Sands of Islamorada Hotel & Resort — Hotel in Islamorada

This Christmas trip to Sands of Islamorada was unexpectedly cut short. We rented the only ocean front suite at the Sands for the long weekend of Christmas - Friday through Tuesday morning. The only reason we chose to stay here rather than our normal go-to in Tavernier is because it is pet-friendly. Be careful on the pet fees, because the confirmation email states $20 per pet, per day and the final bill charged $45 per pet, per day. After some emails back-and-forth, I was refunded the $200.00 over-charge.||As for the accommodation, it is pretty bare-bones. Obviously, you are steps away from the ocean. So they have that going for them! At first blush, the suite was clean and fresh. You walk into a very small kitchen, a small but large enough living and dining area and then a nice size bedroom. It smelled fresh and clean and it looked fresh and clean. ||The show-stopper is the balcony for ocean-front suite 19! You have a beautiful and amazing view....until you sit down in any of the chairs. Then, because of the position of the top rail of the balcony, your view of the horizon is completely blocked. There was no way for my husband nor myself to sit to have a good view of the ocean. And, even more problematic for anyone with pets staying at this pet-friendly hotel, the spindles/pickets for the deck railing are not up to code, even though it seemed to be fairly new construction. I have a 35 pound lab-mix and a Dachshund and they both fit right through the spindles of the deck railing. So, if a toddler is staying in this unit, it will be very unsafe and dangerous. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen! Nonetheless, my dogs and I had a very nice time enjoying the ocean breeze for hours! I even did some yoga and stretching on the balcony; it was great!||The suite overall was not bad. The things that got on my nerves most were the deck railing I mentioned and the tiny sink in the kitchen. The room is a suite with a kitchen for a reason, yet the sink is too small to even wash the dishes needed for a suite. We were planning to prepare and eat our Christmas dinner in this kitchen. We brought the food from home and were going to grill out on the beach using the gas grills and heat everything up in the kitchen. But after trying to feed 2 dogs for 3 days and clean up their dishes in the bar sink, it was annoying. It turned out to be extremely windy the last day before we left early on Christmas morning to drive back home. There was no way we were going to be able to grill out on the beach with the wind. And, on Christmas morning, a roach crawled out from under one of our grocery bags we had lying on the kitchen counter and that was it. I was no longer comfortable staying there; we left on Christmas morning. I tried to get the last day refunded because of the bug issue, but we were denied.||I really give an honest and thorough review of my experience and I believe I have done that here. My husband said not to be too hard on them, but I cannot NOT tell about the deck construction, because that could end very badly for someone. I cannot complete this review without mentioning the macaws on the property. I'm not sure whose idea it was to make this be an attraction for this property, but it not a good one. Not only are these birds in constant captivation - BUT THEY ARE OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD!! I do not see any redeeming reasons to have these birds caged right outside of the rooms. We were probably the furthest away from the cage, and we could still hear the ruckus the birds made. It is very sad for the birds, and bothersome for...

This Christmas trip to Sands of Islamorada was unexpectedly cut short. We rented the only ocean front suite at the Sands for the long weekend of Christmas - Friday through Tuesday morning. The only reason we chose to stay here rather than our normal go-to in Tavernier is because it is pet-friendly. Be careful on the pet fees, because the confirmation email states $20 per pet, per day and the final bill charged $45 per pet, per day. After some emails back-and-forth, I was refunded the $200.00 over-charge.||As for the accommodation, it is pretty bare-bones. Obviously, you are steps away from the ocean. So they have that going for them! At first blush, the suite was clean and fresh. You walk into a very small kitchen, a small but large enough living and dining area and then a nice size bedroom. It smelled fresh and clean and it looked fresh and clean. ||The show-stopper is the balcony for ocean-front suite 19! You have a beautiful and amazing view....until you sit down in any of the chairs. Then, because of the position of the top rail of the balcony, your view of the horizon is completely blocked. There was no way for my husband nor myself to sit to have a good view of the ocean. And, even more problematic for anyone with pets staying at this pet-friendly hotel, the spindles/pickets for the deck railing are not up to code, even though it seemed to be fairly new construction. I have a 35 pound lab-mix and a Dachshund and they both fit right through the spindles of the deck railing. So, if a toddler is staying in this unit, it will be very unsafe and dangerous. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen! Nonetheless, my dogs and I had a very nice time enjoying the ocean breeze for hours! I even did some yoga and stretching on the balcony; it was great!||The suite overall was not bad. The things that got on my nerves most were the deck railing I mentioned and the tiny sink in the kitchen. The room is a suite with a kitchen for a reason, yet the sink is too small to even wash the dishes needed for a suite. We were planning to prepare and eat our Christmas dinner in this kitchen. We brought the food from home and were going to grill out on the beach using the gas grills and heat everything up in the kitchen. But after trying to feed 2 dogs for 3 days and clean up their dishes in the bar sink, it was annoying. It turned out to be extremely windy the last day before we left early on Christmas morning to drive back home. There was no way we were going to be able to grill out on the beach with the wind. And, on Christmas morning, a roach crawled out from under one of our grocery bags we had lying on the kitchen counter and that was it. I was no longer comfortable staying there; we left on Christmas morning. I tried to get the last day refunded because of the bug issue, but we were denied.||I really give an honest and thorough review of my experience and I believe I have done that here. My husband said not to be too hard on them, but I cannot NOT tell about the deck construction, because that could end very badly for someone. I cannot complete this review without mentioning the macaws on the property. I'm not sure whose idea it was to make this be an attraction for this property, but it not a good one. Not only are these birds in constant captivation - BUT THEY ARE OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD!! I do not see any redeeming reasons to have these birds caged right outside of the rooms. We were probably the furthest away from the cage, and we could still hear the ruckus the birds made. It is very sad for the birds, and bothersome for...

I strongly encourage reading their terms of service thoroughly before booking here. The information they have posted online and in the rooms differs from what's written on their invoices. I was advised some policies had changed a year and a half ago, but their invoices hadn't been updated with the correct information. Lots of caveats, and small fees for various things such as leaving dishes unwashed, cancelling a reservation less than 5 days prior to arrival, using the ice machine to fill a cooler...even a $50 charge to compensate other guests for making loud noises, or disturbing the peace. I'm sure the $50 doesn't go to the other guests though.||Our room was very nice, and included an ocean view. Everything inside looks very new and well maintained. Boat ramp was blocked off, and the dock and slip they advertise was non existent. Bicycle and kayak rentals were also not available, which we were not advised of until we read the documentation inside the room. ||Our AC unit was not working properly, and didn't notice our first night as we arrived late and thought maybe it was user error. Spent most of our first day outside the room, and notified management that afternoon of the problem with the AC. They did make an attempt to fix the problem on their own, but were unsuccessful. The second night was pretty rough, and the next morning we were advised that it would be fixed by 1pm, however we had to check out by 11 am. ||We were grateful upon checkout to learn they gave us a discount for the inconvenience, but were disappointed to learn that it was only 20%. After the refund, it still averaged out to $270 a night, which included the $90 pet fee. We thought it was not worth the discomfort from having poorly operating AC in the middle of the summer. All in all the property is very nice, but again THOROUGHLY read and understand their terms of service priort to booking to avoid unnecessary fees. I gave two stars because management DID make an effort to correct the problem. Just a too...