Grand Hotel of Cape May — Hotel in Cape May

We stayed at The Grand Hotel for three nights and by day 2 we decided that we wouldn't stay here again. I’ve never bothered to take the time to write a negative review about a hotel, but here we go. The hotel has been renovated; the lobby is lovely, and the rooms look nice, on the surface. The room itself felt clean enough however the quality, in our opinion, was not up to the price point we paid. You are 100% paying for the location with this place as it's directly across from the beach; that was the one thing we enjoyed. There was major construction being done by the pool which was extremely disruptive. I had read reviews about this, so I called the hotel to inquire and was told that some minor repairs were being completed near the pool area. Upon arrival we find that this was full-on jackhammering, loud, annoying work which did not make for a relaxing stay. We sat out on the "balcony" to eat lunch one day while our toddler miraculously napped despite the noise, and it was beyond annoying. On the subject of noise, we couldn't hear our neighbor's voices, however every footstep our upstairs neighbors took sounded like a herd of elephants marching across the ceiling. I've never experienced this at a hotel before and it kept us awake for hours. The sleeping situation was uncomfortable due to the noise, as well as the fact that the mattress was hard as a rock and very uncomfortable, and the room felt damp and cold no matter how the air conditioning unit was adjusted. The pillows always felt damp and gross. If my clothes were out of my bag prior to putting them on they felt clammy and sticky. The air in there was bad and when we got home there was a very noticeable smell coming from any of our belongings that were in the room with us. The smell stuck to everything. Personally, when I'm on a beach vacation, I want to come back to a comfortable, cool, dry room after being out in the heat and humidity for the day and this room was not that; it was not a pleasant retreat. If you stay here, bring your own dehumidifier. The shower felt clean enough, however it wasn't enjoyable having the drain back up seconds after turning the water on. Standing in 2" of shower water in your own shower is nasty enough, and at a hotel is even worse. There's no vent in the bathroom so unless you keep the door wide open (which is likely anyway since our bathroom door didn't stay closed all the way) literally everything in there will be soaking wet by the time you're finished showering. The room we booked happened to have a front door and window leading to the outside balcony, which wasn't great since we couldn't keep the curtain open without everyone walking by seeing directly into the room. The keycards would randomly stop working, as well. Very inconvenient. The hotel is a non-smoking establishment (inside and out), and this is advertised, however TONS of people were sitting out on the balconies smoking and it was disgusting. At one point I was walking our toddler along and there was a woman on the floor above us ash-ing her cigarette over the balcony. I had to make an effort to avoid being ashed-on while we walked by. As far as we could tell there’s nothing done about this; guests are out in the open smoking and staff make no effort to put a stop to it. Lastly, the cancellation policy is abominable, especially considering current circumstances. If you cancel OR change your travel dates within 15 days of your arrival you will forfeit your deposit which is one night's stay. Some of the negative aspects were clearly circumstantial, but overall, it was not a relaxing or comfortable experience, and I certainly wouldn't risk it again, especially for what we paid. If all you want is a hotel room steps away from the beach then this is the...

I'm simply confused by this place. I'm writing this review as I'm currently a guest in the hotel, but figured it might make sense to let the issues be known now. I have NEVER felt inclined to write a review while staying at a place, but here we are.

The hotel has an old school charm to it, but once inside you realize how beautifully redone and renovated everything is. They've stayed on top of things and it shows (at least in the common areas). Our room at least, the cut corners were pretty evident. 2 major issues that really upset us during our stay:

1. in our "deluxe king suite", we do not have a king sized bed. We even measured it to be sure. It was so odd, because it wasn't a queen either. The way the room is setup, it seems as if it's a smaller custom sized bed to fit into the space. Our room was a suite, in a different area from the rest of the hotel, so I'm not sure if this is uniform throughout. But as other reviewers said, I'd follow up about your room before your stay. Oddly enough, when we called the front desk and told them that our room doesn't have a king sized bed, they pretty much told us we were wrong, and reassured us it was. My wife and I sleep in a king every night of our lives. This was not a king. The fact they are trying to sell it as a king is crazy and bizarre, and honestly shouldn't be tolerated. I never in my life seen a hotel do this.

2. were here during MDW, and the first day was a wash with rain. But today is absolutely beautiful. When we checked in, we were given a wrist band that gave us access to the beach service that is suppose to provide us with a towel and a chair. Unfortunately for us, it was slightly cloudy in the morning, but has now opened to beautiful sunny skies. When attempting to use the beach service, we were told it was "weather permitting" and not open today. It's 72 and sunny. When we asked the front desk if we could at least have a towel for the beach, they told us no, and that they don't have access to them. Again, just completely unacceptable. Are the beach towels under lock and key? If you're going to close your beach service for an entire day (why you would, on a holiday weekend no less, I have no idea), then at the bare minimum provide us a towel when we ask. We're paying 400+ a night to be here. This shouldn't even be a thought. I'm writing this from the hotel patio, where I can see the neighboring resort with chairs along the beach as far as the eye can see. Oh, and one more thing... there's beach badge checkers at every beach entrance, so be ready to pony up. The hotel doesn't cover that either.

All in all, we're pretty disappointed with our stay here. We gave the hotel advanced notice that this was our "mini moon" as we were just married on Thursday. There was no special accommodation - and that's not something you ever expect, but it would have been nice. Again, for the price you're paying, you expect more, but are left feeling pretty empty. The 2 points listed above are just completely unacceptable for a hotel charging these rates.

We wouldn't return, and are just very confused by how this beautiful property in such a perfect location could be messing up the simplest of things. The reviews are accurate. I hope they make some changes soon, and pay attention to...

The check in process was abysmal. The person checking me in ("K", who is apparently new and probably shouldn't be working in customer service) was unfriendly, unhelpful and at times downright rude. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had arrived at 3:30 for a 4 pm beach wedding and I politely expressed the need to move as quickly as possible. She rolled her eyes at me and proceeded to stare at her computer screen for far longer than was necessary. Then she slowwwwly explained the pool rules (again, I was just there for a wedding) and informed me how much the replacement rubber bracelet would be ($25, in case you're wondering) if I lost mine. She them advised me to go up the elevators by the desk and I'd find my room 1 floor up. Upon going up one floor, I realized the rooms all started with 2 and mine started with 1. Turns out the room was on the complete opposite side of the parking lot and I never should have gotten on the elevator. Back down we go and I tell her she directed us incorrectly and could someone please provide accurate directions, as the wedding is now in 15 minutes. Another employee, this one with a smile on her face and a helpful attitude then physically walks with us to show us where the room is. Thank goodness this person was friendly and properly trained! After lugging our bags by hand up a flight of stairs, we discover NEITHER key card works! I call the front desk and thankfully got through to a employee fairly quickly. It's now 10 minutes until the wedding. Two polite and helpful gentlemen came over within three minutes and used the master card to let us in. While attempting to get ready as quickly as possible, they work on the lock and get two new key cards. They waited while I tested to make sure they worked. Great experience with them. Fast service, apologetic and helpful.

Needless to say, we missed the wedding ceremony but made it to the reception, where everything went off without a hitch. Bartenders were fantastic and the food was absolutely amazing. Everything I ate tasted better than what I had eaten before. The food was so good that it almost made me forget about the terrible taste in my mouth from the poor customer service at check in. Unfortunately, first impressions are important and tend to be lasting, so my low rating is simply due to the fact that someone made the decision to allow a clearly unhappy, unfriendly person check in guests without proper monitoring and training. And the fact that we were misdirected and given defective key cards. This caused us to miss a ceremony that we'd traveled three hours to. It was really an unfortunate set of circumstances that caused everything to fall apart during that initial check in process. I hope that the hotel will hold it's guest services employees to a higher standard, so that it better matches the standard set in other areas (food,...