Balboa Bay Resort

Beautiful, excellent service, convenient location. The room is big. Most customers have luxury cars. Ocean view with balcony. Location is closed to most beaches.

This is our second stay at Balboa Bay Resort and like the first, our stay has been wonderful. The staff is friendly and welcoming. With things such as a personalized welcome note and special treats for our son they went beyond the expected to make our stay special. Our room is spacious, comfortable, clean and has a great view of the bay. The onsite restaurant, A + O, is excellent. We really like the Balboa Bay Resort and plan to return.

I stayed at Balboa Bay Resort for a short staycation and had a genuinely relaxing and enjoyable experience. The waterfront setting is beautiful and peaceful, with marina views that immediately set a calming tone.

My room was spacious, quiet, and very comfortable l. It well laid out and easy to settle into. The overall property feels elegant without being stuffy, which made it a great place to truly unwind rather than feel “on display” in a luxury setting.

Service throughout my stay was consistently warm and professional. Staff were attentive and kind without being intrusive, and everything from check-in to dining and room service felt smooth and well managed.

This is an ideal choice for a restful coastal getaway or staycation if you’re looking for comfort, calm, and thoughtful service. I left feeling refreshed and would absolutely return.

Nice and clean

I was attending a business seminar and had heard about how wonderful the resort was but it far exceeded my expectations. All of the staff I came into contact with were warm, friendly, and genuine in their greetings and service! The room was spacious, luxurious, and had a beautiful balcony which I enjoyed being able to step outside to check on the weather without having to leave my room. The room service was professional, friendly, and delicious. How lovely to be served breakfast in your room and have it be hot, tasty, and prompt! Both employees who manned the front desk were very friendly and quickly took care of my checking in/out and questions. I especially loved having my room tidied up during the day and the turndown service in the evening made me feel like a million! (wish I had that at home!!) I was traveling solo and felt very safe at the hotel. I never gave my safety a thought until just now! I loved the old world elegance of the hotel; not a stark new building but it had the underlying sense of knowing it was truly exceptional without being snooty.

The property is stunning and the staff is very courteous and highly professional, but the experience is undercut by excessive mandatory surcharges. While the hotel promotes the $45 resort voucher as a benefit because it can be used as a dining credit, the addition of the Resort Fee (and Resort Fee Tax) and Tourism Marketing Fees more than offsets that value. These cumulative add-ons significantly inflate the final bill, making the pricing feel deceptive despite the high quality of the grounds and service.

The food is fine, the staff very friendly and helpful. They always had a dinner special. The valets were prompt and courteous.

Balboa Bay Resort is a very nice hotel on the water . The rooms were pretty average but nice bathrooms. Our room was over some generator so the room floors vibrated .

The restaurant had great service and pretty clean flavorful dishes . We particularly liked the tuna poke bowl and the steak salad . For breakfast - the protein açaí shake and the avocado toast hit the spot .

For swimmers - the pool is one of the best for hotels . A 25 meter length pool - very rare for hotels and lane lines . I loved it . The fitness room is under renovation so it the space isn’t so great .

The front desk, I would say may need a little more training in customer service . However / the concierge team was amazing .

I called the hotel to ask if they could match a deal I found on Expedia. The representative told me they couldn't and suggested it would be better to book directly with them. When I said I would just book through Expedia instead, she simply said "okay" and made no effort to retain my business. I've stayed at this hotel before and even booked a beachfront room, so this was disappointing. To make matters worse, she then quoted me a price that was higher than what was listed on the hotel's own website. Overall, the interaction made me feel like they didn't care about returning guests or customer service.

I love this resort. It’s sooo beautiful and all of the staff are so friendly. I highly recommend their restaurant A & O as well.

Location is amazing

The resort was absolutely beautiful. Our room was large & had all the amenities you could want. The bed was very comfortable.
The customer service was excellent!

Balboa Bay Resort Concierge services is the best. Aside from having a great experience booking this hotel, concierge services helped me with all of my pre-arrival needs. And, a woman names Praise at the front desk was very gracious and kind upon our arrival. We really needed to get into our room and dressed for a photo shoot, and she helped us get in just a little bit early. Thank you all at Balboa Bay Resort. Shout out to my good friend Dan in Sales at BBR. Everyone there is wonderful. Cheers, Amy

A+O is amazing! Loved everything about it, the food is great, service, entertainment, location,....
I would definitely go back as soon as I get a chance

Lovely staff. Rooms beautiful. Stayed on the bayfront. Couldn’t be better! Magical at Christmas 🎄 There’s a convenient deli downstairs with good snacks and early coffee!

Loved the decor and the holiday decorations. We had a bay view and what a view it was. Absolutely stunning

Our stay on October 4th was ruined by a massive noise disturbance. We called security 5 times between 2-4 AM to stop the loud party next door with blaring music, but the issue was never resolved.

At checkout, we were promised a full refund for the night. We were instead given a paltry $6.47 refund.

The subsequent customer service was abysmal, dragging on for two full months:

It took 2 weeks to get a response from the manager, Jack.

It took another 2 weeks for him to "verify our story" with security. This suspicious level of scrutiny was unacceptable.

On November 1st, after verifying that our "story" was in fact true, upper management decided to not refund us, instead promising a voucher for a free night.

It is now December 4th, two months after our stay, and we still have not received the voucher.

Ultimately, The Balboa Bay Beach Resort has demonstrated a disturbing level of indifference and a complete disregard for resolving a valid complaint. The combination of the persistent lack of professional urgency and the deeply mistrustful treatment we endured strongly leads us to believe that this poor response is tied to classism and bias—that if our background were different or if we resided in a 'fancier' city, the hotel's management would have been significantly more proactive and accommodating.

TV is set to 3 hours later then normal. Pillows are way too soft, needed 3 to sleep. Room lighting control does not work correctly. Cannot heat room more then 70 degrees.