Sugar Beach Resort Hotel — Hotel in East Bay Township

My husband & I booked two nights through booking.com for our stay at Sugar Beach. One of the nights we booked was for Memorial Day 2020. Booking.com had a ridiculously low price posted that we booked at. I was concerned that the rate might have been off. I called Sugar Beach right after booking to confirm that this indeed was a rate they had. I was told over the phone that they would honor the price that I had booked at. Our friends also booked at this same price & were also told the same by the hotel. Fast forward to check in time....Our room was not ready & we had an hour & a half wait for our room. The staff was incredibly short & unapologetic about this. Once our room was ready, I proceeded to check in. I again mentioned the low rate we booked at and wanted to confirm the price would be honored as we were told. I was again told they would honor the rate. Great, I happily proceeded to put down the normal credit card for security purposes. No paperwork was presented to me and there were no signatures that were asked. Once we got to our room we noticed a strong smoke smell. It smelled as if someone had just smoked a cigarette in our room. There were also several food crumbs all over the floor & couch. Our room appeared as if no one had cleaned it since the last guests. I called down to mention this & was told someone would get back to me. No one got back to me. We decided to head down to the beach and enjoy what sun was left for the day. Majority of the beach in front of our room was littered with trash and cigarette butts. It was disappointing to see that the beach was not well taken care of. Despite all this, we decided to make the best of it. Come Monday we spent the entire day on the beach. Towards the end of the day friends of our that were staying in a room next to us started receiving calls from booking.com. Booking was calling them to inform them that a hotel staff member uploaded incorrect pricing information & that the hotel wanted the difference. Our friends politely told them this should not be an issue for the consumer. Booking.com apologized for the inconvenience & said they'd let the hotel know. None of us thought anything of it since at check in time we were told our rates would be honored. Shortly after we decided to make our way back to the rooms. We were shocked to see police officers standing at our friends hotel room door!! Our friends were greeted by aggressive hotel staff escorted by two police officers. They were told by the hotel that they had to pay the difference on the spot or be escorted out of the hotel. We were all shocked and appalled by the treatment. The hotel kept saying that there was an error on their end and our friends needed to pay the difference. Since we were all 2.5 hours way from home our friends paid the difference. We were told that the hotel would be doing the same for the other 20 some guests that booked at this low rate and to wait for a call. We NEVER received a call. We checked out Tuesday morning & still no word on this issue. Several days after being home I realized there was an unauthorized charge on my credit card from Sugar Beach. I immediately called Sugar Beach to find out what was going on. The employee told me it was not their issue & that a manager would return my call at 2pm that day. I received a call at about 2:30pm from this same employee repeating that the hotel would not be addressing their pricing error. I was also told they can charge me whatever they like an no authorization is needed. I expressed my frustration that the manager still had not called me back & how poorly we were all treated during our stay. I sat on hold for several minutes before a manager came to the phone. The managers name was Ashley. She was incredibly rude & unapologetic. Unwilling to help resolve the situation. She told me it was my problem to deal with & that no compensation would be made. Really disappointed in the lack of customer service. We will not support this...

We booked Sugar Beach Hotel with high hopes for a nice stay, but unfortunately, our experience was extremely disappointing. Check-in went smoothly, and the front desk staff was polite and professional. However, as soon as we entered our assigned room, we were shocked at the condition. The room was dirty and felt neglected, there were crumbs on the floor, stains on the couch and chairs, a burn hole in the couch cushion, a stained lampshade, an unsecured outlet in the wall, and dirty sheets and bathroom. Bugs were present in the room, and within 10 minutes, we all had mosquito bites, which is unacceptable, especially with a 3-year-old in tow. We took many photos to document the room’s condition.

We immediately went to the front desk to request a new room, but were told there were no other rooms available. They offered to clean the room, but the issues went far beyond what cleaning could fix. The bugs, stains, and overall poor maintenance made the room uninhabitable. We decided we had no choice but to leave and look for another hotel, which was stressful given the limited availability in the area.

About 30 minutes later, after we had packed up and my husband returned the keys, the general manager came out and suddenly offered another room. By this point, we had lost confidence in the hotel, especially since we had previously been told there were no other rooms available.

We had read reviews before booking and were frankly shocked to see such a stark difference in the level of cleanliness we experienced compared to what had been reported. Overall, this experience was unacceptable for any hotel, especially one that should meet basic cleanliness and safety standards. We would not recommend Sugar Beach Hotel based on our experience.

8/7/25 Update based on response from Hotel

The response issued by Sugar Beach Hotel contains multiple false statements that appear to be a deliberate attempt to discredit me as both a reviewer and a consumer. I have extensive documentation, including timestamped photos, emails, and receipts, that directly contradict the statements made. Your public misrepresentation of the facts borders on defamation and is deeply concerning.

My review was accurate, professional, and based entirely on verifiable facts. The claim that I first returned to the front desk at 9:30pm is unequivocally false. I have documentation showing I was at the front desk at approximately 6:28pm ET. Photos taken between 5:59pm and 6:22pm confirm our presence in the room and clearly illustrate the unacceptable conditions. At the front desk, I reported the issues and requested a room change. At that time, your staff informed me that no alternative rooms were available and instead offered housekeeping, which was not an appropriate or sufficient solution given the severity of the situation.

After the exchange at the front desk, I was sitting in my car, emotionally distressed, with my exhausted and hungry 3-year-old child, having checked out of your hotel shortly after 6:35pm. We arrived at your property around 5:15pm, making the total time spent at the property just over 1.5 hours, not four, as your response falsely claims.

By 7:39pm, I had secured a reservation at a different hotel, confirmed via email, after booking in person.

Additionally, your statement that a refund was voluntarily provided is misleading. The refund was only processed after I escalated the issue through the third-party booking platform. At no point did I request additional compensation, despite incurring unexpected costs and significant stress in finding a last-minute alternative.

I take the integrity of my name seriously and will not allow your hotel to publicly distort the truth...

Incredibly disappointed with how Sugar Beach staff has treated us, specifically the managers John & Michelle who were on duty for Memorial Day...

Let me start by saying this, we booked through booking.com for Sunday, May 24th - Tuesday, May 26th. We saw that booking.com was offering rooms for Memorial Day for $10 a night. I even called Sugar Beach directly to confirm this was the case. When I called the hotel they said, "if that's the rate you booked at, we will honor it". Before I got off the phone I asked if we could bump up our checkin time from 4pm on Sunday to a noon checkin. They confirmed they could accommodate us. Upon arrival we were told our room was not ready. No biggie, its a busy weekend after a pandemic. We were understanding of the delay with check in. So then we waited. Then we waited some more. Finally our room became available but not until an hour after our original 4pm checkin time. So that was a little off putting for us. We also were told we had to downgrade our room because our room we originally booked with booking.com was not available. We decided to let it go as we really just wanted to get into our room at this point. Once our room was officially ready, I went to pay for the security deposit and get our keys. Nothing at this time was mentioned of an incorrect booking fee error through booking.com. We happily enjoyed the rest of Sunday. Come Monday, we decided to enjoy the beach front of the property. We spent most of the day until roughly 3:45pm when Booking.com started calling us. We started getting calls that there had been a pricing error. We told booking.com that this shouldn't be an issue as we are the consumer. Then we started receiving calls from the hotel directly after this on the pricing error. We explained that we booked through booking.com and this shouldn't be something that the consumer should have to deal with. We went on enjoying the beach. Our daughters ended up going up to the room to shower. Upon arrival they were greeted by aggravated hotel staff demanding to talk to their parents. Once we found out, we decided to make our way back to our room. Needless to say we were shocked to find two police officers greeting us at our door along with hotel staff. We were told that if we didn't pay the pricing difference that we would be immediately escorted off the property. You can imagine how upsetting this was to our two small children to have to be harassed by hotel staff and the imagine of police officers backing them. We decided to call Booking.com to resolve this. Booking.com happily refunded us for the cheap price we booked with them. They informed us that a hotel staff member uploaded incorrect pricing on their website and that our issue was actually with the hotel. We were also told that the hotel had called the police on us. We spoke to the hotel managers on this. We were told that we had to pay the difference regardless of the hotels pricing error or be escorted off the property. We had no choice but to sign paperwork agreeing to pay an additional $100 dollars. We are a military family trying to enjoy our weekend. I am absolutely appalled at how we have...