Dark dingy rooms, mediocre service I am overall disappointed by this hotel. My wife's birthday was the reason we came here. They said they upgraded us to the room 19201. Significant highway noise when you open patio door. Super dark room. We requested an oceanfront room after we arrived. Supposedly they have only 15 oceanfront rooms out of 350 rooms! We requested a late check out. After 15 times requesting it, they agreed to extend by one hour!!! They kept on wanting to charge more money for late checkout. We came back to the room one night after dinner and found in large garbage bag with disgusting left over food scaps in it in the middle of our room! We told the front desk. Instead of some apology, we kept on receiving these badgering calls from "loss prevention" department. One call after another call! No apologies, no refunds, nothing! Just phone calls "investigating" the issue! This smelly garbage bag was in the middle of our room for no explainable reason after the room was already cleaned. A good friend of ours sent champagne evidently with flowers for my wife's bday. He said that he spoke with the hotel many times to get this delivered to us. Guess what? We did not receive it! Where is that champagne? Someone must've enjoyed it… The one thing that I will say that was amazing was the food at the restaurants. Beach is a short walk away but is not very attractive. They have spectacular food and as a result I am giving them two stars instead of one!

Gorgeous Property - not a $1500/night room Yes, this is a gorgeous property, however, there are lots of "buts".... 1. Check in is ridiculously long and arduous 2. Our villa/room smelled like pee. The tiles in the bathroom floor were cracked. 2a. The villas on the ground floor offer little privacy from your neighbor if you're sitting outside on the patio. They are literally RIGHT THERE next to you with little buffer. 3. The bed was slightly better than a roll-away. I swear I felt the coils/springs 4. It's a large, hilly (albeit gorgeous) property...which was fine for our family, but could be problematic for folks with mobility issues. They have golf carts, but we only used one for check out 5. The pool is relatively small - didn't use the hot tubs as they were jam packed 6. Pool service was not particularly attentive (had to flag them down) and it was filled with typical kids splashing, diving, jumping, screaming The beach does have a tar issue, but they provide wipes for your feet and insides of your shoes. The brunch is excellent, lunch at pool was fine, as were on the go items from the bistro. Masks were required indoors, they provided them if you don't have one. Not sure we would pull the trigger for the price again, however.

Don’t ignore the negative reviews The abundance of negative reviews for this property should not be ignored. I made that mistake and relied on the reputation of the Ritz-Carlton name when booking this stay. We were disappointed. First, the positive notes: The grounds of this property are beautiful in a classic Santa Barbara style. The two meals we had at the Bistro restaurant on property were very good and our servers were extremely busy but very friendly. Our bed was comfortable and the room was quiet at night. The view of the ocean from the property and the walking paths is gorgeous. However, we found this stay frustrating as the resort is very crowded and appears to be understaffed. Long lines at the front desk were common throughout the day, not only at check in time. At times the line reaches the door. Calling for assistance from the room was no better as the phone was not answered by a live person but instead a recording picked up. Our stay started off on a negative note as our first impression was the long queue to check in. We arrived right at 4 pm for check-in (note that stated check-in time is 4 pm). After a 15-minute wait in line we were informed that our room was not ready but should be ready “soon.” We asked if a different room was available and after going to the back the for a while the clerk returned and said “good news, a room is ready.” When we arrived at our room we noticed a bad odor immediately upon entering but naively thought the room just needed to be aired out. We opened the doors and unpacked. This was a mistake. The smell didn’t dissipate and we realized that a foul sewage smell was coming from the shower drain. After a long hold on the phone to speak to the front desk we explained the smell problem and we were told we would be moved to a new room. The move was handled efficiently by the bell staff but still disappointing and inconvenient to have to pack up and unpack twice during a short stay. Pro tip: be sure your room is in good condition before unpacking. At this price point I would expect better maintenance of the rooms and/or not placing guests in rooms with known issues. The pool reservation system makes it difficult to enjoy time at the pool overlooking the ocean Reservations are required for a lounge chair poolside and there is a waiting list situation to visit the main pool. I don’t know if this is due to Covid or simply due to the crowded situation at the resort. There does not appear to be any distance between the lounge chairs as they are packed tightly in multiple rows around the pool. Bikes are also available for use and included with the $50 per day resort fee. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend using the bikes. We had issues with both of the two bikes we borrowed. After a big hill on the road leading from the resort entrance, the brakes locked up on one bike! The seat came loose and was unable to be tightened on the second bike. We had to walk the bikes back after only 15 minutes. If you borrow bikes, check them carefully before heading out on a ride! When we shared our concerns about the functionality and safety of the bikes we were told that the bikes are provided by a third-party vendor. The staff members we interacted with throughout our stay were pleasant and tried to be helpful, they offered apologies and the statement that the problems and long wait time issues are due to “the new restrictions.” We are well over over a year in to this pandemic, it seems like there should have been time to adjust to new procedures while still providing the quality guest experience that I would expect from Ritz-Carlton. Overall this was a disappointing stay that was not worth the cost. One final caution, check your bill carefully when checking out. Our bill had charges from a restaurant we never visited and pool cabana food charges when we did not even visit the pools!

Ritz Carlton Bacara Shines Above the Rest! The Ritz Carlton Barbara is an amazing property with wonderful staff. A family vacation at the end of June was made special by Julie in the Club Lounge. She got to know our family, made sure that favorites were on hand, and connected with professionalism and grace. Every luxury resort should be so fortunate as to have a leader like Julie. The lovely oceanfront suite was well suited for three days of family relaxation. Housekeeping was meticulous and consistent. Requests were answered immediately and correctly. Gabriel answered all of our pre-arrival questions and made sure everything was in place for three special days. Days were spent at the pool and spa, evenings were spent on the deck enjoying the spectacular sunsets and sounds of the waves. We will be back!

Falls Short of Very Low Expectations After reading the negative reviews here I came in with *very* low expectations. And somehow, the property still disappoints. Look, I get it. The property will sell out regardless of negative reviews because it's a Ritz-Carlton near Santa Barbara. We tried to stick it out in the first room we were assigned, and did make it through one night there. The musty smell in the space seemed hard to achieve in such an ideal climate. The area rug smelled of dog. The doors were "sticky." The glasses were dirty. The neighbor was chain smoking cigarettes. But when the AC couldn't get the room below 75F (used in an attempt to dehumidify the place) we had to change rooms, which is always a nuisance after unpacking. The second room was better, but when a hotel provides such a bad first impression it causes me to dis-engage from the property. I don't want to eat at their restaurants. I don't want to go to the shabby overrun pool. I just want to get away from the property. And at that point I feel like I've wasted $50/nt in resort fees and I should have instead stayed at a limited service hotel. Because at that point it's just a bed and a shower. I understand things have been challenging during Covid, and we did interact with some pleasant, hard working staff. But I really hope hotel ownership and upper management takes the long view here because currently it's tarnishing not just the reputation of this property but the Ritz-Carlton brand as well. PROS -Attractive Santa Barbara architecture & grounds look pretty in pictures -70,000 points/nt when rooms were selling for $1,000/nt (good value for Marriott) CONS -They seem to assign guests on point stays to shabby rooms. We had to move due to a musty room and AC that couldn' tbe fixed. -When the wind blows the wrong way the resort smells like an oil refinery (oil rigs are visible near the property) -Beach is unused and has a tar issue, zero hotel services provided down there -Main pool area requires competitive reservations and is an over-populated, undesirable place to be with tired lounge chairs (adult pool off hours is better) -Poor performance from some housekeeping (dirty floors, sticky closets, dirty glassware, area rug smelled of dog) -Guest a couple of bungalows over chain smoked outside his room each morning and the resort didn't seem to care -Club Lounge upgrade was a scorching $500 per couple per night (hardly saw anyone in there) -$50 resort fee + $6 tax/nt not waived on award stays -$53/nt valet parking sometimes took too long to arrive even after calling far in advance, would be far easier to retrieve own car nearby (and they don't make it clear self-parking is an option nor how much that costs)