Forest Dunes — Hotel in Myrtle Beach

This was the worst experience ever and completely ruined our 4th of July family vacation. The problems started way before we even arrived. Simone the supervisor called me 3 hours before I got there only to tell me that their computer had a glitch and our reservation got cancelled and screwed up and she needs our initial confirmation email to fix things. She guaranteed me that we wouldn't pay more then what we booked it for. We get to Forest Dunes only to find out they tried to charge my card for $2,353 instead of $1,182 and charged me a 2.5% convenience fee even though their policy states that if I used debit instead of credit I wouldn't be charged the fee(BE AWARE!!)

I spent over an hour just checking in and arguing while my wife and 5 & 7 year old kids were in the car to find out that we would have to change rooms the very next day because the property owner wants us out of the room. Why would they put us in a room knowingly we wanted to stay for 7 days and inconvenience our first day. We couldn't unpack, we couldn't buy groceries for the week, and it really ruined our first day, impression of this place. We brought a lot of stuff with us and didn't want to leave them in the car.

We stayed in room 1009 which was a oceanview but the room wasn't anything special, the room smelled like smoke, the carpet was disgusting. The very next morning Simone knocked on our door and showed us room 1004 which was a corner room that had a 180 degree beachfront view. Simone expressed that they felt bad and decided to upgrade our stay and guaranteed us that we would not move again. I asked her more then once to ensure we would stay at this room for the entirety of our trip. We unpacked, bought groceries for the week, cooked dinner and just settled in for our vacay.

The next day we spent the whole day at the beach and during that time Simone was calling me from 11am - 2pm and left me a voicemail stating it was urgent. I called her back while at the beach only to get disappointing news. Simone said verbatim, she messed up and only booked us till Monday and that room got booked for the rest of the week. Our day was ruined again and now we spent more days moving from room to room then actual beach time.

I demanded to speak with the manager but the manager was avoiding me for hours and never showed up to our room as promised. I had to go down to the front desk to see the manager, Tangela. She told me a whole different story and said the owner of the property wanted us out. She wouldn't budge and wouldn't let us stay. She insisted the policy of Forest Dunes is that owners can kick out guests at anytime even if they have paid. I asked to see this policy but she wouldn't show me anything. How can you guarantee a customer something and break that promise?

I argued more than I actually spent time on the beach. They gave us 1 hour to pack all of our stuff, all of our groceries and move out. My wife and kids were upset we spent more time moving from room to room. They moved us from 1004 to 310, a smaller room that only had one full size bed and a pull out couch. Not much of an upgrade.

Hurricane Elsa hit Myrtle Beach and our room was flooded with water from rain entering the sliding doors of the balcony. The power knocked out and our AC went out for more than half the day and nobody came to fix it. I called the front desk and they rudely said we have someone fixing it so just wait. Hours pass by and I go down to the front desk to find out they have had AC for hours and nobody bothered to call to inform us!! The guy at the front desk said I needed to reset the AC unit myself in our room.

We are not happy at all with this stay and even though they refunded one night for us and offered us 50% off our next stay, we are never staying there again!! We felt like we weren't prioritized and were treated horribly, like we didn't matter. They really let us down with their broken promises and took beach time away from our vacay, valuable...

I stayed at this location with my SO and 2 of our friends over the Total Eclipse weekend (Aug 18-22). Overall we had a nice time being at the beach and spending time in Myrtle Beach shopping/eating. The room we booked had a great view of the ocean, a full kitchen, and a cozy living room. It was great to spend some time in between outings in the room, but I was disappointed with the sleep I got and with the state of the rooms (cleanliness/upkeep/etc)

CONS: The 2 beds that were in our bedroom were horrible. The mattresses may as well have been 2 slabs of concrete with fabric pulled over them. My SO who recently had shoulder surgery woke up in pain every morning because the bed had zero give/comfort

The pullout bed on the couch was an incredibly thin excuse for a mattress (I know pullout couches don't have amazing mattresses, but you may as well have been laying on the metal frame). And the pullout mattress was covered in dirt and stains (with some holes in the mattress as well)

The pillows provided for the beds were just as bad. They felt like pillowcases with cottonballs stuffed into them. I stacked 2 on top of each other and still felt the mattress through them. Overall my sleep experience here was disappointing. I dreaded going to bed every night here.

Cleaning staff must only do bare-minimum when cleaning rooms. I checked under the beds when we checked in and found discarded food (a partially eaten candy bar, potato chips, and a half-empty bottle of Sprite), a discarded barbie doll (how do you miss this when cleaning?), and enough lint/debris to probably fill a coffee cup. The corners of rooms had cobwebs and other dust/debris in them as well (no one sweeps or vacuums I suppose?). This tells me that they probably never clean this room thoroughly, only the surface appearances. Friend in our group has horrible dust allergies and this room caused her to have a night or two of discomfort until I cleaned it myself.

Some areas of the condo were in obvious disrepair. In the bathroom, the seam between the shower and the wall was coming apart. The wall itself looked like it had water damage and the drywall was actually peeling off next to the shower

Second to last day there we found what I can only assume was a bedbug. My friend pulled a fleece blanket out of the closet because she was cold and sat down. A few minutes later she killed a bug that was crawling across it. When she opened the napkin used to kill it, the napkin was covered in bright red blood. This freaked us out quite a bit because it meant that it had recently drank blood and that it could mean there were others in the condo. We didn't have any bites on us from the previous 3 nights so I didn't panic too much. But I did tear all the sheets off the beds and pulled the mattress and boxsprings away from each other. I scoured every inch of the bedroom and found no evidence of more bedbugs (black dots, red stains, eggs, more bugs). The only slight evidence I found was one of the pillows was covered in black dots that looked like bedbug droppings, but I can't confirm 100%. When we left the hotel we followed a quarantine protocol a friend that travels frequently sent to us. doubled-bagged all our belongings and drove home. Once home we ran everything through boiling water and 2 sanitation dryer cycles (hottest dryer cycle you can get) for over 2-4 hours. We've not seen any bugs at home or had any bites, so either it wasn't a bedbug, it was and none followed us home, or it was and we killed them with the...

I am writing this review based off my experience from my first time staying here, and my experience this week. First I loved the location, it was perfect and out of the way from the strip of the beach experiencing the noise at night like some other places. My first time staying here, I had reserved a room and went to go check in and heard the front desk person telling the person in front of me she didn't have his room reserved and he had a confirmation email. When it was my turn, she said the same exact thing to me. I asked her to call her supervisor and let me speak to her and she refused, but called her, herself and said we have no room left. I repeated myself several times, (remind you it has now been over 1 hour going back and forth with her) she finally called her supervisor again and put her on speaker phone and her name was Simone. She told the girl that there were several rooms and were to put us. She then put us a room with two beds. This wasn't the room I purchased, nor the room her supervisor told her to put us in. So i had to go back downstairs, and argue for another 2 1/2 hours for her to say that's the only room in the system. I had her call her supervisor again, who told her that she already told her what room to put us in. She then sent us to the correct room and the supervisor offered us 50% off our next stay and it was good until one year. Well I tried reserving a room again, because I also loved the bar/restaurant on site. They had amazing food. And I really didn't have any complaints except for it taking hours to check in. The 50% is only good for the standard rate, so the 72 Hour Flash Sale was always cheaper than using the 50% off. I called and spoke with Simone again for her to confirm that having the 50% was pointless, if the 72 hour sale, or whatever sale they have that week would always be cheaper and she said "yep" that's always going to be cheaper. In other words, the 50% off is a waste. So I ended up reserving the room, and called to cancel due to the storm Debby that was arriving. I then spoke to Moya who said she could cancel the room but it would be a $40.00 charge to cancel even if the storm was coming. I said whatever, just do what you have to do because I will not be coming with a storm that's suggesting to reschedule due to flooding. I get a call the next day, from someone calling saying I needed to cancel my reservation because the tropical storm was heading straight there and it would be safe. I told her I had already called, and was charged $40.00 and she told me I shouldn't have been charged due to the hotel was cancelling rooms. And that my reservation was still showing in the system. It was cancelled but I still haven't been refunded my money. She said she couldn't...