Clearwater Beach Marriott Resort on Sand Key — Hotel in Clearwater

This was a tough property to review. As for the rooms, I would say average at best. We had an oceanfront one bedroom suite. The site is deceiving because the description and pictures appear as spacious, they are not! The bed and pullout were super dated and uncomfortable for all. The bathrooms are not ideal, shower door constantly retracting, sink faucet not secure, bathrooms tiny. Housekeeping was never available to clean our room at a time convenient for us (12-4) because we had a teen who sleeps in, so we never got it. Our view was of a dock with motorsports surrounded by marshy area and a pool, but no beach. We never did sea manatees or dolphins like others. We were to the right side facing ocean, suggest left side. Our room was 903. I think rooms 12 and above are the other side, may have better view. A/C worked okay but was very noisy. Flooring near mini fridge was coming up and the front of the casement where the mini fridge is reminded me of painted plywood, certainly not to Marriott standards.||That said, there were several areas the hotel was great. The staff all around were outstanding. Jay, at the pool was the rockstar. He worked tirelessly to please given how many guests he had daily. From the waitstaff at the restaurants, to the front desk, to the bell hop, to the valet guy out front, all were excellent! There was a daytime bartender by the pool that was slower than everyone else, but even she would communicate who was next. The pool was fine, perfect temperature in the summer to cool off, lots going on for the kids and activities and they were having a blast. ||Surprisingly reasonable food and drink costs at the pool. As frequent travelers, especially Marriott properties, we were happy. Food was actually really good, and drinks were made right, nothing watered down or corners cut.||Restaurant / bar for dinner and then entertainment was awesome. Seems like a hot spot for the area. Great gelato in the cafe for dessert. ||Within walking distance of tao restaurants off property, and a bodega.||The other concern worth mentioning, the beach is not really right next door. It's a short ride but we never made it. We were told it was longer than expected and you have a small section of beach for Marriott guests that fills up early. You do get 2 beach chairs and one umbrella at no charge at the front desk daily as part of your resort fee, along with $10 per day in free drinks and 2 bikes for a period of time also free. We mostly just hung out at the pool and did use the drink coupons. Ultimately the fees were more than the benefit for us. Valet parking was $30 and self park $25. Valet was quick, you can have the car out front from a phone call in advance, well worth it for the extra $5 and a tip.||I would recommend for those traveling only as couples for the room size alone. I would get adjoining rooms for more than that. If you need more chairs and umbrellas, pick them up at Walmart on your way, I was told they charge a lot for anything additional once down at the beach. I think even with the room issues, the price was fair and we still...

Where do I even begin?! I wish I could give 0 stars for this place and their employees. Our day began at 2:45am when we woke up to catch our flight home, only to get to the airport and find it had been moved to the next day. Thus we needed a hotel for the night. We chose this Marriott based on location and our desire to be on the water. At this point it’s 5am, so we spend $45 and 35min to Uber with all of our luggage and our 3 month old to this hotel to check in, have them hold our luggage, and go get coffee/breakfast.

When we arrive, the night receptionist, Jorge, is confused about us checking in, sees our reservation, and then proceeds to tell us they have no rooms available. After questioning him about how we were able to book the room, he tells us there’s a glitch in the system and that they are working on it. He tells us to take a seat while he figures something out for us. He spends the next 45 minutes furiously typing on the computer and talking on the phone.

Eventually he comes back, says all the other Marriott and associated hotels are fully booked as well, but the Hilton down the road has a room for us and we can check in now. Jorge tells us that due to the inconvenience, they will refund our booking and comp our stay at the Hilton. We are thrilled at this point. While it was inconvenient for us, at least Marriott was willing to help us out. WRONG!

We made it to the Hilton around 6:30am and were in the middle of checking in when Jorge calls me. He is desperately apologizing as states that he thought we were checking in for LAST NIGHT, not tonight and they actually do have a room for us and because of this, they are no longer refunding our room or comping the Hilton room. My husband and I are furious at this point and refuse to take yet another Uber back to the Marriott and we wish to stick to our previous agreement. Jorge puts me on hold to talk to his manager, Donte, again and then hangs up on me.

Luckily the Hilton is amazing and gets us our room, tells us that the Marriott will make it right with us and to just talk to the manager when they get in. We then spend the rest of our day, arguing back and forth with the day receptionist, Jennifer, about sticking to the original promise made by Jorge due to the inconvenience. She goes back and forth between us and the manager, but we are unable to speak directly to the manager. Eventually they agree to comping out Hilton stay, but we still payed for the room at Marriott.

The entire scenario was incredibly frustrating and Marriott, a credible and multi-billion dollar company, did nothing to try and make this situation right. They should have stood behind their employee that they hired, whether or not he should have made that promise in the first place. We are frequent travelers and even have a travel blog advising others where they should travel and hotels to stay at, and I will have a hard time staying at a Marriott...

$3000 in cash stolen from our room!!!! We booked through Costco travel and stayed here with our two young children. We were pleased enough with the whole experience and the property until we went to check out and a half hour after we had left the property realized we left an envelope with a large amount of cash behind. We knew exactly where we had left it, so we called just assuming that our room probably hadn’t been cleaned yet and that the money would still be there because the whole establishment seemed very trustworthy. We tipped our housekeeper every day and generously, as well as all of the staff. And were of course, kind and friendly to everyone. Basically, when we called the hotel, the assistant general manager is the one that “helped us” Yes, it was embarrassing and we realized how dumb it was to leave a bank envelope with cash in it. We were definitely completely brushed off like basically, how could we be so dumb to leave cash And if it’s gone, then it’s just gone. By the rate of the return phone call, I bet five or 10 minutes was spent looking for the money of which the housekeeper had already been in the room before the manager. Clearly we don’t have much for Legal recourse but we just want the general public to be aware that theft is going on at this establishment and in our experience nothing is being done about it. We are 100% sure that envelope of cash was left in that room and can reenact our last steps before we headed out, distracted by our kids and all of our belongings to get to the airport. Lesson learned but shame on the person that found our hard earned vacation money and didn’t do the right thing. Edit to add: we then received a bill for $500 with $200 of that being housekeeping A charge That we were never informed of in the first place for requesting our room to be cleaned a few times. Not only that, but the housekeeper would’ve only had to clean our room a few times OK while we were there because we stayed A few hours away for a couple of the nights that we were still checked into this package deal. Also charged for extra days of valet that we didn’t use because we weren’t on the property for several days. Talk about adding insult to injury.

** Just seeing the response from the hotel and you took it so seriously that you knew it was $3000 Response is saying 500 when I clearly said it was 500 and additional charges and what I told the assistant general manager was that it was In the envelope. I would definitely get your facts straight before you respond, and I think it’s wonderful that you do have honest Should have honest housekeepers. Everyone should be honest when they find an envelope full of cash. But unless you’re saying that we are Sounds like you are even though you clearly are not aware of all the facts in the case your housekeeper Or someone else that entered our room in the 45 minutes Took us to realize we left the money took our...