Estancia La Jolla Hotel

, La Jolla, United States
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Estancia La Jolla Hotel

5 star

Rooms: 210

9700 N. Torrey Pines Road - La Jolla - California - 92037 - United States Hotel Website | | 858-550-1000
475 Traveller

Reviews - Estancia La Jolla Hotel

Historical Traveller Reviews of Estancia La Jolla Hotel

Great place to stay!

from A TripAdvisor Member
We spent last week in San Diego/La Jolla and loved staying at Estancia, La Jolla. Our room was lovely, the bars were great, and it was so quiet and peaceful. We had a beautiful view of the courtyard from our balcony and really enjoyed the pool and spa. I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for some peace and quiet after a day of busy sight-seeing and shopping.

Great Escape!

from A TripAdvisor Member
I just came back from a weekday escape at the Estancia. What a wonderful little place! The location is great, not noisy at all. The atmosphere was southwestern, yet upscale...very different from the other luxury hotels I've stayed at. The rooms are very nice, with a VERY comfortable bed. The Spa is a MUST if you stay here--really relaxing and great service. I especially enjoyed their Mustangs Restaurant, which is a great place for kicking back. The staff was very accommodating, however I would suggest that they separate their reception and concierge desks. It was a bit tedious to stand in the check in line when I wanted to get some information. Overall, Estancia has top notch service and is a beautiful property. This will be my new vacation spot in San Diego!

Tranquil

from A TripAdvisor Member
Just came back from a four day weekend and couldn't be more rested. Found the the staff to be courtsey and knowledgable of the area. Breakfast was nice but found dinner to be a little restrictive in choices which wasn't a problem since the hotel was 15 minutes from downtown San Diego and 10 minutes from downtown La Jolla. The location of the hotel was perfect, nothing was more than 20 minutes away. If you are looking for a tranquil experience this is the place to be.

Very nice, but a few quirks

from A TripAdvisor Member
Stayed at the Estancia for a few days in February 2005, for a business meeting. Overall it's a nice, upper-class place, but for the price I'd have been disappointed if I'd paid for it myself.

Check-in: Arrived in the wee hours - around 2am. Went the wrong way off the freeway, but found my mistake and quickly located the hotel. Needed the map to find it. Very non-descript looking parking lot - looks like an apartment complex. Courtyard around check-in done in gravel hardscape, but not at all cheap looking. Checked in ok, but no bellmen or valet around at that hour.
Theoreticallay they charge $15 for self-parking or $17 for valet, but so far I haven't been billed.

Room - quite upscale. Again, Cal/Spanish decor, very nice king bed. Decent - sized bathroom w/ separate WC. However, maid service was late 2 out of 3 days, didn't replace everything and didn't wash the coffee cups (lipstick still on the rims!). And yes, I do tip.

Grounds - I guess I'd describe it as dry California hardscape, but in an upscale way. Lots of gravel, succulents, tile walkways, fountains etc, but also grass. Architecture is California Spanish. Everything was very clean and well-maintained, and it does have a very langorous feel. However, it seems like a small, boxed-in lot. My room overlooked the strip of grass and back wall adjacent to I don't know what - houses? Apartments? At least nobody overlooks the parking lot. About half the rooms overlook interior courtyards; all have balconies or patios. Those interior room views would be much more vacation-y.
As I was there on business, I never made it to the pool or spa.
No beachfront or ocean view, although it's within a 5 minute drive of the beach. About another 5 minutes to downtown La Jolla village - shops, restaurants etc.

Meals - hee! I'm not sure what most of the conference attendees thought of it. Very upscale menu - all very good food (excepting the runny scrambled eggs every morning), but a little discomfitting if you're a meat-and-potatoes person. There wasn't a whole lot for those who aren't adventurous in food. The midwesterners told me it wasn't what they're used to.

Meeting rooms - since that's what I was there for - several ballrooms, very comfortable break-out rooms and a large private dining room available. Also a modern theatre with extremely comfortable chairs and all the hook-ups for laptops etc at every seat. Better than average break area outside. Don't know how easy they were to work with, but as an attendee, it was great.
Business center - they post a rate sheet, but I was never billed for anything.

All in all - for a conference it was top-notch. But for a vacation...I think I'd head down the road to the Hotel Del Coronado or similar.

Very nice!

from mngo2000
We just returned from a one-night stay at the Estancia La Jolla Hotel and Spa.

Registration: Very smooth and pleasant.

Room: Well-decorated and clean. The bed was to die for (reminded us of the bed at the W and the Westin) and was extremely comfortable. The temperature could be controlled by a digital thermometer.

Bathroom: Clean. Water smelled slightly of seawater.

Location: Grounds were nice. Not as big as we imagined but well kept and groomed.

Service: Everyone was extremely nice. Everyone we passed said hello to us. We had a small problem with our veranda door and an engineer was dispatched to our room within minutes (hint: lift the door handle before locking the door).

Parking: Easy to self-park. If you want to valet, they will drop your car off right near your room.

Very nice hotel

from Arlo89
I stayed here recently for a conference and really liked it. The rooms aren't very large, but they're comfortable. Nice beds! The staff is very courteous and eager to help. The grounds are beautiful, and my room was very quiet. There was a small glitch with the lock on my room door -- I was locked out at one point and had to wait for an engineer to open my door. He said they were having problems on all the doors, so hopefully this will be remedied soon. Otherwise, it was a very nice stay.

Peaceful place

from A TripAdvisor Member
We just returned from a five night stay at the Estancia in La Jolla. We had no idea what to expect having never been to the San Diego area. The hotel is on a very busy thoroughfare so initially we were a bit concerned, but we didn't need to be. The room and the interior of the hotel is so quiet that you would never even know that a road was so close. Even from our little balcony overlooking the courtyard, we couldn't hear anything. The beds are very comfortable, the toiletries they provide smelled really nice, the grounds are landscaped beautifully, the service was excellent, and the exercise room had new equipment. I do not have any complaints whatsoever about this hotel. They even upgraded us and gave us a room with a courtyard view because they weren't very busy. (That was supposed to be our little secret, but they were so nice to give it to us that I had to tell you.)

Very Satisfied with Estancia

from Sw0rdf1sh
I was lucky enough to get the Estancia through a decent rate via Priceline. After staying there I would gladly have paid a little more. The grounds are immacculate once you get off the road and we didn't even get a chance to touch some of the suggested walking/running paths.

Location is convenient to highway and 5 minute car ride to downtown La Jolla. Not in the heart of things, but in SoCal sometimes it's refreshing to be off the beaten path and Torrey Pines is a nice area to do it.

Property and staff were fantastic and proper. Very new renovations on historic property near Ja Jolla coast. I can say my wife and I enjoyed their bar (very nice atmosphere), our dinner, and breakfast buffet very much. Superb Food and very attentive staff makes a difference when your vacations are crammed into two days.

The staff from the valet to the front desk and back went out of their way and seemed to enjoy their job. The rooms and beds were awesome, (my wife took digital pictures for our future construction plans) but the grounds were an added bonus. I

With all the times I have ever read a tripadvisor rating, this place really deserved to be my first. If you are going to San Diego/La Jolla....this place makes you feel at home...or better.

Intimate, charming but still needs work

from Mike Sheridan
Stayed here for two nights Jan 9-11 for work and loved the feel of the facility. The lobby, room, bar, and restaurant all have a wonderful southwestern feel to them.

Open only since last summer, the service still needs work. Dinner in the restaurant was served very late and very cold. Also, it is difficult to get a drink before 4pm with staff not able to direct you to an open bar (at least in January when the pool bar is closed).

If the service improves, a five rating is a given.

m glad I stayed there

from somebody_else
Based on Tripadvisor reviews, we chose the Hilton Gaslamp (see my review of that under San Diego) for all 3 nights of our San Diego trip. I was told when I booked that if I left early, I'd have to pay 50% of each remaining room night. I'd never heard of such a thing, and later, having seen amazing reviews of the Hotel Estancia in La Jolla, decided to reduce my reservation at Hilton Gaslamp to 1 night and book 2 nights at Estancia. Thank goodness.

Estancia La Jolla is only a 15 minute drive on the freeway from SAN airport or from Balboa Park, or 20 minutes from Coronado. Don't overlook this place as a San Diego lodging because it's in La Jolla.

After our unhappy stay at the Hilton Gaslamp, it was such a relief to go to Estancia. I'd got a great deal on Expedia, for a room + breakfast + parking + guaranteed upgrade. So when we checked in, they explained that even though we were upgraded to a verandah room, that meant a verandah overlooking the parking lot and very busy road. But for $25 more per night, we could upgrade to a courtyard view. The courtyard rooms had an amazing view, so we took it. Even at the extra cost we paid (my husband talked them down to $20 per night), it was still cheaper than what we would've got from the hotel directly for the room + parking + breakfast.

The landscaping is amazing, with palm trees, manicured circular lawns, fountains, little citrus trees, beautiful wrought iron, and a gorgeous swimming pool (because you know, the beauty of a pool isn't just in its size and shape, but primarily in the landscaping). The pool was wonderfully warm, by the way. The decor is lovely. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, it's not a massive property, and rooms aren't huge either. It's just a lovely little oasis.

The two nights we were there, there were functions throughout the aftenoon and evening. So there were various sections with signs up saying private function. Still, we did get a chance to have drinks in the library in front of the fire (couldn't get a chance at the outdoor fireplace), and that was great. The functions didn't create a lot of noise, though, and the clientele tends to be quiet also, just looking to unwind.

The breakfast was fairly standard. Servers were friendly and attentive. One morning, they were late setting up the buffet, so they offered to get us buffet items from the kitchen, whatever we wanted. Really accomodating.

Overall, I'd agree with a previous reviewer's comments that the staff seem a bit green. In the wine bar, when my husband asked for the 'house red', they asked 'Is chardonnay okay?'. I said I thought that was a white wine, and they said they were pretty sure it's a red, but they'd be happy to go confirm that for me, which was a little amusing - I didn't expect a sommelier at the wine bar, but this seemed a pretty basic thing. The first glass of merlot came with bits of cork in it, but the staff was happy to replace that with a fresh glass. Then they brought us two separate bills, one for each round of drinks, which was odd. The valet guys were always really quick and attentive - very helpful. Maid service was a bit spotty - one time I called and asked for fresh bathrobes and a new iron (the one provided was leaking heavily) when they came to do turndown, they still hadn't brought the items 4 hours later, even though they'd done turndown awhile back. When we called to ask them again, they said, oh we didn't know you wanted it right away. I kind of wonder whether a lot of the staff are part-timers from UCSD across the street. Kind of reminds me of having co-op students in the office - sweet and trying really hard, but not entirely sure how things are supposed to be done. Because I have to say, everyone's obviously trying really hard to be great hosts.

(By the way, if you like Thai food, drive down to Spice Thai in La Jolla village. They have a lovely little heated patio and the food is amazing!!!! Frommers recommended it as an inexpensive choice in La Jolla, and we liked it so much, we went twice.)

Top Local Tips for La Jolla

Good restaurants close to Estancia La Jolla Pacifica Del Mar (Del Mar 15th Street Mall) has an excellent barbeque salmon - be sure to get their early for the early bird discount and a table with a great view of the ocean and sunset.

February Be prepared for warm-75 or so, cool-45 or so and windy! We had a great bathing suit at pool day, a cloudy windy day, when a cashmere hoodie plus a windbreaker would have been nice, and a chilly evening, when the trenchcoat came back out from the winterwear! Good walking shoes with closed toes would help. I ended up in crocs with sox when my toes started to freeze in my sandals.

Kayaking at La Jolla Cove We purchased a brunch/kayaking package from La Jolla Kayak. It was $110 per couple for a guided, 1.5-hour kayak tour through the sea caves, and a really nice brunch across the street at Piatti. I definitely recommend it.

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Other names for Estancia La Jolla Hotel

  • estancia la jolla hotel
  • Address: 9700 N. Torrey Pines Road - La Jolla - California - 92037 - United States
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