Beau Rivage Golf & Resort — Hotel in Carolina Beach

You should stay here. This is not my first stay at this venue. Every time I do stay here, I am always somehow surprised at how nice the rooms are for the price asked. I have been staying in hotels of various prices and presumed quality of every kind all of my life. While that certainly does not make me an expert, I can speak from a lifetime of experience when I say that this is a great place to stay.

What you see If you like golf, you're in luck because it's in the name. If you like beautiful views of golf courses, you're in luck because that happens to be exactly what is in the name. That being said from the moment you see the giant columns supporting the entry way you can't help but feel intimidated, reminiscing to a time when columns meant a level of importance. Those anxieties fall away quickly as soon as you step in the front entry.

Immediately as you walk in the door you enter the lobby with the front desk situated to your left. If you were expecting elegance and marble floors you would be wrong. What you do find is yourself facing the pro shop and the lounge/bar/restaurant through the lobby. While I would not describe this place as elegant, there is still an air of respectable beauty and class that mixes with the laid back and fun atmosphere that is extremely hard for hotels and resorts to capture.

What you Get Beau Rivage is one of the best hotels around for the price and you will be hard pressed to find much to complain to the front desk about. Every stay here the rooms are adequately cleaned, well furnished, the bed is comfortable and located in an in-room suite. The bathroom is large with a large tub and stand-up shower. While the hotel is situated on a beautiful golf course and in such a way that offers views of the driving range and the courses that will excite even the most jaded traveler, golf fans of every caliber will admit that this hotel is a gem. All that being said, the hotel is not new. It is not swanky, and it doesn't try to be. Like any "good ol'" anything from the south, this hotel maintains its reputation by checking the boxes of travelers, golfers, families, and even single guys needing a place to stay like me. Another plus I will credit to their management is the more than reasonable incidentals fee, a fee commonly placed on the majority of rooms charged to debit cards which is then refunded unless you're a rock band from the 70's, 80's, 90's or Ozzy Osbourne who is basically eternal. That being said the fee requested was only 50.00$ which at some hotels can be upwards of the exact cost of the room, albeit refunded later, can sometimes be hard to swing (pun intended).

I told you already, you should stay here. If you have made it this far, do I love Beau Rivage? Yes, because every time I have needed or wanted a place to stay they have not told me no, their prices are reasonable, all of the staff I have ever interacted with is friendly and professional and for the price you truly will not likely find a room to compare that doesn't ask you to sacrifice what benefits you also get for staying at Beau Rivage...

So -- we've loved this place. It's been in serious need of refurbishment for some time now. But we like the location a bit outside of town (we love to take the ferry to Southport for lunch and the Cameron art museum is a fabulous gem -- don't miss it!)||We also like the 700 s.f. size --and the price is right -- so we're willing to overlook some shabbiness and the somewhat "held together with tape and chewing gum" attitude of management.||having said that -- there's a limit and they've just about reached it!||We stayed in April and the bathtub had an annoying leak, the part of the lamp in the living room that holds the bulb was attached with black electrician's tape, the hair dryer didn't work.|The view from the bathtub showed the underside of the toilet rim was FILTHY BLACK.||I reported the tub leak was told it would be fixed -- apparently someone came in but -- still leaking out when I bathed (not SUPER fast leak but...) ||SO -- we return a month later. Same room.|Sofa had huge dirty spots all over the upholstery.|I took photos and went straight to front desk to say "we've just arrived and this is how the sofa looks -- we don't want to be blamed for this!"||Settled into room and guess what? ||Same bathtub leak. |SAME FILTH in the toilet.|Same electrician's tape.||We're nice guests who 'clean up" for maids (who have a back-breakingly tough job). And we always tip maids nicely (please people, don't forget to do this!) |We put all our stuff away so the counters are easy to clean.|We put all dirty towels in the sink, so maid doesn't have to reach down and get them.|We tidy up the bedroom so it's easy to vacuum and make the bed.||On our way out after our first night, I saw the maid next door and told her we were leaving and the room was free for her to clean, and to please pay attention to the toilet.||We came back and -- NOTHING had been touched.|Back to front desk. "Oh, didn't anyone tell you when you checked in that you have to request maid service?"|That was new -- "No, no one did. I am used to reusing towels and not having fresh sheets to save water, etc -- and that's FINE with us. But we were expecting this."||SERIOUSLY? No one to even vacuum, clean the sink and make the bed?||SIGH. If they keep on this course, this place is really going to become so rundown that they're going to be in...

A nice golf course, it’s very well maintained. That’s about the only good thing. Now for my subjective negatives. They may not be a big deal to you, and they aren’t for me either, but they are worth mentioning. Golf is great exercise, but you can’t walk this course. The green-to-tee trek is simply too far so you are forced to get a cart. On top of the $67 green fee add $15 for the required cart (I don’t know why they just don’t make the cart fee part of the cost). Add tax and you’re at $84 for a non-member round of golf. I get that, there’s a lot to maintain here. Next, the clubhouse and appended hotel wings are hideous. For what is advertised as an upscale resort, no money appears to have been spent on competent design or construction. The overall façade tries to be grand, but its elements are completely out of scale to anything classical. It appears the developer took what may have been a decent design and “value engineered” it down to be an example of inflating poorly executed residential construction to a larger structure. The construction details are amateurish. Everywhere you look closely you are met with disappointment in the lack of thought or pride in execution. The main entrance brick steps and porch are total masonry embarrassment and sets the tone for what to expect in the rest of the building. The staircase up to the pro shop is a badly welded, painted fire escape leading to an off-the-porch back door entrance. Everything is contractor grade which means as cheap as possible. The second-floor formal dining and event venues look like the inside of a budget funeral home. Hard to understand how the owner is proud of this mess. Check out all the one-star reviews, they’re pretty consistent from folks who stayed there. Not surprising at all. So yeah, the facility really sucks, but the...