Right on the ocean with a beautiful view from the restaurant, but the remote didn't work, a lamp switch didn't work, clean white socks got dirty walking across the room, musty odor, worn furnishings, shower didn't drain properly. The only saving grace is that we were able to check out and found wonderful rooms for about the same price at the Homewood Suites, also in West Palm, which had everything but the view.

Situated right on the seafront & beach, this could be a nice place.The bar & restaurant are quite pleasant overlooking the sea & the pool area is OK. However the rooms leave a lot to be desired & I won't be returning in a hurry!

Today, my 70 year old father and myself were celebrating his retirement with a trip to Florida. I had purchased a bottle of wine and two glasses to toast his retirement. We proceeded to find a couple of chaise lounge chairs on the pool deck overlooking the beach.

As will become important later in the story, the entire pool-deck area is ajoined to the hotel restaurant bar & grill.

At any rate, we poured our wine, raised the glasses...and were immediately approached by a polite member of the wait staff, who told us that they had a policy against allowing guests to bring their own alcoholic beverages to pool area, due to insurance concerns.

I pointed out that there appeared to be half a dozen other guests sitting at tables around the pool, all with glass wear and alcohol. I asked, "Well, there seem to be a lot of other people here with glasses and drinks."

She confided to us that the real reason was that the restaurant space was leased by an operator from the hotel, and did not want competition for the bar.

I said, "Let me get this straight...the two of us who are paying for a room here for three nights...we cannot drink wine by the pool. But those other people who aren't even guests of the hotel, it's fine for them to do so, since they purchased it from the bar?"

The waitress then said something surprising. She said, "Look the owners of this place are complete [--], and I suspect tonight will be my last night here. They don't know how to treat people and look at every situation as a chance to enforce arbitrary rules. They are completely the wrong kind of people to run a place like this."

I said, "Well, perhaps you can tell them to just throw us out, then?" I was halfway joking with her, but I was also feeling a bit combative, as this kind of arbitrary nonsense seems to be on the rise in this country. She said, "I would LOVE to tell the manager to come over here and talk to you himself about this. It's a completely asinine policy. Is that okay with you?" I said, sure, send him on over.

The manager came over to inform us about the unique insurance policy issue, which evidently allowed bar guests to have glass by the pool, but not hotel guests. I told him this was a very unusual policy. He then admitted it was because the bar did not want competition. My father, who is 70 and normally rather laid back, said to the fellow, "I paid for my room here, I'm giving this hotel my business, and i do not think I should receive less use of the facilities than your bar customers."

The manager, continued his spiel. In my opinion, he had several options here.

1) He could have let the issue slide. We were not rowdy teenagers, and we were having a quiet glass of wine.

2) He could have come up to us and, in a friendly and respectful voice, said, "Hey, we've got this stupid rule here that I have to enforce. You're already here and you didn't know about, so it's okay. But for the rest of your trip, we'd kindly ask you to not bring your drinks to the pool."

3) He could have abruptly walked up and said, "I understand there's a problem here", and then proceed to argue with guests, in front of other guests, all in the general tone of a highschool principal lecturing truant students. And instead of diffusing a tense situation, he actually added fuel to the fire.

Had I been alone, I would told this fellow in no uncertain terms what i thought of his rules, his restaurant, and most importantly his attitude, and would have silently prayed he gave me a reason to physically leave my seat and stand.

But in an attempt to no further color my father's vacation and day, I decided to bite my tongue and let it go.

Ah, thank god for the internet! So, read this story and make your own assessment about whether or not the Palm Beach Ocean Front Inn is the kind of place you'd like to patronize or not.

My husband and I were there over Valentines Weekend...we stayed for 3 nights. Before booking here at the Inn, I read tons or reviews on this Inn and sorta had an idea of what to expect (cheap/old) and what NOT to expect (5star treatment)....being that it was the cheapest and only available ocean front hotel left for that weekend, we booked it....thinking we really just needed a place to sleep and wasn't expecting much.
well, things were worst then I had expected, and I didn't expect much at all from this little old raggety place...first of all, we couldn't even find the darn place. address is 3550 S. Ocean blvd...however, the Inn was between 3560 & 3580...so if you plan on going there, please know that you will not find the place if you are looking for 3550...the address should really be 3570. so then we called the front desk for directions since we thought we were lost, the front desk guy couldn't even speak english, and he got frustrated with me and started yelling in the phone because I couldn't understand him. Finally after driving around for 30 minutes we found the darn place, it looked more like a run down MOTEL... still very optimistic we check in at the front desk, and went to our room just to find out that our door couldn't shut all the way...ugh. by this point I'm tired and a little frustrated, I just kept thinking...ok, I'm only paying $99 a night vs $250...so just breathe!
you can tell that the place has gone through some sort of remodel...the floor in our shower stall was lopsided, so the water couldn't drain properly...also, you couldn't flush the toilet twice if needed, cause it took hours for the toilet to fill back up with water, so sometimes my husband had to refill the toilet with water from the sink. but still we were thinking to ourselves, ok this is what you get for going cheap!
the rooms had no microwaves, the coffee pot didn't work, and the outlets weren't strong enough so you couldn't have the light on at the same time as you blow drying your hair (had to buy one at walmart because there wasn't one in the room)
otherwise, the rooms were very spacious and clean.
the whole time we stayed there, we didn't have a tv remote and had to keep asking for one from the front desk...finally they brought one over on our last night there.
On our first night there, my husband and I went to the restaraunt that was attached to the Inn, we heard great things about the food...when we got there no one came around to greet us and we stood there for 10 minutes and saw one waitress who totally ignored us....so then we walked away and ate somewhere else. Neatless to say, we never went back to check out the food...never even got that chance...very unfortunately cause it would have been nice to eat there because of the view.
the only thing nice about this Inn, is that it was Oceanfront....everything else sucked, and now when I think about it...I paid to darn much for this peice of crap! it should have been $39 a night. oh well, lessons learned. I would NEVER recommend this place to any of my family or friends...this place should be torn down. aren't there any required inspection done on these hotels???? cause this one would not pass any of the basic requirements...do not believe the website.