oh, gee.. where to begin. well our first look of the place from the outside was nice albeit deceiving , awesome location in jax beach but unfortunately, this potentially awesome, historic hotel was completely mis-managed. I feel that is the most polite way to explain the staff. let me tell you about our stay. My fiance checked us in at the front while I drove all over jax beach looking for a place to park ( no designated parking). Finally after finding a parking place in a loading/tow away zone, I began to carry in out luggage. My first view of the inside was fairly nice at a glance, a small courtyard with heavy tropical vegetation giving off a south beach feel, a raised wooden deck for a band or other live entertainment, a small glassblock bar with blue lighting...like I said...nice at a glance but Ill get back to that. After offloading I found a parking space behind the hotel. While walking towards the rear entrance of the courtyard I saw 2 people, homeless sleeping in the alley directly behind the building, not so bad though. My fiance and I were relaxing after a long drive roughly about a half hour after checking in. The door was locked, well, it was suppose to be locked anyway and in pops this complete stranger who took 1 look at me and seemed very surprised to see a man there with the pretty lady he just watched check in. Well ,this uninvited perv was Harry the multi talented maintenance/security/pizz smelling drunkard. He then sloppily apologized and left as quickly as his stumbling body would allow. Me and my fiance looked at eachother and thought wtfreak?? so i checked the door and noticed that it didnt lock. After a closer look at the room, the comforter had cigarette holes all over, stains from lord knows what and was just dirty...white nonetheless there was a mosquito net over the bed that had a nice "beachy" look to it....little did I know it was fully functional and welcomed after the roach, and blow fly infestation. The bugs were the nastiest sight Ive ever seen ANYWHERE. No exaggeration. Our room backed up to the rear of a bar called free birds (excellent night spot) well, their stinkin' azz, nasty dumpster was just underneath our rear/bathroom window...one of those early 60's crank type vented windows that didn't seal worth a f. The room clearly belonged to the insects. There was standing water in the tiny shower ,I had to duck to wet my hair and the list goes on.... I searched all over the whole place to find house keeping because the towel (notice its singular) in the bathroom was still wet... couldn't find a soul. The sand on the tile floor was so abundant I started to think it was intentionally put there for a real life beach atmosphere. It got to the point that my fiance and I were finding all the humor in our stay at the Seawalk hotel and Spa...lol sounds inviting dosnt it?...lol that night at around 3am when all the noise from everywhere calmed down and I just started to fall asleep...something caught my eye on the counter top by the sink...So naturally I perked up and began to get up and get a better look.... it was a huge dern rat! ran of the counter and underneath the nasty vinyl recliner.. my fiance was laughing and screaming... we didnt get much sleep that night...
So into the next morning. the sunrise was amazing, both of us being from florida apreciate our sunrises, but I digress. I walked to the front desk to request a room change. We looked at the room that we were to switch to....we decided to stay in the room we were in if that gives you an idea of what we were dealing with. we were scheduled to stay for a week...we didn't make it 2 full nights. the final straw was when I was fighting to find parking yet again, and gambled by parking in a loading zone, on the way in there was a huge fight, well this homeless man was being jumped by 3 black guys..the beat him so bad he was left bleeding and knocked out snoring on the concrete. after the police showed up I have the description of the men who left the guy with a cracked skull and had to be airlifted. The hotel manager "Charles" told me that if I "snitched" I wasn't welcome to stay...well I laughed anyway and walked into my room... as I was entering this huge damn pit bull ran into my room and started jumping all over me and the bed, so i grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out the door. about 15 minutes later, harry the drunk and Charles the toothless crack-head manager beat on my door so hard it opened. I asked if I could help them and Charles threated me yet again saying I kicked his dog, and harry watched me do it. I thought to myself... this cant be real...this is the hotel staff right... so needless to say I had to switch to redneck mode and after a few loud exchanges the both decided to leave without any incident....lucky them...there is so much more i could go into but I think you have got my drift when I say are you serious? you cant be serious..... stay at the campgrounds at Hanna park if you like being at one with beach sand, insects etc... you will enjoy it a hell of allot more than this crack motel.
- Seawalk Hotel Jacksonville Beach
