Tradewinds Beach Resort — Hotel in Brandenton Beach

We just returned from a 5 night stay at Tradewinds. When we arrived we were early & I had not called to request early check in. Our room was not ready. We did not get a rental car so we had no where to put our things. The receptionist was amazing. So sweet & welcoming & allowed us to stow our luggage in her office until our room was ready & explained everything in depth. The phone was ringing a lot while we were in there & she was so patient & kind w/ us. We went & had some lunch while we waited & she called to inform us our room was ready & gave us some fresh pool & beach towels to start. Upon entering our room which was right across from the office, I noticed how clean & well represented it was. I liked that our room was close to the road since we didn't have a vehicle it was a few less steps to the road (room #3) but the neighbors were loud most nights, only kept me up one night w/ music. It is not on Tradewinds property so I doubt there is much they can do about that. We enjoyed that the beach was right across the street. Smoqehouse restaurant is right there so quick & easy to grab a bite before the beach. Tradewinds provides beach chairs & aside from dragging them across the sand while carrying beach bags, that was super convenient. They lay all the way flat for laying on stomach or back which was nice. No need to bring your own chairs, umbrella or beach blanket, just show up. Beautiful sunsets on the Gulf. There are a few restaurants within walking distance but when we go again we will be renting a golf cart or car. This is a great location BUT slightly inconvenient spot if you want to be in the midst of everything. It's walkable but w/ the heat & flip flops, not really what I wanted to do. The free trolley is available & nice BUT it was running behind many of the days we were there. There are other options like the Monkey Bus & a guy on a gulf cart taxi but they all stay busy. Just get a golf cart or rent bikes. Trust me. We opted to have our room cleaned once in the middle of our stay. They came sometime after we left for the beach mid day & we came back to a non sandy room & more towels. I was very pleased w/ the cleanliness of our "cottage". It was much bigger than I thought it'd be. Nice walk in closet to hang clothes & put your shoes. Kitchen was plenty spacious. Perfect for just the 2 of us. Beds were ok comfort wise, & pillows were good. Love the plants all around & the different color cottages. Very visually appealing place. We only used the pool once. There are bathrooms, outdoor shower & an ice machine there. The bay stinks & the pool was not the cleanest. Pump was not even on. It's a pretty spot, & it was just us there but I can see why. The bay has lot of seaweed that does not look like seaweed if you catch my drift & it smells marshy constantly. It would be like that anywhere near the bay so I don't blame Tradewinds for that at all. Only cons were noisy neighbors which were not too bad except one night, & wish we had gotten golf cart due to Tradewinds being too far of a desired walk to where we wanted to be none of which is Tradewinds fault so I give 5 stars. Very happy w/ our choice to stay w/ them & I'd go back...

This was our second time staying at Tradewinds. This time, I rented a "Deluxe Cottage" for me and 3 family members. However the accommodations were anything but "Deluxe". For example, the bedroom had a king size bed but only one nightstand, which was very inconvenient. The bed was so high off the ground that we could barely climb in it. The bathroom door lock didn't work, which was unacceptable. The TV in the bedroom did not work. The sofa bed, located in the livingroom, was extremely uncomfortable because the mattress springs were protruding into our backs and 2 of us ended up cramped up on top of the sofa cushions. We had a horrible night's sleep.

The staff however, was friendly and tried to help by fixing the electrical issue with the tv and bringing in another mattress for the sofa bed the next day. The second "mattress topper" was placed on top of the sofa bed mattress but added several inches to the height to the sofa bed, and the staff could not close it. They had to leave it pulled out in the middle of the living room, limiting walk space in an already small area. Four people were staying in the cottage so it was very tight and uncomfortable for the four of us to negotiate around a fully opened sofa bed in a small livingroom. We also found out from staff that each cottage unit is independently owned by investors. Each cottage owner is responsible for furnishing the cottage, and the result is that there is no uniformity of furnishings in cottages at Tradewinds Resort. What saved us was the beauty of the beaches. It is a lovely area, but the accommodations we had were lacking in comfort and value for...

The Tradewinds resort was the most difficult vendor to work with out of our entire experience, by far. I would not recommend any of their resorts or venues for events. They are unable to provide any customer service. Their Event Planners are really just operations staff; they don’t provide any support in coordinating your event. We went back and forth for months trying to figure out a music option because there isn’t electrical hookups at their Pergola, turns out the entire time they had a wireless speaker – they told us about the speaker during our event. No one answers phones so many of our guests for our wedding were forced to find other accommodations, then because we only filled 28 of the 34 rooms, we weren’t permitted to have our welcome dinner on the Tradewinds property. We had to spend another $1000 on renting the Pergola. When their staff made mistakes, they never once apologized. It was always turned around to be something we did or didn’t do. They even got the bride and grooms reservations incorrect and tried to tell us we needed to check out when we in fact had ALREADY PAID for another night. They also didn’t give any discount or comp’d nights to the bride and groom, we even asked for them to comp our wedding night. Instead, they offered a 25% discount. There aren’t many options on AMI for accommodations, but even though this is the case, I would NOT recommend staying in any of their properties. All of the other vendors we worked with on AMI were...