Beachside Hotel & Suites Cocoa Beach - Port Canaveral — Hotel in Cocoa Beach

We were so excited to see that Beachside Hotel and Suites had been “updated” when we arrived in Cocoa Beach for our two day trip to visit my mother-in-law. We were already booked to stay at the Sheraton next-door, which is outdated and worn. So, when we noticed that the Beachside Hotel and Suites had been updated to a retro/boutique hotel, we quickly looked to see if we could book it for our second night . We were pleasantly surprised that we could book it for the same price with more amenities (free beach chairs, better pool, and an actual outdoor area). This was a perfect opportunity to check out BHS for future visits and for my sister-in-law‘s family when they visit. We loved how they have leaned in to the retro/boutique hotel, vibe. (Be sure to read the review in it’s entirety or you will think it is completely positive). Upon arrival, you are greeted with the cute retro sign at the entry and the lobby is bright and cheerful. The staff was plentyfyl, welcoming, and ever present throughout the property. The pool is not huge, but has a fun little lazy river going through it with lots of big yellow tubes for floating , there is a ton of lounge chairs with bright yellow umbrellas and it is extremely well maintained. The towels are thin and dinky (barely larger than a hand towel). Our entire visit, we saw staff scurrying around and picking up and keeping the property tidy and well-maintained. HOWEVER , the updates in the physical room are “lipstick on a pig. “. The furniture and lighting in the room is cute and retro and they’ve added convenient hooks and benches. The laminate flooring is so much better than gross old carpet at the Sheraton. But, the creature comforts of a good bed and nice bathroom with nice bathroom towels is where they have not updated and therefore I don’t know that we’d ever stay at BHS again or recommend it to someone we know. The bathroom (at least in our room) has not been touched as part of the update and it was disgusting. Extremely old tile covered with mold, old dirt and a smell I couldn’t identify, made me only want to get in and out of the bathroom as quickly as possible. In addition, there was remnants of the previous guest left in the shower. In addition, the mattress was squeaky and uncomfortable. (Everytime one of us moved, the other person would wake up), so it appears new mattresses were also not part of the update, nor the bedding and pillows which were old and dingy (with the acception of the top coverlet that you see in the website pictures (I always look for crisp bedding when judging a place online), so they fooled me with the pics online. In addition, when I initially folded back the covers, there was a huge brown hair. Thankfully, we had two beds, so chose to sleep in the second bed. The outside is well maintained and a fun vibe and the atmosphere feels like an inexpensive resort. We enjoyed a few hours by the pool in the late afternoon and after dinner we drank wine while sitting in colorful Adirondack chairs in the faux beach area and then this morning sat outside to drink our coffee, so there were parts of our stay (outside of the room) that were very pleasant. We did not visit their beach access but apparently chairs and umbrellas are complimentary which is a huge perk. In addition, there was a a movie screen at the pool and they played an evening movie for families, there were lots of fun games on a turfed area, they had a fun little beach bar by the pool and lots of seating throughout the property. They are clearly trying to turn around an old, previously completely outdated property, but based on what we experienced in our physical room, they have fallen short in some of the most important areas. All of the positives make it extremely disappointing that the negatives are such important things, because we really, really wanted to like it and based on what was online, were convinced we would. I’m really hoping that there is a plan to “finish” the update and they haven’t stopped short of clean bathrooms and...

Communication and customer service at this hotel i found to be absolutely absurd!! My husband and I checked in Sat, March 29th at 4pm. I booked our room months in advance. Noticed on the website they offered transport to the port and back and availability to leave my car. I called and spoke to a younger female (months in advance) and she explained pricing to do it and how it's set up. Asked her to put me down for it and attach to my reservation. Told me no problem that she would put in my interest. Never asked for upfront payment or anything. About 2 weeks before hand something told me to call and confirm everything. I spoke with the night front desk supervisor. Very nice lady and explained more in detail everything to me and told me I should have been charged upfront for my spot for the port shuttle. It's ran through a 3rd party. She got it all set up and assured me we were good to go. The day before arrival I called again and it took several times to finally get someone to answer the phone. Advanced paid for my booking with Joseph and was given a lower rate to pay (about $50) and was told by him we were paid in full for everything. The next morning while traveling I got hit for another $48 by the hotel. Immediately called and was told Joseph didn't add the taxes to my stay and that's what the charges were. Didn't feel like arguing it, disappointed we infact didn't get a cheaper deal on the room. Pretty high price for "taxes". On arrival we checked in and it seemed rushed. Was nice to know the over night supervisor I spoke with prior had put in for an upgraded room with balcony view of the pool for our anniversary though. Was given green wrist bands but wasn't explained what they were for. Assumed it was for the shuttle. Next morning at check out found out it was pool use and breakfast. The upgraded room was okay. The TV didn't work and no remote. The maintenance man from Columbia spent about an hour with us trying to fix the issues. He was WONDERFUL and told us about his native country and the difference between Columbia and the US while trying to fix the issues. Such a sweet man! Once that was fixed we decided to grab food from the restaurant/bar area. That was a HORRIBLE experience! The bar supervisor Aundray is a nasty person. While ordering i asked if they could add shrimp to the quesadilla. Remind you, Monica was taking our order. Not him. As soon as I asked he snapped up and very fast blurted out "NO!" while at the exact same time Monica said she would check with the cook. She told me she would check just to make sure. Came back and told me it was absolutely no problem and there would just be a few dollar uncharged. This made Aundray fume with anger. He started harshly speaking to her in Spanish while she was keying everything in the computer. We paid and as we went to walk to a seat to wait, he started scolding her in Spanish very loudly and pointing at me. It was ridiculous and loud. He wouldn't let it go and it was honestly triggering for me to see a man being so verbally abusive towards a female. Monica held her composer and was 1000% professional during the out burst. I finally had enough and went to the bar and asked him to stop yelling at her. That's when he turned his anger to me. I told him that's no way to speak to a woman. He snapped and told me I shouldn't have gotten my food order the way I wanted and he can do what he wants. He lit into me with so much more hostility I can't even remember everything he said to be honest. It was horrible though. I told him it was mine and my husband's anniversary trip and his behavior was ruining the evening. He told me frankly he didn't care and he can speak to women the way he wants. I then asked for his manager name and he did a nasty laugh at me and told me HE was the manager and there's nothing I could do about it. He was as high as it went. I then told him I would make sure and write a review about his behavior. He shrugged his shoulders and told me to "go ahead". Post will be continued...

If I could post this as a negative I would. I've debated for over a month or rather post about my trip. If I had a way to load pictures I would. My take my family takes a trip every year first week of July so my wedding anniversary and 4th of July so we just do a two for one and go somewhere for a whole week. I did my research I compared pictures took me almost 2 months to decide where to go and I based my trip off the pictures that were posted online by the company not the people I read all the reviews and I took the chance hoping that all the reviews were fixed an I should have NOT BOOKES THIS MOTEL ITS NOT EVEN A HOTEL. Let's see where do I start our room had this weird smell like a rat dead around the refrigerator area it smells so bad. Don't get my started on the microwave. FULL of rust an smell so bad. I got up in the middle of the night to make my grandbaby a bottle and the refrigerator had defrosted it was completely. Like it was off an there was a roach on the counter toting her babies around. If I wanted to sleep with BUGS I would have went camping... So the first night we were there the AC goes out I went to the front desk to let them know that we will gladly move rooms if they can fix it and the look on the lady's face was heartbreaking She felt so bad that our AC went out like she already knew it was going to happen but cuz she has a boss like most of us do she wasn't allowed to say anything but they didn't manage to fix that The shower head was broken and the maintenance guy gave me a look like I should just use a cup of water to rinse my hair out so it wasn't happy with him that was just the first night The second day the zoo was horrible very small overpriced so they really shouldn't recommend people going there The third day we went to the gorgeous pool which was hot nobody wants to walk around in 80° 90° 102° weather and then climb in a really hot pool like you're in a jacuzzi You expect climb in a cool pool Don't advertise your pool online if it's just going to be a hot tub. I mean I get it the hotel is supposed to be family friendly animal friendly kid friendly but it's not really kid-friendly when there's people making out in the pool at I don't know I think it was 1:00 2:00 in the afternoon drinking alcohol I didn't want to take my kids around that So might want to think about that and there was tons of people there without a wristband on but yet we were told we had to keep ours on The blackout curtains not so blackout We had to literally tape the curtain to the window because it was not blackout at all and there's literally two doors to our hotel motel and two sets of windows The water pressure was horrible The toilet backed up twice overall I give it a negative now the ladies at the front desk they're amazing You can tell they're overwhelmed by running the randown place so if you're going to charge people 200 250 a night at least make sure your hotels in decent condition it's so so many pictures of all the grossness shower leaking you can tell the walls been patch jobs there's chunks of drywall missing refrigerator smelled so bad microwave rusted out bugs cockroaches me hella didn't even lift up the mattress so that was probably gross under there they don't change the sheets cuz I requested the hotel to be clean like five times and that was just a change to sheets and give us more towels which never happened once overall I gave it a negative...