Santa Maria Suites Resort — Hotel in Key West

DO NOT STAY HERE!

I never post reviews but cannot let this go unnoted.

We booked a trip to KW for our 1st anniversary in June22 at Santa Maria Suites. During our stay there were issues: the safe not working, the ceiling fan being squeaky, no furniture on the bedroom balcony. We had to request housekeeping after returning to our suite with no clean towels/sheets available. There were also little gray bugs on the desk multiple days, that we attributed to the rainy weather. We tried to give the benefit of the doubt as we understand sometimes things happen.

However, on our last night after returning to the room from Duval, we pulled down the blanket to get into bed. It was filled with bugs. They were crawling all over the pillows & sheets. I called the front desk & someone was sent to look. The man looked at the bugs but only said they weren’t bed bugs. He asked if we wanted to move our things (in the rain at midnight) to another building. We chose to spend the night in the other bedroom, as we didn’t currently see bugs there & would’ve been up all night otherwise. He instructed us “quarantine” the bug room. When asked about the bugs, he said he couldn’t do anything about them & housekeeping would have to handle it in the morning.

The next morning, we expected to hear from someone to check on the problem. We had just come back late to a hotel we were spending a lot of money at to find bugs in our bed. We thought the hotel would want to follow up & get the situation handled, but no one contacted us. We spent the morning going through our things, to make sure we weren’t bringing bugs home with us.

When checking out, I told the front desk the situation & our disappointment over not being contacted. She downplayed the pics/videos I shared & told me “Oh, those are just sugar ants. I have those in my kitchen at home. They’re harmless.” Regardless of harm, no one wants to find a swarm of bugs in their bed, especially at an expensive hotel. There were no apologies; just a nonchalant response downplaying our experience. I explained this incident had now ruined our last night/day of vacation, worrying about bugs in our things & keeping us up all night. She told me I would need to talk to the manager, who wasn’t on site.

The manager called that afternoon. She was rude & defensive. I explained the situation & again no apology. Instead, she stated the bugs were our fault; that she had pics of food near the bed that were taken after we checked out. We didn’t have food near the bed during our stay, but she accused us again. When asked what the food was, she couldn’t tell us what or where it was. I asked her to send the pics she was asserting were ours, but never received them. I was offered a refund of $80 of resort fees “for the inconvenience”, which we felt was not enough for the trouble we had now dealt with.

In addition to no food near the bed, there were no bugs in the kitchen, where food is expected. We have stayed at numerous hotels & have had food in the room or have had breakfast in bed but have NEVER opened the bed to find bugs. To allege this as the cause of bugs throughout the bed is ridiculous.

Once home, I reached out to Mr. Heineman, the corporate contact provided. I explained the situation & never heard back from him. Instead, I was contacted by Douglas King, who said he was the new manager. He apologized & promised to make it right. However, nothing was ever done & in fact, my final email to both Mr. Heineman & Mr. King was ignored.

This entire situation was shocking & disappointing. For this to be how a company handles situations is appalling. We can’t believe this is how a company would handle this type of issue in general, but then to not apologize or take ownership is outrageous.

We hope that sharing this can save others from spending their own hard-earned money at a hotel that has no regard for its guests. WE DO NOT RECOMMEND this hotel to anyone & highly encourage you to book elsewhere when visiting Key West, as we will certainly do on...

For starters, the non smoking room stank of stale smoke which was really gross but we were stuck. I mentioned this to the front desk but nothing was done about this. So we left the doors open most of the time. The only person who works here who seems to care about the guests experience is Mathilda, hats off to her. The other two people who worked the front desk were about as welcoming as a door mat. On the first full day we were there, house cleaning removed the sheets to my son's bed and he had left his apple EarPods on the sheets. We told the front desk about this and suggested they go through the hopper of dirty sheets that is stored in the parking lot out back by the bike rack. They didn't and they didn't find the missing EarPod either; they didn't even put in the effort to look. After leaving we wrote management, Umberto Poma who obviously didn't read what we wrote as his response was, "per company policy, anything left behind in the room isn't the responsibility of the hotel." I took this as meaning that anything left behind in the room after checking out wasn't their responsibility. I wrote Umberto to get clarification on their hotel policy and asked if therefore nothing is safe when we aren't in our room and after ten days of patience, I have yet to receive anything from management so I guess we're left holding the dirty end of the stick. Luckily it wasn't something of true value but this is a matter of doing what's right vs doing what's wrong or in this case, doing nothing. There was ZERO effort from the hotel over this small but important issue from the get go. Based off the unfriendliness of the staff (outside of Mathilda who is a sweet heart!), the stale smoke smell and the fact that your belongings aren't safe here when staying here, and finally the don't give a damn attitude by hotel manager, Umberto, I highly suggest that you don't stay here; the pools are shallow, the property has no views and your items aren't safe in your stinky room. When you have a legitimate problem, instead of it being properly addressed, head on, management takes the path of blaming the customer and then dismissively ignores any further attempts of conversation and...

We very much enjoyed our stay at Santa Maria between Christmas and New Year 2019. The property is small and laid back. Also not sure we would call it a resort as much as a low-key respite from the party cruise vibe of downtown Key West, which is right outside your door! Very centrally located to Duval Street, Southernmost Point, Butterfly Conservatory, Higgs Beach, restaurants, etc.

The property is fairly new and they did a good job soundproofing the suites so it was truly a sanctuary. Our suite had 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, full kitchen and laundry. The kitchen was helpful for the night we were too wiped out to go out and made spaghetti bought at the convenience store across the street.

The pool area is small but suited our needs and is steps from all rooms. The free slushies were a big hit with the kids. The happy hour was a big hit with the parents and LEE is an amazing team member for this resort. She not only makes great drinks and closely looks after the pool guests; she is a military medic and ready to help out anyone in need A kid at the pool twisted his ankle and she was ON IT. Santa Maria is very lucky to have Lee on staff and all staff was super friendly.

There were a couple minor negatives. 1 - the onsite sushi restaurant, which is not affiliated with the hotel, isn't so friendly and even though it was mostly empty from 6-7:30 almost every day, they were unwilling to accommodate our party for an early dinner at all during our trip, claiming they were at capacity with reservations. 2 - the hotel does not enforce the rule that pool chairs left unattended for more than 1 hour are not reserved. Each day on our trip a rude group claimed an entire row of chairs before 8am by placing towels and a book on each chair, then did not show up until close to 11am. This area was right next to our room so we were disappointed to not be able to sit there during our whole stay.

Anyway, in all it is a great place to stay for families or groups on vacation...