The Meritage Resort and Spa

I had the opportunity to tag along with my wife in a work trip while on sabbatical at The Meritage Resort and Spa. I was able to spend some much needed time away and appreciated every moment. Not if, but when you visit, please treat yourself and don’t miss out on getting a massage at the Cave! Make sure to request Mayra to facilitate your massage, she’s beyond amazing and is proficient at what she does. We also were able to see Chris Botti and Friends!

I had a wonderful experience staying here during the Napa wine festival; I was upgraded to a pool suite, and the stay was very comfortable. I will definitely choose this place again next time I visit Napa.

I am absolutely appalled by how our reservation was handled by The Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa Valley. We had two rooms reserved and specifically called in advance to confirm the cancellation policy for our second room. We were explicitly told that as long as we canceled by Sunday before our arrival, we would not be charged. We did exactly that. We canceled on Sunday, fully complying with what we had been told—and they still charged us approximately $500 for an entire night’s stay. What makes this even more outrageous is that we weren’t canceling our entire trip or taking our business elsewhere. We continued with our other room reservation and stayed at the property for several nights. Despite that, management refused to refund the $500 charge, even though we had called ahead specifically to make sure we understood and followed the cancellation policy correctly. This is some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced from a hotel, especially one positioning itself as a luxury Napa Valley resort. When a guest takes the time to call in advance, confirms the cancellation deadline, relies on the information provided by the hotel’s own staff, and then complies with those instructions, the hotel should honor what its representative said. Period. Instead, we were charged $500 for a room we canceled when we were told we could, while simultaneously continuing to spend thousands of dollars staying at their property. The complete lack of reasonable judgment and basic customer care from management is astonishing. I am mortified, disappointed, and genuinely shocked that a hotel of this caliber would treat a paying guest this way. We did everything right, yet management chose to keep our $500 rather than honor what their own employee told us. I would strongly caution anyone considering booking here: get every single promise and cancellation term in writing, because apparently calling the hotel directly, confirming the policy, and following the instructions you’re given is not enough. Terrible management. Terrible customer service. Completely unacceptable. I would not recommend this property based on how we were treated.

The hotel is very nice. It has two pools, one adult and one for families. Overall the stay went well, rooms were incredibly nice, however our experience was not without issue. to start, the check-in lines were an hour or more long, with only two check-in staff. They knew it would be a busy weekend, so should've staffed appropriately. After check-in, we tried the pool. Towels were not replenished fast enough, and we had to get towels from the other pool. We ate Saturday night at Olive and Hay, and the service was less than spectacular, multiple long delays between the waiter coming and checking on us.

Our stay was seriously undermined by poor responsiveness, weak communication, and inconsistent service. The biggest issue was that almost nobody answered the phone. I called around 9:00 a.m. to ask about breakfast hours, again around 3:00 p.m. about a spare charger and wine-tasting hours, and later in the evening for housekeeping. On several occasions, the phone rang, eventually reached a recorded message, and then the call was disconnected after five to ten minutes. I tried the concierge more than ten times during the day without success and eventually had to walk to the front desk simply to get basic information. When I raised this at the front desk, I was told that the room phone must be broken. It was not: the calls were clearly ringing, reaching the recorded message, and then being disconnected. The response felt dismissive and seemed intended to avoid acknowledging the service failure, particularly because other guests were nearby. The assistance I received at the front desk was disappointing as well. I asked a staff member to mark the wine-tasting locations and hours on a map. She marked the locations, apparently omitted one, and told me to scan QR codes to find the hours myself. This would have been a minor issue in isolation, but after the concierge had been unreachable all day and I had been forced to come downstairs, I expected more effort. The lack of coordination continued that evening. Before 10:00 p.m., room service said it had asked housekeeping to send water to the room. Housekeeping would not answer the phone, and when I finally reached someone at approximately 10:25 p.m., there was still no estimated delivery time. The water ultimately arrived after 10:30 p.m. The bowling alley also appeared to be poorly managed. We were told we could not use it because it was reserved, yet during more than an hour of observation, no more than two of the five lanes were in use at any point. I have photographs documenting this. If the lanes were genuinely reserved, the system was either being managed inefficiently or was not explained properly. There was also unnecessary confusion around late checkout, which was a benefit associated with our American Express booking. The hotel would neither confirm nor decline the request the evening before departure, making it difficult for our family to plan the following day. I finally received an answer around 9:00 a.m. on the morning of departure. This was particularly strange because the previous day I had received a text offering a 2:00 p.m. checkout for an additional $140, which clearly suggested that some flexibility existed. After further discussion, we were eventually granted only an extra hour and a half, with checkout extended to 12:30 p.m. There was also no visible assistance with luggage at arrival or departure. For a resort of this type and price point, I would expect bell service, or at minimum someone available to help a family with bags. Another minor but frustrating incident occurred at Olive & Hay. I saw someone enter the restaurant, and when I asked to be seated approximately a minute later, I was told that I had missed the cutoff by one minute. I recognize that I was late, but given what I had just observed, the explanation felt inconsistent. Finally, checkout itself was unnecessarily difficult. I did not receive an electronic receipt, so I was unsure whether the checkout had been completed properly. I went to the front desk and was told that the receipt had been sent and should be in my email, but it was in neither my inbox nor spam folder. I ultimately had to call again the following day to obtain it. Any one of these issues might have been minor. Taken together, however, they reflect a broader failure of staffing, communication, accountability, and basic hospitality. The property itself is attractive, but the level of service during our stay fell well below what I would expect from a resort at this price point.