Laguna Surf

The resort looks good on the outside; good structure and paints. The inside is like a cheap hotel. The building is ocean front but the room is shoddy. No kitchen table.The patio has the dining table which you cannot use on a rainy day. The kitchen is described as a full kitchen but very small and the breakfast counter can only accommodate one counter height chair. The sliding bedroom door cannot be opened completely. Very small bedroom and the flat screen TV in the bedroom was just nailed to the top of a corner cabinet. The bedroom drawers in the BR is only 3 inches thick while the rest of the drawers protrudes in the area that was supposed to be the dining room. The ocean view rooms are for owners only when reserving 13 months out. Two things that are positive- the 1BR suite has 2 bathrooms and they were both newly renovated. There is security parking. Our room was facing the street right in front of two gasoline stations. We checked out the next day and wasted our week of timeshare exchange. No drop box available as we checked out on New Years Eve. I believe were better empty rooms available but I was not offered to us since it would be better to rent it. We couldn't sleep from the street noise. The clothes cabinet are old and dated. The second floor facing the street is a mezzanine between the second and third elevator. So their is no elevator in our unit.

What a world of difference! Out of the 20 rooms (according to our estimate), all but maybe 6 are ocean front. The odd-numbered rooms are "Village View" which means bus and truck exhaust and lots of street noise. All the rooms are located on 3 floors with the majority of those rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors. But this time wow! Our room #312 was all we could have hoped for (view-wise). Breath taking sunsets and steps-to-the-beach proximity were perfection. Those "steps" do include a very large staircase between Laguna Surf and the beach. The rooms are pretty much the same in all the units: smallish queen-size bed, 1 and 1/2 bathrooms, a functional kitchen (a bit snug) and all the appliances one needs to prepare meals. There is a creative solution to the 2nd bedroom set-up: it is a Murphy pull-down bed but it occupies the same space as the tilt-up dining table. When we set the table up, it immediately collapsed and we were thankful we hadn't set the table yet. All I could imagine was wine glass and plates flying everywhere. The solution was to take a barstool and wedge it under the table. We appreciated that the resort had a laundry room with one dryer and one washing machine. It free to use. Just plan accordingly as others will need to use it, too. The gated secure parking holds all the assigned parking spaces and they certainly are nicely sized. Laguna Surf sits on PCH about 2 blocks away from Ralph's grocery store and, in the other direction, maybe 3 blocks to Main Beach. Forest Avenue has become a pedestrian zone for a block or so off PCH and it pretty much marks the heart of this beach-y little downtown. Laguna runs a free trolley that ends up at the Ritz Carlton hotel and Monarch Beach. The walking paths go through the golf course area and along the beach. Lots of grass, attractive picnic areas, and loads of vistas worthy of photo opportunities. Would I come back here in the future? Yes, but only if an Ocean front unit was booked.