montage logo on them in the car for us. The bottom line, you can’t go wrong staying at a Montage Resort. The Spa is first class. The restaurants are all extremely well-run and staffed, and the food is top-notch.
