I travel a lot for work and this means that I stay at way too many hotels and eat at more hotel restaurants and bars than I care to recall. Â I am often disappointed by the hotel restaurants because the meetings I travel with are very large and I never feel like the hotel restaurants prepare to have such a large number of guest.
Well Aura was no different. A meeting of at least 100-200 people, if not more and the restaurant did not have the staff to handle the lunch crowd. Is their no communication between the hotel and the restaurant when large meetings come to town...Why they would have two people working a lunch crowd of  let's say 60 people...it was a nightmare. And then the restaurant ran out of many items on the menu...food took forever and was incorrect. Â
I could see this being a better experience without the crowds, however, I would only stay here if I was attending a meeting so there will always be crowds...disappointed!
What a nightmare. Can you rate it ZERO stars?
We decided we wanted to try Aura as a nice quiet dinner place, boy were we wrong! Our first clue should have been the mexican buffet...seriously, a buffet. And then the screaming children. Every table had some screaming kid.
Then, the waiter approached the table, but he arrived several seconds AFTER his horrible B.O. Was really pleasant when he reached over us to pour a taste of the wine, but all I could smell and taste was his B.O. We realized we needed to flee and alerted staff that we wanted to go, but the chef and other staff said we could move out to the quieter bar area. We thought to do that. Minutes later, the children followed and were just as loud and obnoxious running around the bar area (why were they allowed in the bar area??).
The hotel management did NOTHING to tell the parents to quiet their kids. There should be a certain time of night that children are discouraged from ruining other guests visits. One in our party is a Diamond point member and was horrified at the scene and the lack of control by hotel management.
Most of the food was good, but I ordered my steak medium rare and it (along with the three others at the table) were well done. I didn't want to send it back because it would prolong my stay in this torture palace. We wanted to eat and get the heck out as soon as possible.
The only shining point of the evening was the bartendress who was fantastic and had been putting up with the screaming children for a lot longer than we did. She did comp us a glass of wine, and the chef sent out some tacos as an apology...the whole meal should have been comped. Â
I would steer clear of this place or when making reservations ask if they are going to have a buffet (gross) or if there are a million children running around.
We are in the area for the whole summer and would have considered going back to Aura (the building itself is amazing) but now we will not step foot inside the building unless personally invited back by the chef or general manager in order to atone for the horrible experience and to give us another chance to like this restaurant that sadly was more like a Chuck E. Cheese than a fine dining experience.
We had breakfast here twice and it was great. I wish I remembered her name now, but our server was phenomenal. She didn't write a thing down and the next day still knew how my colleague liked her coffee and egg  frittata and that I preferred grapefruit juice.
I had the salmon one day and a potpourri of items the next. Try the chicken applewood sausage, it's really good.
They did use the same knife to cut onions strawberries as the ones in my berry bowl, ugh-definitely tasted of onions. Those strawberries were no bueno. But other that that, I can't complain. It's bright in here and the service is fast. Easy option if you're already at the resort.
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