The Baywatch Resort — Hotel in East Bay Township

Sleepless in TC

This was our 5th stay. We fell in love with this place in 2018 for its hospitality, decor, sandy beach, and exquisite views. Magical!!. This year we paid just under $100 more per night from the summer before. Sadly, the hospitality and overall experience went in the opposite direction.

On our first night, I woke at 2 am to the noisy air conditioner, approximately 4 feet away. The fan emitted a low pitch whrrr before grinding to a halt. The silence was followed by a surge of the fan which rattled and squealed. With each surge came a puff of cold air. Over and over, whrrr, grind…surge, puff, rattle, squeal. I worked to go back to sleep but failed. I relocated to a sofa across the room and drifted into a light sleep shortly before my husband woke me at 7.

The woman at the front desk offered to send maintenance. I told her I would also welcome a room change as a solution. She said the hotel was100% booked. Before heading out, I checked online and discovered that there was at least one room available for the duration of our stay. I stopped at the front desk and mentioned that I was aware that there was a room, and that I knew it didn’t have a sofa. This was ok and preferable to two more expensive sleepless nights. She stared blankly at me for a few seconds before saying she would send maintenance to the room to reset the thermostat. I replied that I did not think a thermostat could make such noise, but more likely, the fan. I asked her to hold the room and to please call us to confirm how the problem was to be resolved. It was obvious that she refused to look for the available room.

When she called she said maintenance “reset it.” We asked if it fixed the noise. She said it had. Our confidence was low. We went on a lovely hike, though, exhaustion from lack of sleep and the concern over the possibility of two more sleepless nights lingered and dampened my enjoyment of the first day of vacation. When we returned to the room we were greeted by the same repetitive whrrr grind…surge puff rattle squeal. We returned to the lobby and asked to speak with a manager. Both the maintenance and the general managers responded by trying to convince us that the available room I saw on the website never existed, despite my screenshots. Eventually, they presented the possibility of replacing the entire unit, an option not previously mentioned.

The men came to our room for a listen. My husband and I both heard the same sounds from across the room. The two managers who were standing right next to the unit spoke in hushed tones with each other. It seemed as if they got it. I was shocked when one said that the unit was not manifesting the problem right now, but that he would still change it if it would make us happy. He added that with the heat and humidity he thought it might not be any better. The new unit which was installed within minutes was smooth and quiet. I slept soundly the next two nights.

We enjoyed the rest of our stay, yet this experience changed the vibe. Seems it even ruined the magic. It was less the sleepless night and more everything that followed. We had to work way too hard for a fix and received nothing by way of a sincere-sounding apology. The most upsetting part, however, was the dishonesty that ran through the entire experience. From the refusal to acknowledge the availability of another room to the gaslighting by the managers who clearly invited us to believe that the problem wasn’t real, or even that we were the problem. Baywatch impressed as trending in the wrong direction. They hiked their weekend rate another $70 since we booked this last stay, on top of the nearly $100 increase from a year ago. It is now $479 a night. They also struck a deal with TC Watersports, allowing them to conduct business on their beach and moor boats and jetskis all along their frontage. They now seem to be more about the money. Money above hospitality, customer service, reputation, and possibly...

My wife and I stayed here the weekend of 7/16-7/18 and I felt the need to post an honest review of our stay.

The Good:

The room was very nice. We had a room that opened out to the lowest level where you could walk right out to the beach. The shower was spacious. The hot tub was probably the best part of the room. It was clean and operated well. The views were definitely amazing. The staff was very polite and courteous upon check-in and during our only other interaction with them.

The Not Good:

While the beds were comfortable, the pillows were very uncomfortable - all of them were hard and none were soft. It made for a very unpleasant sleeping experience for my wife. Guess we should’ve brought our own. We ordered the romance package when we booked the room. We then had to remind the front desk that we did after taking possession of our room because the package was not in the room when we checked in like we were expecting it to be. When we asked about it, the staff member said that the champagne needed to chill for an hour before they brought it over. At almost an hour and 30 min later, we were ready to go out for dinner and I texted and asked if we could pick it up from the front desk instead. At that point, it was finally brought over. We spent at least 10 minutes clearing spiders from the chairs outside of our room. I get that the chairs are outdoors, but they should at least be cleaned or wiped down in between customers as a part of the room cleaning. We received no turn-down service at all the day after we checked in. If we were supposed to specifically request it (which I have never heard of before ever), no one at the front desk made this information known to us at check-in. The only thing our hostess mentioned to us was about the breakfast service, which brings me to my final issue. The breakfast service is a currently a room-service type deal, probably due to now-defunct COVID restrictions, which is a cool idea in concept. But the choices that they offer for breakfast are not really enough to feed an adult - we went out for breakfast both mornings. A grab-and-go breakfast would be a much better option if they are worried about having a bunch of people gathering in their lobby area for breakfast.

I’ve stayed in many different hotels over the years and I’m sorry, but even considering everything that happened the past year and how it might have impacted our stay, for the almost $1K that we paid for reserving a room 4 months in advance, I expected a better...

We have stayed at a number of hotels on the water side of US-31 in Traverse City over the past 20 years, and this was our first time trying the Baywatch Resort. Unfortunately, it is likely our last time as well, unless they make a few substantial changes.||Pros:||--Very friendly front desk staff who call and text you reminders in advance of the stay. I appreciated the outreach.||--Non-carpeted floors in the room (wood-like flooring) so it's cleaner.||--Mini fridge with a freezer||Cons:||--The worst breakfast I've had offered at a hotel on US-31. The WORST. They ask for you to complete a card for your breakfast box to be delivered to your room in the morning, which sounded promising; however, the results were awful. Example from the first morning: one sad muffin that looked like it was delivered by Sysco Foods and packaged like it would be "good" until 2035 with two very tiny clementines. The yogurt that came with the "protein packed" box was kid's size! Other hotels right next door offer continental buffets with pancake or waffle makers for the same room rate, but here you get a kids juice box as your orange juice. It was cheap and thoughtless. We got it the first two mornings and then gave up and spent money on breakfast. If they want to hang onto a pandemic pivot, then they need to make the breakfast NICE, like homemade food, not giving you a single Jimmy Dean microwaveable and calling it a day. ||--We got a first floor "beach walkout." To their credit, it was exactly that. However, I was expecting the patio area to be somewhat private to our room, like it is with other hotels along US-31. Nope. It's just that you can walk out to the beach from your screen door. We had kids next to our screen door, screaming up to the second floor. Awesome.||--We never got our room cleaned, and the cleaning staff was super surly whenever you approached them to ask for anything. Not sure what's going on there, but there was a huge difference between the front desk staff and the cleaning staff, and we talked to multiple of each. (Yes, we asked meekly and kindly.)||Recommend you look elsewhere, especially if you have kids that need to get out of the room for breakfast. Just...