Great Beach Vacation Hotel

We stayed three nights in a room overlooking the ocean with our swimming crazed but otherwise totally civilized Chesapeake Bay Retriever and our cat, not because we wanted to travel with a cat but because we couldn’t find a cat sitter. How nice that Kimpton welcomes both kinds of fur kids with open arms and great hospitality from the excellent staff. The overall interior design is contemporary chic surfer hotel, which has a fun vibe even if you never touch a wave or know that the can of Sex Wax included with the in-room assortment of curated snacks is actually for surf boards. In keeping with the surfer theme, there was also a bar refrigerator stocked with beer and a record turntable with record, the Beach Boys I think, but we never got around to listening. Maybe there are more records at the front desk which loans out anything you’ll need for a day on the beach including umbrellas and boogie boards. Our King sized room was well designed, spacious and with an exceptionally comfortable bed, high quality linens and towels, really lovely botanical bath gel, shampoo, conditioner and lotion in dispensers to reduce single use plastics in the large bathroom, with a great assortment of nice hangars, perfectly laundered robes, a safe, and an ironing board and iron in the closet—a really nicely thought outset of amenities. Kimpton allows you to leave well behaved animals in the room unattended which was an absolute blessing because of the cat. Thank you for such a sensible, helpful policy. Because of said cat, we asked for maid service to be suspended, but the housekeeping staff was so friendly and happy to provide clean towels and anything else we needed, included a quick loan of a vacuum. The room’s window was openable for fresh air as was the sliding door leading onto a Juliette balcony. Pacific Coast Highway is busy and noisy, but the windows/doors were heavily insulated and kept out all noise when closed. From our perch overlooking the ocean we got to watch the hours of cleaning and beach grooming that happens every night, and, indeed, the off leash beach is probably the cleanest in Southern California. It’s located about a mile and a half north of the Kimpton, a pleasant walk or a quick drive and there always seem to be plenty of free parking spaces. Other things to know: You’ll probably want to use the daily valet parking which adds about $35 dollars to the cost of your stay, and this is a multi-story hotel so to get to the beach or a natural area for walking (or potty) you have to take elevators to the street level and then cross PCH…no big deal but something to consider. Lastly, the restaurant in the hotel served very good food, and the stores and restaurants in Huntington were dog friendly.

Jun. 29, 2021