A harbor tour is a great way to get acquainted with Newport Beach.The coastal community draws its energy from the water—everything from visitors admiring the views to locals splashing in the waves if they tumble off a stand-up paddleboard. Plus, it’s a lovely place to spend an afternoon. This spring, a media trip hosted by The Resort at Pelican Hill and Island Hotel Newport Beach kicked off with a harbor excursion aboard an 18-foot electric Duffy boat, with comfy seating for eight and plenty of room to spread out a charcuterie platter and pour champagne.
From the harbor, if you direct your gaze inland, you can see the Island Hotel standing tall in the distance. The former Four Seasons property has 283 guest rooms and was rebranded in the 1990s when the Irvine Company acquired it. For groups, it offers more than 23,000 square feet of function space and can accommodate up to 600 attendees in the ballroom.
With a prime location in the middle of the Fashion Island shopping mecca and a lobby restaurant that is popular among the area’s power lunch set, the Island Hotel is more often than not a dynamic, bustling space.
“Busy hotels are fun,” says Donald W. Stamets, general manager of the property, while discussing the property’s eclectic mix of clientele and high occupancy rate.
About half of the hotel’s group business comes from within California.
The luxury shopping center can be opened early for groups, and Neiman Marcus offers uniquely high-style event spaces. On the hotel grounds, the revamped Palm Terrace lounge has indoor and outdoor venue options and private dining spaces.
A few miles away is the Island Hotel’s impressive sister property, The Resort at Pelican Hill. The properties target very different market segments, with Island Hotel drawing corporate groups during the week and leisure travelers looking for great shopping on the weekends, and Pelican Hill attracting high-end corporate retreats and incentive groups that return year after year.
When it opened in 2008, Pelican Hill was the first property that the Irvine Company built from the ground up as part of its detailed regional development plan, although the oceanfront golf courses already existed.
Irvine Company oversees the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch, about half of which is preserved as open space, running down the Orange County coastline. Nature abounds in the region, and it is easy for groups to take advantage of the scenery with off-premise catering programs offered by both hotels.
Nestled into the bluffs above the Pacific, Pelican Hill competes with international destinations in terms of luxury offerings, and everything about the property is grand and expansive. Guests enter by passing under a towering Italian-style aqueduct, necks craning up to get a view of the Palladian architecture that defines the resort. More than 700 olive trees were imported from Italy and planted on the property, which is laid out in neighborhoods of bungalows and villas. A few times a year, the streets are transformed by colorful Italian-style street festivals, complete with performers and food vendors.
The hotel features varied meeting spaces, pool cabanas and golf programming, but is quick to promote its off-site catering, which gets groups out into Orange County’s most scenic locales. The hotel also offers a shuttle and guided hikes.
On the last day of the trip, after a lengthy Italian dinner the evening before, I went on an early run down to the beachfront path that borders Highway 1 and leads to Crystal Cove State Park. The cliffs were shrouded in morning fog, yet the view of the ocean below was still stunning, and it makes a spectacular backdrop for catered dinners in the canyon and reforestation environmental CSR programs.
