Sea Beach Plaza Hotel — Hotel in Fort Lauderdale

I really wanted this stay to be great. We stayed 2/5 - 2/10/2024. After reading most of the reviews, I thought it was going to be. Let me list the pros and cons for you. ||(Update on any refunds or partial refunds that were provided to me. None. I was denied apparently.)||Pros:|CHECK IN - Quick. Jacob was friendly and told us all we needed to know.|STAFF - Very friendly.|LOCATION - Very good. A couple minute walk to the beach. It's off A1A so it's a little quieter. Publix nearby (driving), and the strip with shops, bars, and restaurants are about a half mile down. Water taxi near by you can walk to as well.|PARKING - Free. Seemed like was enough spaces too. Happy to see there are still places that offer free parking.|BEACH ACCESSORIES - Chairs and towels for you to use|ROOM - Spacious. Microwave, fridge (decent size), coffee maker, plates and utensils provided. Has a small ironing board with iron. Bathroom was ok. Small. However the shower was nice. Took a couple minutes for hot water to hear up, but good shower. TV on Wall. WiFi was decent. Didn't hear any neighbors, but it wasn't full when we stayed. More on the room in the con section..||Cons:|THE GROUNDS - No upkeep when we stayed. The bushes where you park had trash in them. Someone could easily take an hour out of the day and pick it out / up. The pool deck has older furniture. The cushions for the chairs were flat, barely any cushion left in them. Didn't see anyone doing any upkeep on the ground when we stayed.|POOL - Small. Very cold, but that was expected in our February stay. I had to skim it the 1st day we went down, and the skimmer had a hole on the one side of the mesh.. There were leafs, and trash in it. Thankfully I did it (at no charge mind you lol), when I did, since a family with 2 little girls came down after I skimmed it and it seemed like they enjoyed it.|ROACHES IN THE ROOM - 2nd day we were there, I spotted a palmetto bug (ROACH) by the bathroom door. I got it out of the room and thought, where there's one, there's definitely more. Out of our 5 day stay, didn't see anymore, until the morning we left. My wife took the garbage out from under the sink, and a BIG ONE scared her. See pictures. This absolutely was disappointing, and gross. Other reviews, about 7 or 8 years ago mentioned the same issue.|BATHROOM - Small. The shower curtain was rusting, due to the metal rings, that looked years old. Time to change them.|UNDERSTAFFED - Only saw one maid / room worker, cleaning rooms. No one else. And it shows with no upkeep on the grounds.|NOISE - When we stayed, the hotel around the corner, was doing construction. A constant truck backing up beeping noise was irritating. All day long. On top of that, there were workers throwing aluminum into a truck, all day long. Clang clang and more clanging, again, all day long. Every day we were there.||Now I'm not one to light up a business, but this had to be shared. So beware if you decide to stay here. It's an older motel that needs work. Lots of it. And the roaches killed it for us. I did not check out the cafe, so I cannot tell you has that...

I really wanted this stay to be great. We stayed 2/5 - 2/10/2024. After reading most of the reviews, I thought it was going to be. Let me list the pros and cons for you.

(Update on any refunds or partial refunds that were provided to me. None. I was denied apparently.)

Pros: CHECK IN - Quick. Jacob was friendly and told us all we needed to know. STAFF - Very friendly. LOCATION - Very good. A couple minute walk to the beach. It's off A1A so it's a little quieter. Publix nearby (driving), and the strip with shops, bars, and restaurants are about a half mile down. Water taxi near by you can walk to as well. PARKING - Free. Seemed like was enough spaces too. Happy to see there are still places that offer free parking. BEACH ACCESSORIES - Chairs and towels for you to use ROOM - Spacious. Microwave, fridge (decent size), coffee maker, plates and utensils provided. Has a small ironing board with iron. Bathroom was ok. Small. However the shower was nice. Took a couple minutes for hot water to hear up, but good shower. TV on Wall. WiFi was decent. Didn't hear any neighbors, but it wasn't full when we stayed. More on the room in the con section..

Cons: THE GROUNDS - No upkeep when we stayed. The bushes where you park had trash in them. Someone could easily take an hour out of the day and pick it out / up. The pool deck has older furniture. The cushions for the chairs were flat, barely any cushion left in them. Didn't see anyone doing any upkeep on the ground when we stayed. POOL - Small. Very cold, but that was expected in our February stay. I had to skim it the 1st day we went down, and the skimmer had a hole on the one side of the mesh.. There were leafs, and trash in it. Thankfully I did it (at no charge mind you lol), when I did, since a family with 2 little girls came down after I skimmed it and it seemed like they enjoyed it. ROACHES IN THE ROOM - 2nd day we were there, I spotted a palmetto bug (ROACH) by the bathroom door. I got it out of the room and thought, where there's one, there's definitely more. Out of our 5 day stay, didn't see anymore, until the morning we left. My wife took the garbage out from under the sink, and a BIG ONE scared her. See pictures. This absolutely was disappointing, and gross. Other reviews, about 7 or 8 years ago mentioned the same issue. BATHROOM - Small. The shower curtain was rusting, due to the metal rings, that looked years old. Time to change them. UNDERSTAFFED - Only saw one maid / room worker, cleaning rooms. No one else. And it shows with no upkeep on the grounds. NOISE - When we stayed, the hotel around the corner, was doing construction. A constant truck backing up beeping noise was irritating. All day long. On top of that, there were workers throwing aluminum into a truck, all day long. Clang clang and more clanging, again, all day long. Every day we were there.

Now I'm not one to light up a business, but this had to be shared. So beware if you decide to stay here. It's an older motel that needs work. Lots of it. And the roaches killed it for us. I did not check out the cafe, so I cannot tell you has that...

Checked in around 9pm, check in was fairly straightforward despite no front desk staff. First room was on third floor of the motel. By this point it was fairly dark outside and the lights in the hallways weren't illuminated. Our room was in a dark corner so we literally couldn't see without our phones on which is clearly a safety hazard. Got into room which felt cheap and outdated. This little property must have had a "spit shine" renovation because of the newer bathroom and flooring but could truly be a vintage gem if it had a full-on renovation with higher end furniture and real hotel style hvac instead of a filthy window mounted A/C mounted through the wall. After a few minutes we discovered what we could only assume was a significant amount of blood on our pillow (picture below) . How does housekeeping miss something like that if they are actually, you know, CLEANING??? For a total (including taxes) of $210/night, I could have stayed in a more modern chain hotel for another $50 and it would have been worth the added cost. I took a chance thinking this would be a fun, charming vintage motel but it turned out to be a huge disappointment. Pool had a lot of floating debris as well. Windows in our room were chipping the galvanized coating and seemed dirty. No black out curtains so first morning light came through the edges of blinds and between slats like Clark W Griswold's house at Christmas. Thank God we only had to sleep here one night. $16 to park...