L'AUBERGE CARMEL

Great rooms and service. The heated floors in the bathroom and the stand alone tub were great after a long day exploring Carmel.

Beautiful hotel, fabulous location, and the service is spot on. We could not have asked for more.

Great Bartender !

The only thing preventing me from giving L’Auberge five stars are the fact that the rooms don’t have AC and that the courtyard king rooms let in a lot of ambient noise from the courtyard, where dinner seatings at the in-hotel restaurant occur Wed-Sun from 5-11 PM. Definitely bring some earplugs and avoid coming when it’s over 70 degrees outside! Otherwise, the level of service, the breakfast, and the valet service was wonderful. Lots of great staff that care a lot about their guests and their experience while in Carmel.

First, there is a lot to like about his property. L'Auberge Carmel has an unbeatable location, beautiful historic architecture, a friendly, capable staff and more.

But when we arrived at the hotel on a warm Carmel day and were shown to our room, we were informed that there was no air conditioning in the property because it was “historic.” My wife and I were flabbergasted. First, because we’ve never heard of a 5-star luxury hotel—historic or not--without air. Second, that there was no disclosure of this fact on the hotel’s website, room description, anywhere. The desk clerk said there is a notification in the confirmation email they send out, but there wasn’t on ours.

The bellman suggested we open our windows and gave us a fan. But that caused a real problem with noise. Outside our back windows was an air conditioning compressor that kept going on and off and early in the morning garbage men pounded cans during their work. In addition, the front windows of the room faced the outdoor eating area for the restaurant and with our windows open, we heard all the conversations and shouting and noise of a busy common area. Our Room Number 17 was clearly the worst on the property.

It was very unsettling. When their highly-touted restaurant, Aubergine, opened on the last full day of our stay, I went into the place and saw a split-mini air conditioning unit on the wall showering cool air on the guests. I guess the restaurant was in the “non-historic” part of the property.

All this hotel had to do was disclose that the rooms aren’t air conditioned. But that could affect bookings, so they keep it a secret. It’s called lying by omission. We won’t be staying there again, obviously.