Hotel Blue — Hotel in Myrtle Beach

2 adults, 2 older kids, 1 toddler

Our ideal vacation is relaxing and outdoors. We're resourceful. We aren't fans of tourist traps.

We've stayed in a condo but never a high rise resort-style hotel.

General expectations for a resort would be available amenities as advertised, staff to use as a resource and assistance making arrangements, approachable and professional. People who know the area better than us and add that extra layer of fun/easy to our vacation.

Got here, 3 towels for 5 people. I filled out a checkin survey, they were responsive and we had towels the rest of the time. That was a plus and customer service-wise the only one.

Beds were comfortable and plenty of room to spread out. View of the ocean out both sides. I'm not a fan of heights but we had a great view and less noisy. 2 bars of soap so small my toddler could close her hand around them plus 1 small tube of shampoo.

Elevators closest to us were glitchy and frequently didn't work.

Kitchen-small but had a stove, microwave, fridge. All glass dishes. Small bottle of dish soap was a plus. 3 forks and 1 steak knife, no baking sheets-Ridiculous. In room coffee consists of teabag-style Maxwell House so if you bring your own bring flat filters.

Breakfast paid for in advance for several days. It's 2 hotels over on the 9th floor...

The 1st morning only 1 working elevator but no signs to let us know so after waiting 10 minutes we walked up. On the way down we took the elevator, I was okay with waiting 20 minutes after eating a buffet. The food was ok but the room is small and rather than having drinks available for us to get there are waitresses which were friendly.

Laundry: Front desk associate said it's on the 3rd floor. I walked the entire floor then went back to the lobby where the same girl was sitting in the same chair. I asked again and when she said 3rd floor again I asked her to be specific about location because I walked the entire floor. She said, "I don't know, I haven't toured the building." I asked her to ask someone else and she was obviously annoyed to have to get up. When she came back she said "You can try the 4th floor." So yes, it's the 4th floor. No detergent vending machine. No quarter machine, so bring $4 in quarters for wash and dry plus detergent if you don't want to pay $10 for a tiny bottle from the convenience store dowm the street.

They don't have a convenience store despite what the welcome information says. There's remnants of a small bar in the lobby plus a tiny Starbucks with a few options. Looks like walking through a utility closet with "fancy" swinging seats upon entering the building.

Lazy river was out of order the 1st day but working the rest of the times. Pools and hot tubs were nice, deafening music on the pool deck.

We looked around and didn't see anywhere to grill. It's illegal on the beach. I asked the front desk and they said no grills on the pool deck and "I don't think you can on the beach." When I asked where we could, she said "You can look it up-on the internet."

We returned the little grill we bought and paid to go to the state park and grilled there. We're resourceful and maybe my expectations are wrong for staying at a resort. Overall I think the front desk associates must be the ones that didn't get the greeter job at Walmart.

The environment is busy and loud but I guess I should have expected it for being walking distance from everything.

The Entertainment Express free shuttle is a few blocks up and nice to have. Runs a 45 minute-1 hour loop.

We went into the bowling alley but didn't use it. The 1st game is included but it still would have been $5.25 per pair of shoes and no socks available (except a pair of toddler socks for sale. The hula dancers were cool, just get there early so you can see. We didn't use the Captain's Quarters pools but they would have been a nice area for the kids to play.

We had a nice time but not on account of the hotel. Most amenities...

We traveled to Myrtle Beach for a volleyball tournament this past weekend. This tournament we played in was a “Stay 2 Play” and we as a club were given two options of hotels to stay at; The Hotel Blue being one of them. When we arrived, I found it to be a clue when there was a security guard sitting out front of the lobby smoking a cigarette. Not many times I’ve been to a hotel where they have the typical Wal-Mart “security”guards. I guess that should have been a clue…stay tuned, I promise it gets worse! The check-in was simple. We noticed going up the parking garage that the gate was open and you didn’t need a key card to open the gate. In fact it was open all weekend leaving the outside traffic easy access to any vehicles to break into or steal. When we parked the car on the 8th floor (top deck of the parking garage) we exited the car and the first thing we smelled was marijuana. In fact, the whole place smelled like weed. There was trash laying on the ground by trash cans that smelled horrible. We went to our room and immediately sprayed everything with Lysol, which is common practice for us in any hotel.

We went to check out the pools and noticed roaches everywhere. There was even a pair of underwear laying outside the pool area on the sidewalk (gross). None of the outside doors were secure requiring a key card to get in. Literally could come and go as you please even if you are not a guest. The weird part was that you needed a key card to get out of the parking deck. I guess they want to keep folks from leaving in a stolen vehicle unless they have a room key?

On our second night, we were woken up to the sound of a large argument leading to gunfire outside of our room. A total of about 10-12 shots rang out and it sounded like it was literally outside the room. Cops get called and show up. Look over the balcony to find a man laying on the ground after (what news reports show) he fell from the 6th floor trying to avoid the gunfire.

I am now dealing with a child (less than 12) that is absolutely terrified, mortified of being alone. She is stuggling with the trauma induced by the gunfire outside this hotel. Was it a guest? Was it someone off the street? Who knows!

After the shooting, there was an obvious domestic violence incident in the room next to us. Listened to every word of the argument and heard the names and such of those involved. Sounded like they were arguing in our room. I called the front desk at 3am and asked them to please call the room or do something to make them shut the F up. Hung up the phone and heard the phone ring next door….over and over and over. Arguing continued. Needless to say, it was a long, traumatic, stressful night of pure fear for a family of 5. This is something that my kids will remember of their stay in Myrtle Beach for the rest of their lives, 100%!

Oh did I mention that only one of two elevators worked….some of the time.

I know the hotel can’t control who patrons their establishment, but some little things like security at the hotel would be nice.

After this trip, we will NEVER EVER stay in Myrtle Beach proper again and would absolutely never think about staying at Hotel Blue again. According to my research this is not the first time a shooting has happened at this “Luxury Resort”.

Fun for the family? Ha…what a joke!

0-Star Review!!!...

My fiance & I come here every year after Christmas for our birthdays. This year will very likely be the last time we visit Hotel Blue. On arrival everything was wonderful. The lady at the front desk was extremely nice and helpful. When I gave her my information for my booking she informed me that there is now a $12 per vehicle, per night parking fee. Which was not noted on the website. We pay everything and go to our room. We drove pretty far so we both needed to use the bathroom before we went out for dinner, then we noticed there was no toilet paper. I go to call the front desk and the phone doesn’t work. So I walk down and inform the lady of the phone not working and we needed toilet paper. She said she will send maintenance up & ask if we needed anything else. Since we just got there I hadn’t looked through the room to see if we needed anything, so I tell her not at the moment. Upon walking back into the room I notice we have no trash can at all, no coffee, no cups, no bag for the ice bucket, no soap, no shampoo. Nothing. So I go back downstairs and ask for soap, shampoo, coffee & trash bags. She gives us everything and we head back to our room. We leave for dinner and come back about an hour later. When we got back in our room the bathroom floor was full of water, and the shower was wet. We assumed the maintenance people came in to fix the phone and just looked through the room in case something else needed attention. We dried the water and got ready to go down to the hot tub. The next day we hear water dripping from the bathroom, I go to check it out and we see the ceiling leaking a lot, which is what probably flooded the floors the day prior. I informed the front desk and show them a video I took and she just said “I’ll tell maintenance”. Never offered to switch rooms or anything. When we get back from the hot tub we shower and go to bed. The beds were extremely hard and uncomfortable, the “covers” were just sheets. The pillows weren’t even soft. My fiance couldn’t sleep a bit because of how uncomfortable everything was. The next day I call down and ask if we could switch rooms because the beds are so hard. The lady on the phone told me she can’t guarantee the beds will be softer but she can move us down a floor. I go down to swap keys and overhear the ladies talking about me. I give the two ladies my key and go to grab the news one and apologize for being an inconvenience but they wouldn’t even look at me, didn’t even speak a word. I felt so uncomfortable I just grabbed the room keys and left. Upon arrival on that room we did have all the toiletries and the bed wasn’t as hard as the other room but it was still pretty hard. I’m assuming the newly painted doors were just done recently done because I almost had to pry the door open because it was stuck. Unfortunately, this has been the worst visit here in over 5 years. We are very disappointed. The “newly renovated” rooms are worse than the way they were...