camp costanoa
We arrived just after 4 pm. It was an easy drive, just slightly over an hour but you'd never know you were so close to San Francisco — the feel of Costanoa is as though it's miles away from civilization. It took me a few hours to slow down and warm up to the pace of the place and to settle into my experience. I had imagined it to be more pampering and fancy since we had chosen a lodge room rather than tent or cabin — plus there's a spa. Costanoa is a pretty basic California coastal place, it's rustic and straight-forward. Keep that in mind when visiting and bring what ever extras you need.
We chose the no roughing it route and stayed in the lodge. After having thoroughly checked the place out, I think all the accommodations have their strengths and weakness. The tents are spartan but I kinda liked that about them. It'd be nice to treat the stay like a retreat and spend the time just reading or walking the many trails. Tents on the edges closest to the lodge were my favorite (Cypress) as they have the most trees and had chairs on the backside rather than chairs in the front facing the parking areas. The shared bathrooms are well crafted and clean plus each has a relaxing center hang out area with a fire going each night. The (Douglas Fir) cabins are much more spacious, protected, secluded, and have nice decks — some even have porch swings. Each cabin has two sides so it'd be ideal to rent the whole cabin with a friend or another family so you like your neighbors. The cabins don't have bathrooms so you have to walk to the shared facility. Check the map on the site carefully before booking.
If choosing a lodge room ask to be facing the backside lawn as it has the nicest view. The room we had was very spartan but fine. The lighting was pretty bad, especially in the bathroom, but that's my biggest complaint. My husband's biggest complain would be no cell phone service and spotty free wireless. There was a mini bar, coffee maker, clock radio with cd player and the lobby has fresh filter water cooler. The bathroom was big enough for us to set up the pack-n-play for Vivi and it had a rolling barn style door so we could get her to sleep early, close the door, and still hang out in the room. The king size bed was pretty comfortable and given that we normally sleep three in a queen size it felt luxurious to have to much rolling over space. Our room was really close to the hot tub which Max visted often and we all enjoyed our morning sunrise view. We saw deer, quail, and bunnies while looking out the glass doors. We also enjoyed hanging out each night in front of the roaring fire and toasting smores. Max made "dates" with different girls he picked up during dinner. One girl he simply called "pretty girl" (that one family was eerily unfriendly) two others he met were Katrina and Zoe. After smores one night, which Max graciously hosted, he asked Katrina to join him in the "hot pool" (aka tub). I'm so not kidding. Max is a smooth operator.
After almost every meal, Max insisted on exploring the life size chess game on the lawn behind the restaurant. There is also a quaint kids playground in the back where I pushed Vivi in a bucket swing. Max wasn't too into the playground, but he loved the chess set. In fact he loved it so much that if anyone tried to capture one of his pieces he broke down in tears. But by the end of our stay he finally started to enjoy capturing and succumbing — Katrina helped him get into and over it.
When we ate at Cascade, Max wanted to sit by the fireplace when ever possible. The staff was very accommodating to his request. In fact, I read a lot of reviews on Yelp and Trip Advisor and heard from a few friends that the restaurant was pretty bad and that the service was slow to terrible — so my expectations were very low. We only had one poorly serviced meal while most of the staff who helped us were either normal or even super nice. The food was just fine — it's on par with Chow or Home. The fresh banana bread is particularly good, the lattes were enjoyable and I really liked the pasta primavera (had it 2x). Also they give you coupons for $8 off per person per breakfast which makes it a no-brainer to eat on site. The restaurant is filled with families so it's super kid friendly. We met many many nice people while eating there. Reviewers also complained about the general store, but again I disagree with what I read. The store has a little bit of everything from foods and sundries to sand toys, kites, music and clothes and they stock nice high end quality items not cheezy stuffs.