Lake San Marcos Resort & Country Club, San Marcos

When I checked in I was offered a room upgrade due to the long wait from the front desk. It took a while to verify my printed reservation number. I accepted the upgrade out of respect and they waived the $9.00 upgrade fee. The room came with a great view of the lake and sit just feet away from the boat dock. The room smelled of cigarettes the carpet had several heavy stains and the air condition unit didn’t work. Instead small desk fans were placed in the room to help circulate the warm humid air. I was not to stand the heated room so I packed my clothes and requested another room. But I was asked why I wanted to move and did the front desk tell me in advance that the air unit wasn’t working in the lake view rooms? I replied why would the resort offer a quest a problem room? I was told it (the air) has been out for a while. Reluctantly, I got another room. To my surprise I noticed the doors did not have an internal lock but had a locking system. So as a precaution I propped the ironing board against the door to warn me when someone enters the room unannounced. Just my luck it happen my last night there at exactly 12:10 AM (no kidding in the middle of the night) the ironing board fell and scared the so badly that I jumped out bed and ran toward the door. I fell just before the door and saw the face of the house keeper peeping into the room. I must say that she ran like she saw a ghost. I was startled out of my sleep and looked scared too. The night manager came to my room and wanted to me to verify that I suppose to be there. Instead I wanted to know why the housekeeper was entering my room pass midnight. The only response that I got was they were verifying if room was occupied. I suggested to call the police and the quickly decline. In addition to all of this I did not get room service during my stay. I am a retired military serviceman with over 27 years of service. I spent 5 years in the SF and was the first to run through Iraq. If I had gotten my hands on the housekeeper I’m afraid that I would have hurt her before I completely woke up. Typically I can make do with very little accommodation but this place needs some improvements.

The place is definitely a dump. I think they must have closed it by now because when I checked reservations, there was nothing listed. Unless they are using it to house convicts? I can't believe that the county would keep this place open.... filth, stench, bedbugs everywhere, nothing operated, the people were rude, the community around it was as old as stale mothballs.

We use to love coming here. Now it seems run down and shabby. Found out part of hotel is now being used for long term low income rentals. During visit, saw numerous security & police visits to hotel. Kind of scary.

If you are considering getting married at Lake San Marcos “Resort”… DON’T DO IT!!! Believe me, you will regret it. My beloved and I recently got married there, and the service that the “resort” provided was nothing short of nightmarish. Although my parents are homeowners in the Lake San Marcos community, the resort took advantage of us at every possible opportunity. I could go on for days… Accommodations: In January, the wedding coordinator at this so-called “resort” quoted us a blocked rate of $99 per standard room. 10 days later, the Red Cross blocked 100 rooms in the hotel, leaving us only 8 rooms to reserve for our guests, most of which were smoking. The hotel would also no longer honor its original rate, and raised it to $129! The wedding coordinator assured me that more rooms would be released and made available to our guests one month before the wedding. However, when 40 more rooms were, in fact released, the hotel demanded a nightly rate of $250!!!! And this hotel is a DUMP. It is a Motel 6 on the water. The air conditioner in one of our guests’ room was broken, and it was about 90 degrees outside. There was a leak in the ceiling of another. When one guest arrived, she discovered that the sheets on the bed were a size too small. When she requested service, a hotel employee went to her room to drop off a set of sheets. When she requested that he actually make the bed, he replied that he was off the clock, but if she didn’t tell anyone, he would help her. He was afraid of being reprimanded for providing quality service to a guest. It is the type of backward attitude that permeates the place. Professionalism: The staff of Lake San Marcos Resort is the most incompetent, unprofessional, and negative that I have ever encountered. A culture of unprofessionalism pervades the place from the bottom down. The new “wedding coordinator” was negative from the beginning. She has horrible communications skills, she doesn’t show up for meetings on time, and she is very fake in her demeanor. She doesn’t listen when you are speaking to her, and her answer to your every request is either “no, you can’t do that,” or “that will cost you extra.” Every family member of mine who interacted with her had a very negative experience. For example, the resort charges $1,500 for the use of the reception room, and it includes set up and break down, amongst other things. We hired an outside caterer. Never did the wedding coordinator, or her predecessor, EVER mention that we were required to hire additional staff to “scrape the plates” and clean up the dishes. However, during the middle of the reception, she began badgering my caterer about whether or not she was going to have her staff scrape the plates. My caterer rightfully asserted that it was not her responsibility, as the plates and everything else belonged to the resort. The wedding coordinator proceeded to argue with my caterer, and then my mother, telling her that she should have our guests scrape their plates into a trash can when they were finished eating!!! My mother refused. Well… when we were ON OUR HONEYMOON, the wedding coordinator wrote me an email to “congratulate” us on our wedding and let us know that she had charged an additional $400 to my credit card for clean-up of the dishes. She made sure to clarify that she was going to charge us $800, but that she was “helping us out.” Oh yeah – they also charged us $149 for a room that a family member had booked and not used. There’s nothing like being robbed of $550 when you’re on your honeymoon. Our “Honeymoon Suite”: I confirmed that we had a mini-suite reserved on our wedding night on at least three occasions. When we went to check in on the day of our wedding, however, the front desk staff said that no room had been assigned to us! They eventually worked that issue out, but completely failed on another. Again, I could go on and on… You get the picture. Don’t do it. You will regret it!

Noisy; built with exterior entrances of cheap motel and inside like one; windows not openable; heard cricking of beds during sex; entire building shook during footsteps to 2d floor and door closings; computers and phones from late 1980s with wrong directions; maid service did not replace tissues; showers shook whole building; waited 10 minutes for service in Gordon "Country Club" restaurant charged $9/day resort fee for and left as did not get seated at all during early lunch (8 servers, 5 eating); televised events were days ago past; very few TV channels of any interest on old 23" sets of 1990s. Obviously losing money, including closing of QUAIL restaurant for a "Barn Burner."(A great name for location inside fire-prone area.) Boat rentals not found. Lacked peephole in door or hotel safe, contrary to CA law. Econo Lodge experience superior; checked out early even tho paid for 1 more day nonrefundable.

Had reservations for a lake view room. Checked in and they assigned me to a pool side view. A big song and dance later, they deducted the $9.00 per day resort fee. I had the ground level room. I could hear the floor noise from the people up-stairs and running bath and toilet water througout the night and early morning (up-stairs and to the side of me). Had to try to sleep with the tv on. The rooms were a bit out-dated (70's). The carpet had stains, but the room was clean. The beds were worn.

We took the family for a spring break trip to Legoland, etc and we booked this hotel for the week March 11-16. My oldest son suffers from asthma and we had requested a room that was smoke free. We got a room with fresh air. No perfumes to cover up, no smokey smell the room was wonderful. The colors were neutral, the room clean and comfortable. The service was great! We requested extra towels due to the kids wanting to go swimming all the time and they provided them every day. They left extra coffee and tea, lotions and soaps as well as the towels everyday. The lake was beautiful and serene. The night lights made the lake almost seem like another world. The staff were friendly and helpful. I would recommend this hotel for everyone wanting to get away and have some peace and quiet.

If it wasn't for the friendly informative staff i would have walked out. The lake water smells, i found hair in my sheets moved rooms and found more hair and the carpet was stained. The walls are paper thin might as well not even be there. The dinner house on property close at eight leaving you stranded for food, if you go to the store to buy food you pay 10$ a night for a microwave that is dirty!..............!!!!!

The facilities are dated as stated in another review however the grounds are beautiful with many very nice areas for outdoor weddings, of which several were going on while my husband and I attended a conference nearby. We both love the outdoors and were hoping to get in some fishing but there is no fishing or boat launch available to the general public. The lake is not meant for water recreation and also very few locals were even on the lake although pontoon boats were at every available dock space. The pools look nice but they are not heated so we were not able to use them, the light is still out in the east pool and the spa is so small that only a few guests can use it at a time. Maintenance is needed in several areas around the campus and when we informed staff of a dangerous stair case their response was "yes we know about it". It was still in disrepair 3 days later without any work done at all. The Quail resteraunt has a wonderful view of the lake, very good food and very nice reception rooms for parties, the prices are a little high though. With the very fine resteraunts nearbuy on resteraunt row the compitition puts The Quail to shame. I would not reccomend this hotel for young families due to a lack of recreation but it is great place for older golfing couples and wedding parties

I have booked a stay here and will add to this review upon returning. However I am already dissappointed as there is no public fishing permited as per the concerage desk.