The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara Reviews

Our whole experience with the staff here at the Ritz-Carlton, Bacara has been nothing but amazing! They helped us plan our wedding in less than two weeks for 13 of our closest family members. They helped us get rooms for everyone, a ceremony location, meals before and after the wedding, an amazing reception dinner, and pool time for everyone. It was difficult as this was our 4th attempt at planning a wedding during COVID, but they made it effortless, beautiful, and memorable! Thank you so much Angela, Dylan, and Steven! You made our wedding weekend perfect and we will definitely be back!

Fabulous venue for our engagement dinner and wedding day. Five star accommodation in Santa Barbara cannot be beat, this place is luxurious and offers everything that it boasts about. Great restaurants on site and their spa is excellent.

We stayed at the Bacara Resort for our wedding! Three nights of the most beautiful grounds and the friendliest staff. They took extra good care of us and I would highly recommend this resort!

Bacara is perfect for weddings!! We worked with Ali who was very responsive and professional. I am so happy we had our wedding at Bacara!!

We eloped on the beach in front of the Bacara Resort and Spa: it was absolutely picturesque as the fog rolled in and we said our vows. We were treated like royalty during our entire stay. Food, spa, room = breathtaking. You feel like you are in a hideaway. Will go back for our anniversary!

The Bacara was outstanding. We had our wedding on the lawn by the Miro and had our dinner in the cellar. It was a very small wedding and they were more then accomadating. I was concerned that with a ceremony with 20 attendees that this venue wouldn't be an option. They were fabulous! The dinner in the cellar was wonderful!

Caitlin the resort's event coordinator and the Miro restaurant manager made my wedding spectacular! The resort is already stunning and we received the VIP treatment the whole time we were there. My pictures came out gorgeous and all of my guests love staying at the resort. The cliff where we had our ceremony was amazing! This venue is a must for an ocean view wedding! Caitlin really went above and beyond to make sure everything was perfect and the restaurant made sure my dinner was exactly how I wanted It and more!

My daughter got married at The Bacara this past weekend. It was over the top!! David Sigman initially sold us the package back in January and he showed up during the reception to make sure everything was perfect. We worked with Ali Hodeck who was the catering manager and she was professional and always got back to us in a timely manner.
The wedding was on the Ocean Lawn, cocktails on the Ocean Terrace, and reception in Rotunda and Rotunda terrace. We had 180 guests. The food was fabulous, the service excellent, the views spectacular - everything was perfect! It was a fairytale wedding. It's not cheap there but they are willing to negotiate before you sign the contract. Also, we made payments to them for several months prior to the wedding so that it wasn't just one big chunk at the end. From the valet car parkers, to check in, all the staff was super friendly and helpful. If you can afford it, there is nowhere else in SB as gorgeous a venue for a wedding. It was an amazing day! I have had numerous emails from guests raving about the venue. My daughter and her husband were thrilled to have their wedding there.

WOW WOW WOW! If you want perfection, this is your place! We worked with their events planner, Jennifer Lindbolm, and words cannot describe how amazing she is! I knew nothing would be left unturned with her in control. The smallest detail to a small favor- just perfect. They truly appreciate what an important day this is for each individual couple and strive to make it your day! The staff is perfect and knew all our names the end of the wknd. Grounds IMMACULATE! Our ceremony was held on the Miro Lawn- BREATHTAKING! Don't even consider having it anywhere else! Dinner/Reception in Miro Wine Cellar. Hands down one of the BEST dinners I've ever had in my life. We had the 6 course tasting menu with wine pairings specially out together by their sommelier, Michael. Michael stayed for the entire meal and spoke to us on each meal pairing and walked us through his process. It was a great experience. Chef Garwacki put together a wonderful menu. All in all, not a leaf unturned. I can't wait to go back for our 1 yr anni! Check them out and you will fall in love!

I fell in love with the Bacara right when we pulled up to the resort. The staff is amazing. We were greeted with great big smiles from everyone to the valet to the house keepers! The weekend of the wedding was just perfect. Our room was beautiful; Cameron our personal “go-to guy” was so helpful and took care of everything we needed.

The day of our wedding was magical. We chose to get married on a Friday (highly recommend this option) on the Miro Lawn, cocktail hour on the terrace, had the reception dinner on the Rotunda terrace and the dancing in the rotunda. Each location created such a special and unique setting that kept the flow of the wedding moving and energetic.

The food was wonderful. It’s hard to feed the masses and have an incredible meal but the chef’s at the Bacara have mastered it! Everyone was raving about the food!!!

We rented a few Cabana’s by the pool on Saturday after our wedding day and had a great time with our family and friends! Again…the food, drinks, and service were unbelievable!!!

The Bacara doesn’t skip a beat! They even left us a special gift in our room the night of our wedding!!!

We can’t wait to go back!!!!

Bacara Resort and Spa is located in Goleta, CA close to Santa Barbara. This venue is breathtaking. We had both our ceremony and reception at Bacara. They were very helpful with showing us how things work at their resort. We had a great time at the food tasting session. They are very thoughtful -- they greeted us with welcome signs made just for us. On the day of the wedding the ceremony was held at Miro Lawn, which is on top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The weather is usually gorgeous in SB so our wedding day was absolutely beautiful. The cocktail hour was at the Ocean terrace which again overlooks the ocean. The view is beautiful. They one huge ballroom (can be divided into 3 rooms) and a round shaped room called the Rotunda. We chose the Rotunda (used for dancing) because it was smaller, more intimate and had a gorgeous view, and the dinner was served al fresco on the terrace outside the Rotunda. The way the staff at Bacara set up the decoration and the equipment for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception was great. Chair and tables, the table cloths were all clean and in great condition. Bacara provides their own lighting. The contractor that they use did a fabulous job with lighting the Rotunda and the dining area. Tiffany Hampton was the event coordinator that worked with our wedding planner. She was very sweet and very helpful on the days leading up to our wedding. She stayed around on those days to make sure everything went according to the plan. The napkins, plates and silverware were in great shape. The food was GREAT! Also, their team had left us a very nice gift as well as flowers and champagne and fruit when we arrived at our room 2 days before the wedding. The suite that we stayed in was beautiful, great view and great amenities. The service was good. Overall we were very happy with our experience at Bacara. Our wedding was beautiful, our pictures look great and everybody loved the venue and had a great time.

The Bacara is one of the most beautiful places for a wedding weekend. We are SO happy we chose to have our weekend festivities on the property. Although the responsiveness could have been better during the planning and preparation process, the final execution of the weekend events was outstanding. The staff and service on the property was great - everyone that it was our wedding and were diligent about making us feel welcome - and the venue itself couldn't have been more perfect for our California wedding.

Arriving at Bacara, is like stepping into my heaven. The hotel staff makes you feel welcome, comfortable, and important, no matter who or how old you are. And the grounds, well those are just gorgeous.

The lower marks on my review were made not because of the resort's quality, but rather because of the contract process. There is very little flexibility when deciding on contract terms and not many "extras" can be negotiated in. Watch out for added fees, taxes, and gratuities.

That being said, our wedding was PHENOMENAL. Bacara made sure our EVERY need was attended to the entire weekend. The food was OUTSTANDING; the setting was GORGEOUS; the staff members were INCREDIBLE; and the personal touches put into our room for the wedding night, were absolutely magical.

We could not have picked a better place to get married.

When I saw photos of Bacara, I knew I wanted to get married there. It's a beautiful place and if I could do it all over again, I'd still pick Bacara. I'd say the overall downside to Bacara is that it's incredibly expensive - and that actually would be OK, if the service amounted to the cost, but Bacara's service/responsiveness was splotchy. I've read a lot of reviews on Bacara - both as a wedding site and just as a resort - and it seems there are a lot of negative reviews on this topic, so I think it's something they need to improve on. Aside from the service though, as a wedding venue, here's what I think:

As a ceremony site, you cannot ask for a more gorgeous view!! Breathtaking. As a reception site, they have both a ballroom for traditionalist and another room (terrace attached to a high-ceiling cirular room with a balcony) for something unique and warm-feeling. As a caterer, you're getting the best food put out there. Their food is delicious - the sushi station at our cocktail hour was out of this world and the dinner was even better than what we had during our tasting - and their cake is absolutely phenomenal (I think we had 5 different layers because we couldn't decide on what we liked best!).

The only downside as a wedding site is that there are a lot of additional cost thrown at you that you would initially think is included since it's a full service resort, but as an upside, we were able to negotiate some of the costs (plus side on flexibility), so they will work with you if you feel like it's getting a bit out of control.

To sum it up, my parents said it was worth every penny. ;)

Just as others have posted, the wedding weekend was beyond perfect. Jennifer who we finally got to work with the month of was informative and always responded to our emails. She is the reason we give excellent for service.

Unfortunately the rest of our experience has been poor and horribly managed. We were told if we wanted to book with a room rate we would need to book ten rooms. We secured the ten rooms and then we were told by Virginia who initially took over our wedding there was not space and to try to the marriot down the road. We were devastated by the response and luckily upper management was able to fix.
Accounting and billing has been horribly managed. The main person we had dealt with for our wedding never responded to emails and we are still two months out trying to close out final costs. They stated we hadn’t paid the final fees but we were unable to get in touch with any staff and when they emailed us, they had the wrong wedding date and amount owed. They also had our information for payment prior to the wedding weekend so we wouldn’t have to deal with it.

My thoughts if you have a quick wedding and you can book within a month of having it you will get to work directly with Jennifer whom is a game changer. The hotel is stunning and our meal was outstanding. We were sad it was overshadowed by logistics and poorly managed upper-management. If I had to do over I would have waited til month of and picked a random day in the week for the wedding. Ask directly for Jennifer you won’t be disappointed. We are so thankful for her help on our special day.

Bacara was wonderful during the 48 hours leading up to my wedding. However the 6 months leading up to the event were very frustrating. They were not very responsive and repeatidly missed scheduled calls and deadlines. They think that they are a high class resort that can act snobby but their prices don't live up to the experience. Fortunately my guests had a wonderful time and thought it was amazing. If you are planning something last minute or don't want to make any decisions until the last minute, you might think that this is wonderful, but if you are a bride that wants to know everything is in order, you will find their profesionalism a let down.