Independent Living Community in Laguna Woods, California

Donna

My mom stayed here. It was very good, but it would be nice if they had more outdoor areas for the memory care portion. My mom had her own studio apartment and the caregivers and staff were excellent and very good with a lot of special care. The dining area is very nice and the food was really good. Donna, the person in charge of activities, was wonderful, and there were lots of things that the people were involved in. My mother joined in everything, and they encouraged the residents to join in and not just stay in their rooms. Every Tuesday they have outside people come in for music activities. They also did exercises on a daily basis, and Donna always had some kind of program happening, like bowling. On Saturday they had a bus that would take them out.

Reviewer

I liked Laguna Woods Village. It was huge. They have 1,900 people living there and they have 1,200 homes on over 30 acres of land. They have seven clubhouses. One is for golf, one for boarding your horse and riding rings, one is for ceramics and arts, and one is for woodworking. You have to be able to drive in order to get from one clubhouse to the other, but they have a bus that could bring you there, too. It has an 800-seat movie theater and they do plays there. Most of the houses don't have garages, only car ports. Some houses do not have car ports, so the residents park on the street. The people that I met were great. There were resident volunteers. Our tour guide had lived there for nine years and she was very knowledgeable. They have a very small restaurant on the golf course, but along El Toro Road there are a lot of commercial restaurants.

Carol

Laguna Woods Village has a docent tour every Thursday and I did that. The staff member who showed me around was very good. They have seven different communities, which was kind of overwhelming. A couple days later, I went to visit a couple of the apartments and that made me feel a little better. I've decided I'm going to go ahead and go with it. The first visit was like a bus tour of the whole grounds. She stopped at several of the communities and clubhouses and showed you the workout rooms, the classrooms and that sort of thing. That was very informative, but she could not personally tell you about any of the individual apartment or the prices because she was just giving an overall tour. A day later, when I went with my daughter-in-law to look at the individual apartment, we got information on prices and the models and what it would cost to rent. The place is huge. The grounds, the buildings, the clubhouses, and everything were very well kept and clean. It is an old community, but it's well kept up.