We were in Ft. Lauderdale and wanted to be situated near the beach wo/paying the high price for we were only there for one night, attending an event. With that said, a reasonable low price was a priority as well as safety.
After visually inspecting many of the budget hotels and management front offices along US 1 (North Federal Highway) we settled on America's Best Inns and Suites. Shawn, the Hotel front desk Mgr. was very personable and accomodating. He gave us exactly the room type and location we wanted and even provided some unopened packaged samples of personal items we could use should we found we forgot them - razors, toothpaste and shampoo. Shawn even extended a later check out (without us asking) should we need to sleep longer.
Sure the hotel was aged as the rooms were in need of upgrading, but the price was right as was the location. We slept comfortably for the most part but had I known we would be awoken earlier than 10 a.m. due to other residents talking outside our door, I wouldn't have stayed out that late (3 am). Funny, after we gave up on trying to go back to sleep, the noise outside our door seem to stop.
Overall, I wouldn't return to this hotel, but Shawn, the front desk mgr. has a great professional future in front of him given his great customer service attitude.

There are better values out there where you can save money and have a safer, cleanier place to be in. This place looked like those terrible places that shady people rent by the hour. Got this place through priceline in my package...I arrived at just past 1am (had no choice to go find another and call it a monetary loss), was given a room on the first floor that the windows opened fully and had no locks on them for safety. Go to change the room and they give me another that had no electricity...again go back and get a 3rd room on the 2nd floor and it smelled like a locker room, the bathroom was dirty, the tub had so much scum I had to bath with shower shoes on..and thecarpet was worse to even describe the filth and rotting smell of spills that have never been cleaned. The bed was hard with very old pillows. the floor lamp by the chairs was broken so when you went to turn it on it fell over in half and it only had an exposed bulb with no shade. TV was rigged with cable that you could not find any real channels and that is if you could get the remote to work for at times it was not work to change the channels and very little volume to the TV for I assume the speakers in it were not working too well. The walls and ceiling were all stained like a lot of water damage and patched up to where there were more patched then the actual walls themselves. The bathroom sink cabinet was all rotted out. The Bates Motel looked better than this place. I barely could sleep for how unsafe and unclean I felt in this place. I immediately left the next morning with all my things so that after my meeting I could find something cleaner and safer. I did not dare go to their continental breakfast for fear of molding food and/or spoiled juice and milk....I believe if I had taken my dog with me we would have probably howled all night to get out of this place. Wish I had taken photos of this room to share with you so that you could honestly see that this place was not fit for a human being.

I got put into this place on a Priceline bid at $26++ ($36 all-in). Since that's a "blind" site, you can imagine the sinking feeling in looking up the place on TA and seeing some of the reviews.

Am happy to report that, at least in my case, it was tolerable and maybe even slightly above that. To better the odds, I did check in at mid-afternoon and got a non-smoking room. The afternoon guy was polite, and he gave me a non-smoking king on the 2nd floor (#227).

I didn't see any truly serious problems with the room like roaches crawling around, but I could see a little of why the place gets negative reviews. It's past its renovate-by date. Next-door neighbors the Econo Lodge and Best Western look like they date originally from the same era but also look like they've received more attention since. In this case a newer carpet, new coat of interior paint and new shower curtain might help. The air-con unit is a wall-mount in the back and can be a little noisy, but I've stayed at places in southeast Asia that can put any problems I encountered to shame.

The TV cable looked rigged up and was strewn on part of the floor and needed some slight adjusting to make the TV come in well. The mildew smell was slightly there but I would say was about par for Florida. The bed came with 2 pillows that were a bit lumpy, but the room also had a small microwave and a frig.

I might well have had good luck-of-the-draw with everything, as the smoking rooms may well not be in as good a condition, or the wall air-con might be a rattletrap kept alive through successive patches.

There is a small pool, but it has clear access, proximity and visibility to the sidewalk, so I didn't see anyone using it, and it's not an area to leave the kids (though the place is generally not recommended for families).

Location is borderline excellent, with the Mai-Kai and US 1-Oakland Park Intersection (with Coral Ridge Mall) in walking distance and a Miller Ale House also close.

Overall I'd rate it as at least acceptable and, from what I saw, not deserving of superlative titles. Have seen far, far worse in places like Absecon, NJ, or Fremont St. on the east side of Las Vegas Blvd. in Vegas. Or even the FunSpots Inn at Fountain Park in Orlando.

This place rightfully should be posting rates right around $30-35 on the sign, and a few years ago probably would be doing that. But the location got to be more "prime" over time and supply/demand let them get away with charging $65 and up (their Website rates-I checked) without really "doing" that much to upgrade the experience any like their neighbors did. The 25-inch TVs are probably the biggest thing they put in, but, as others have mentioned, you have to bring your own Kleenex and shampoo (amenities are Motel 6 level). I also didn't see any movie channels.

Given all that, it's understandable if people were paying $65 and up why they'd be unhappy. Another $10-15 would get a good step up nearby, and if you've got wheels and use Priceline the value-for-money is much better inland along the I-595 exits.

Mentally I'd rate this place on par with a Motel 6, as it's suitable for the same type of market. For my purposes it worked fine, but for family vacations or most other kinds of trips except the most budget-frugal, I think other possibilities would work better.

We arrived FLL at midnight. After check-in, the clerk handed us a basic TV remote control which had no value at all. Who want to steal a junk? When we walked in room 203, there was a strong smell of air freshener. The house keeper must have dumped a whole can of freshener in this room to mask off whatever the smell. Window was screwed tight. We let the door open for 30 minutes hopefully to air out some of the odour. The room seemed to have carpet and tiles installed in the past 12 months. There were only 2 flimsy bath size towels, no hand or wash towels, and no mat. We quickly unpacked, freshened up, brushed teeth and ready to bed. Just as we about to lie down, we found some hair on pillows. There were 3 small pillows, all with short dark hair. One of the pillows had a patch of stain. Someone just had a hair cut and slept on this bed, drooling. We removed the blanket and found more hair on bed.

It was now after 1:30 a.m. and we were tired. We evaluated our options. We could demand to change to another room. We could have the bedding changed. Both would take some time. We decide to cover the pillows with bath towels and sleep with our street clothes.

The next morning, I found the bottom of my new white socks were black. we were wiping their carpet and mopping the tiles with our socks. Obviously, they never clean the floor and carpet.

After cleaning up, we found a pool of water under the sink. I don't really care where was the water coming from. We want to leave this dump as soon as possible.

Well friends and foes, don't stay in this inn.