Hampton Inn Jacksonville Beach/Oceanfront — Hotel in Jacksonville Beach

BEWARE.... Apparently anyone can just walk up and open a tab and charge their entire trips worth of meals/drinks to your room if they overhear your name/room number in the lobby.

My boyfriend is working in Jacksonville for the rest of this year and we decided to go to the beach for a little getaway on the weekend of the 4th. My arrival at the hotel started with me in tears because we had booked a king room through Priceline and none were available at arrival, so we were put in a double. Then learning that parking was $18.95 per day a vehicle and we would have both our trucks there ($100 just to park at the hotel I paid over $1000 to stay at for the weekend). The room was very clean and the AC was cold. We spent alot of time on the balcony.

We enjoyed the beachfront Tiki Bar and our bartenders were very attentive and mixed our drinks great. The Back Porch Lemonades were amazing. We also really enjoyed the food menu. My favorite was the Grouper Sandwich.

The beach access was beautiful and there is a company that sells chair/umbrella time so no need to drag a ton of stuff to the beach. It was like $15 for an hour and that was about as long as we wanted to be out anyway.

My main concern has been the hotels security policy to protect their patrons from theft. I had to call several days after checking out of the hotel to receive a copy of my incidental charges only to find that I had $230-240 of charges to my room that were not ours. I called back to speak to a manager who wouldn't be in for several days. I left a message and received no call back. I had to call back and was transferred to Molly. I explained to Molly that we had 2 charges to our room at the Tiki Bar that were not ours. Molly was able to pull those receipts and both showed someone by the name of Matt opened a tab using our room number. One of the charges was made after we had already checked out of the hotel so it was refunded, however there was a $140-150 bar tab that was clearly not mine. I explained to Molly that on that day we had went to the outside Tiki Bar around 10:30-11 am. I ordered several Back-Porch Lemonades, my boyfriend drank a Coors Light and had several margaritas with a splash of orange juice. We ordered a grouper sandwich and steak tacos, then left for the day. All of our tabs the entire weekend were covered by his debit card that the bartender held for the tab. Not once did we charge anything at the bar to our room as I pay for the room, he always covers the meals and drinks when we go on trips. I was told to try to dispute the charge with the card company, however because this charge is included in the bulk of all the incidentals the card company says the hotel needs to address this. The best part is that the MATT who opened and charged his day of drinking to our room printed my name to the receipt and did not even come close to spelling my name correctly. Yet because he "signed my name" I am now responsible for his bar tab for the day.

My boyfriend kept questioning me when either of us would have given our room number or full name to another guest, and the only thing we can think of is when we used the Snack Shoppe to get bottles of water or candy and had to go into the lobby and provide our name and room number to the front desk to charge it to the room. Anyone in the lobby can literally just write down that information and eat/drink for free all weekend and the hotel isn't willing to help if they can print out your misspelled name. I've left messages for the GM to contact me and he has not reached out yet. Jason and I travel 9 months out of the year for his job and most long weekends we go on weekend getaways or group trips with his employees. This is the ONLY hotel that we've ever had this issue with and the lack of response to resolve this is extremely...

Let me preface by saying, had it just been me and my spouse, this would have been 5 stars across the board. AND none of this will stop us from going back- maybe just try a different room. In fact, my oldest wants to celebrate their next birthday here as we just did for the littlest one. The hotel is older so I definitely didn't expect this place to be as nice and updated as it was! The scent coming in to the lobby was lovely and not overbearing- unsure what it was or why they were using it but it was pleasant. The included breakfast was delicious and the tiki bar on the beach has amazing food and drinks (coconut margarita 😘 and I don't like coconut). The staff across the board was incredible, so helpful and kind to even our kiddos. They have an easy, great towel policy and offer purchases of inner tubes for the pool which was great for our 6-year old. The pool with the waterfall was so fun for the kiddos and it was nice having such a large shallow end so we could keep them a little more contained. You can chase the shade all day and never really worry about getting burned up because of the waterfall design. The hot tub did not seem to be working while we there but that didn't impact us at all. The view from the room was beautiful! We were overlooking the pool and had a wonderful breeze off the ocean. The room has been beautifully renovated for a beachfront hotel - beds were comfortable and there was NO strange smell as some reviews had mentioned. However, there was no fan or air vent in the bathroom so when the air went off in the room, the humidity got really bad, not allowing for bathing suits to dry overnight. In addition, the AC temperature wasn't controlled from the unit in the room (maybe it should have been but we didn't report it) so there was no adjusting the temperature or how often the AC kicked on. The AC coming on was loud and made a different noise every time it turned on which woke up the room in the middle of night. Because the humidity got so bad, the room would get warm pretty quickly, also waking up all of us. The TV in the room offered the ability to connect to all of the streaming apps and stated it would log out automatically at checkout- we did not test this. The pool has a 10pm "curfew" and it was definitely enforced (to be clear, with the sliding door closed, it's very quiet considering we were on the pool side). The hotel is off of 1st Street in Jacksonville Beach so there was plenty of people watching from the balcony and the nightlife is fun! Walking distance to great bars and restaurants - some places family friendly, I would think most are not in that area but it's been a long time since I've partied at the beaches so I can't say that with 100% certainty. The hotel was busy with lots of big family groups, some with kids, some without. We met a lovely couple that brings their grandkids every year and said they absolutely love it. We reserved last minute and there were still a handful of rooms available. All this to say, the issues we had were minor and would not stop us from going back- maybe try a different room next time but all in, this was worth the money we spent in the busy season to give our little family a break from reality...

As you all will see, the owner claims that he saw us on the 4th throughout the day. He never came to us, never apologized, never said a freaking word to us. Let me guess, he is going to say that he wasn’t notified of the situation, well that sounds like a communication error between him and the front desk associate. Again, he doesn’t care. He didn’t try to remedy the situation, or anything! It’s AWFUL when the “OWNER” or “MANAGER” of a hotel doesn’t care that their guests found a freaking VIBRATOR under the pillow on their bed which was supposed to be a”CLEAN”. And NO , we didn’t want to relocate to another dirty room that we would have had to clean and sanitize AGAIN AFTER 11:00pm at night. How about for 744.00, the room be “CLEAN” and MOLD AND MILDEW FREE. Can you provide me with the corporate number?

Update:: we were at this hotel until July 5, 2024 because we couldn’t get a full refund of 744.00. NO MANAGER EVER REACHED OUT TO US ABOUT THE VIBRATOR THAT WAS FOUND UNDER THE PILLOWS. UPON CHECKING OUT MY HUSBAND ASKED TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER IN ORDER TO GIVE HIM THE CUP WITH THE VIBRATOR IN IT, THE MANAGER MICHAEL GAIL DID NOT APOLOGIZE OR SHOW NO CONCERN. HE JUST STOOD THERE LOOKING AT THE VIBRATOR UNTIL MY HUSBAND WALKED OFF. WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS EVER!!!!!!! DO NOT STAY HERE! PICK ANOTHER HOTEL !!!THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS HERE!!!!

OMG!!!!! Worst hotel EVER!!!! So, my husband and I get to this hotel and check in, the front desk staff is unprofessional and non-chalant. We are cleaning and sanitizing our room and it is FILTHY. The floor is dirty, there is mold and mildew in the shower, hair under the shower seat, AND a vibrator under the freaking pillow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My husband moved the pillow while preparing to put our sheets on the bed and the vibrator fell. How could this be if the freaking bed was made and the room was cleaned ?!!?!!!!!!! We notified the front desk, she said she could move us BUT it was after 11 pm and WE HAD ALREADY CLEANED AND SANITIZED THE ROOM!!!!!!!So my husband used a cup to move the vibrator, put our sheets on the bed and called it a night!!! I WILL NEVER STAY HERE AGAIN. I WILL NOT RECOMMEND THIS HOTEL TO MY ENEMY. PARKING IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST!!!!!!! (The towel was from the FLOOR, my husband sprayed and sanitized the floor and that’s how the towel looked)

I almost forgot… I called the hotel on July 2, 2024 to request a TOP FLOOR ROOM, James assured me that my reservation was for an ocean view room NOT a partial view on the TOP FLOOR! James lied and didn’t care when I called him out on it upon checking in. Customer service skills are non existent at...