A couple weeks after our stay at Ventana Big Sur, An Alila Resort, we returned to Big Sur, California, to checkout the Ventana’s sister property, Ventana Campground.
The Ventana Campground is a unique rarity in the Hyatt portfolio as it is a true campground.
Would our stay deliver us the much-hyped “glamping” experience, or leave us unhappy campers out in the cold?
Review: Ventana Campground (Big Sur, CA)
About Ventana Campground: Camping & Glamping
The campground is bifurcated between the “Camp Sites” (AKA the “bring your own tent” campsites) and the “Tent Cabins” (AKA the “glamping” campsites) which are furnished, semi-permanent, tent structures for those who want the camping experience without the hassle of lugging around their own camping gear.
This review is about our experience in the “Camp Sites”, although we did sneak a peak at some of the “Tent Cabin” sites.
The Official Blurb From Hyatt:
Image: ventanacamping.com
Location, Arrival, And Parking
The Ventana Campground is located on the same property as the Ventana Big Sur resort and it shares the same entrance point off the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).
To reach the campground, go left at the fork in the road (at the entrance) and drive downhill to the campground entrance.
There is a little “check-in” shack at the entrance where guests are “buzzed in” through the front gate to enter the campground.
Each campsite has its own designated parking space.
Booking And World of Hyatt Redemption
To my knowledge, Ventana Campground stands alone as the only bookable campground in the entire Hyatt portfolio – meaning you can book it through the World of Hyatt website or app and earn points and status nights on stays.
FHOP Tip: You can ONLY earn status nights on your own stay, although you can earn full points on your own stay and that of 1.5 other bookings. This means if you were to book 10 campsites for one night (for a large group), you’d only earn 1 status night, and points for 2.5 campsites Â
All “Camp Sites” are bookable for the same rate of $80.16 per night (“Tent Cabins” cost significantly more and are strangely NOT bookable though the Hyatt website or app), although not all campsites are created equal (more on that below). 
Map of Ventana Campground
The Tent Cabins
As mentioned above, the glamping “Tent Cabins” are located on the Eastern side of the campground in Redwood Canyon.
The Tent Cabins are completely outfitted for glamping with a mosquito-netted room, a sink with running water, and a gas fire pit.
There was also a bath house in Redwood Canyon for usage only by guests of the Tent Cabins (I’ll get to that later).
The entrance to the Tent Cabin sites
Walking up to a Tent Cabin
Tent Cabin
Porch
A Tent Cabin room interior
Tent cabins have their own sink and gas fire pit (among other amenities)
Barrel Sink
A hammock, because you never know when you might need a nap in the forest
The Tent Cabin bath house (keys are required for entry, meaning Camp Site campers have NO access)
The Camp Sites
We stayed at the campsites on the Western side of the campground (near the iconic Airstream trailer snack shop). It was apparent from the moment we arrived, we were camping somewhere special.
The campground was populated with giant Coastal Redwoods (the tallest trees in the world), and some were indeed monsters that dwarfed the cars, tents, and tables.
Regarding the campsites themselves, we quickly realized [and this was important] that not all campsites in the Ventana Campground are created equal.
Yes, each campsite comes with a table and a fire ring, but that is where the similarities ended.
Image: ventanacamping.com
Camping among the Redwood giants
We had five campsites reserved for our group and each site varied wildly.
Two of the campsites were “hike-in” sites (although they were NOT listed as such on the Hyatt website – we later found that out from the Ventana Campground map); the remaining three were “drive-up” sites.
Each of the drive-up sites had their own significant pluses and minuses. One had a large site, but a significant uncomfortable slope to both the table and tent plot. One had great parking, but space enough for only one small tent. One had a level table, a nice tent plot, and easy parking – but was next to a small campsite area with a large [& loud] party. This group had about 8 tents and maybe 20 people smashed into their campsite area.
Regarding the “hike-in” sites, both were located up a very steep and dusty pathway that was almost laughable in its ridiculousness. How Ventana Campground could have campsites with such an eroded and steep pathway – and not replace it with a simple set of stairs – is beyond me. I kept thinking about how impossible it would be to ascend or descend the pathway were it to rain. With that said, aside from the pathways, the actual “hike-in” sites themselves were probably the best campsites out of the bunch (with a secluded area, a shortcut path to the restrooms, large level tables, tons of places to sit, and flat level spaces for several large tents). We ended up liking the space so much, we made it our “group camp” where we held our communal meals, booze, and campfires (and almost completely forgot about how treacherous it was to get up there).
Beautiful site – with a very uneven table and sloping ground
Now that’s a Redwood!
Our group’s “hike-in” site
Rosemary Steak
Turmeric Chicken and Mushroom Kabobs
[Mandatory] S’mores!
Campground Amenities
On paper, Ventana Campground was a camper’s dream: bathrooms with running water, hot showers, a mobile snack vendor in an Airstream, and conveniently located additional mobile restrooms.
And on the Friday of our arrival, it was. The hot showers were flowing, the snack bar was open, and the mobile bathrooms were working.
Image: ventanacamping.com
But things took a turn for the worse sometime late Friday night. Just around the time the Airstream closed up shop for the night (around 7:00 pm I believe), I got word the hot showers were unavailable because the coin machine wasn’t working. No problem, we’ll just wait for the morning.
Then one of the mobile trailer restrooms went out of order, immediately followed by the other. “No problem, we’ll just wait for the morning,” or so I thought.
Waking up early Saturday morning, we quickly discovered the mobile restrooms were still down (and locked). “No problem I thought, surely they’ll be sending someone soon to fix the issue”.
“I’ll just walk up to the nearest bath house”. Well, turns out the nearest bath house (in the Tent Cabin area) required a key to get in and was thus not accessible to guests with a Camp Site.
The situation was turning from ridiculous to dire being that both the mobile restrooms were down (and locked) and the entire Campground  (63 camp sites) had to share two small restroom bath houses. To make matters worse, the nearest restroom was a 10-minute walk [each way] from most of our tents, and the other restroom wasn’t even really in walking distance.
We notified every staff member we could find – and the front shack – about the restroom issue. By 1:00 p.m., the mobile restrooms were still not fixed. By 5:00 pm, the mobile restrooms were still not fixed. By 9:00 pm, the mobile restrooms were still not fixed. In fact, the mobile restrooms were not fixed at all on Saturday nor were they fixed when we checked-out on Sunday at 10:00 am.
This meant, among other things, that the trees of campground became the de facto restrooms for many campers on the East end of the campground during the sold-out Summer weekend.
To make matters worse, the Airstream snack bar remained closed all-day Saturday, and the coin machine was still down which meant no showers for anybody all day Saturday either.
Yep, it’s still closed
The mobile restrooms – when they were still in working condition on Friday night
Bath House
The “Camp Site” bath house, thankfully, was in working order (well, except for the coin machine/shower).
It was heated, clean, and there was hot and cold running water.
The showers looked nice as well; it would have been great to have been able to use them.
This was the only [open and available] bath house in walking distance from our campsite
The showers
The Mobile Restroom
While they were still working early Friday night, the mobile restrooms were clean, convenient, and had hot and cold running water.
Unfortunately, they were down and locked for the rest of the weekend.
“Green lights” in happier times
The Hiking Trail to Ventana Big Sur’s Redwood Circle of Life
Apart from the many giant Redwoods, one of the best things about the Ventana Campground was its hiking trails.
There was a trail that led from the Ventana Campground up the hill to the Ventana Resort (although campground guests do not have access to the resort). From the resort entrance, the pathway wound around the resort though the impressive “Redwood Circle of Life” area and eventually into the resort’s Organic Garden area.
I’ll do a separate post on this trail in an upcoming post.
Redwood in the Circle of Life
A thistle(?) in the organic garden
Sunflower
Honey Bee Hives
This guy keeps watch over the campground from a hidden lookout
The Bottom-Line Review: Ventana Campground (Big Sur, CA)
After loving my stay at the Ventana Big Sur resort, I really wanted to love my stay at the Ventana Campground. It really should have been so easy to do that. Camping among the giant Redwoods in the Ventana Wilderness on the Big Sur Coast is truly an amazing and uniquely Californian experience that everybody should do at least once if they can. That aspect of the campground was just pure awesomeness.
Where Ventana Campground failed was on their service, or glaring lack-thereof. It was simply unacceptable to leave crucial restrooms and other “selling points” (like the snack bar and showers) closed for almost the entire time on a busy sold-out weekend in the Summer. If they were going to do that, they should have at least temporarily opened up the nearby functional restrooms and showers at the Tent Cabins bath house to the guests of the campground. Additionally, I was shocked that Ventana Campground didn’t perform basic low-cost [but necessary] improvements like building stairs to the “hike-in” campsites, or leveling-out the tables and tent plots so that they were semi-comfortable.
We were really torn on our stay. One one hand, the Campground was amazingly awesome in terms of the location, experience, and beauty;Â but on the other hand, it was poorly managed, indifferent, and even blatantly negligent to the basic needs of the guests that are paying $80 per night for a campground.
After our camping trip, I surveyed our group asking if they thought we should return to Ventana Campground next year or find another place, and the unanimous response was [unsurprisingly], “Ventana Campground was awesome, but let’s try somewhere else next year”. Yep, that pretty much summed it up.
Final Rating: 6.75 out of 10
