I found this property quite nice. Staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Parking for my Motor Coach was excellent and easy. Rooms Clean and Not a bad view from any room. Gulf Side of course your looking right at the beach. The In Hotel restaurant offered FABULOUS views if the Gulf from the Top Floor, Although nice and well staffed, go forth and explore the local flavor as the Major Dining Area is only a 5 min walk from Hotel and so many offerings. The one down was there was a Wedding reception on the Top Floor Restaurant, and the dissemination of that information was not well done. I heard only by word of Mouth.

Right on the beach! Steps to St. Armand's Circle! Great Staff! We would definitly stay here again.

Location cannot be beat. Just across the street from the Gulf of Mexico with a clear view of the Gulf and the beach and the sunset. Staff is friendly and helpful. The hotel provides lounges and towels for the beach. The pool is fine for swimming. The beach is well-maintained with year-round life guards. The sand even has "powdery" stretchs, a la Siesta Beach (a little to the south). But Curtis C is correct, the Beach front balcony rooms are high priced. The decor could be updated and the king bed could use nightstands on both sides of the bed. The reason there are not two nightstands is because the every room seems to have two connecting doors. The room was spacious, and everything was fine. Still it is obvious that we were in a Holiday Inn and not in the Intercontinental or Ritz Carlton. Still my husband and I were happy that we stayed here and would stay here again if we returned to Sarasota because of the location.
[We considered the Indigo (another hotel in the Holiday Inn family, which had higher ratings on Trip Advisor), but are glad that we chose this location.]
It is an easy walk to St. Armand's Circle with shopping and restaurants (although some restaurants are "touristy" and some shops are expensive).
The breakfast buffet could have better food; we thought the scrambled eggs were overcooked, but perhaps other patrons like them that way.
We watched the sun go down from our balcony. We enjoyed our walk on the beach. It was too cold to go into the water to swim (62 degrees, when it was 76 degrees on the east coast; Sarasota does not get the "gulf stream" to warm the ocean in January), but it was nice to sit on the beach and to walk on the sand.
This is probably a great hotel for families and we saw many at breakfast.

Our gulf view was delightful. The hotel is immaculate, the room was very well maintained. The staff, desk, bar and restaurant were very friendly. professional and helpful. We would definitely stay here again.