We stayed for two nights - a Saturday-Monday stay
PROs:
Location - on Seawall Blvd with a good beach view, and away from heavy traffic; minutes from Schlitterbahn & Moody Gardens; near a tiny airport, but no noise from there at night
Price - paid $55/night via Priceline; rate includes a good breakfast, with coffee, juice, yogurt, waffles, eggs, cereal, bagels, toast, etc.
Amenities - Pool & hot tub seemed clean & were easily accessible; nice-looking business center (didn't use it); light, airy, large lobby; large breakfast area, with one of its rooms overlooking the beach; parking garage with elevator access
For Cruisers - free parking; shuttle to cruise terminal for $15/room; plenty of parking; breakfast starts at 6:00 AM; free (unsecured) wireless internet access; safe in room; large lobby for sitting with luggage :)
Room (205) - Our spacious King featured a balcony that overlooked the pool & a good swath of beach. It included a low dresser, a wall-mounted flatscreen TV, a visitor chair and a desk & office chair with outlets built in. The safe in the closet was about the size of a dorm refrigerator. The bed was very comfortable with plenty of pillows. Storage was average, with a 2-drawer dresser, nightstand drawers & a small closet. The bathroom was good-sized, with typical features (I wish hotels would take coffeemakers out of the bathroom!) and plenty of towels for 2 people. All seemed very clean.
Note: Pets are allowed at this hotel
CONs: Two major cons were security & staffing; minor was upkeep
Security - The door to the pool and the door from the parking garage to the elevator did not lock, although the signs said you had to use your room key for access. (We found out about the pool door from friends who stayed there when we did.) This means two ways for thieves & worse to get access to the rooms. We reported the parking garage door in the early evening of the first night, and checked on it after dinner - we were told there was no maintenance staff to fix it at night. (Shouldn't that be considered an emergency?) The door was not fixed when we left after our stay.
Staff - We were checked in by Althea, and we thought we had upgraded to a hotel with personable, helpful staff. There were people doing laundry, cleaning, etc. and the place was buzzing. But once Althea went home, it was more obvious that things weren't always like that - and we never saw her again. The woman who was on the front desk at night was sullen, but respectful. She is the one to whom we reported the security issue, and the one who later told us there was no one to fix it. While she was respectful, she gave us the impression each time that we were bothering her (big change from Althea). The poor man who was on duty during breakfast was very pleasant, but overwhelmed at times. He had to handle reception & the breakfast by himself for part of the morning, and it was busy. We were there for Carnival's event, so there were lots of folks there for breakfast. The second day, we didn't see anyone helping him, and there were a lot of cruisers staying.
Upkeep - Some instances: Waffle irons didn't always function correctly; juice machine quit working; our balcony door handle was on upside down (we thought it was broken); the top of the desk in our room was loose enough to come off; the desk chair made a loud "pop" every time we moved on it; our room phone did not always work right (couldn't hear person on other end)
We are from a law enforcement family, and the security issues were major for us - might not matter as much for you. We tried to make this review as objective as possible so you can base your opinion on what matters to you. Hope it helps!
Room Tip: Location-wise, we considered our room (205) an excellent one: On the west side, we had a great view...
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This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC