Sea Crest Oceanfront Resort — Hotel in Myrtle Beach

Bear with me, I'm typically not much of a review guy unless an experience was exceptionally good or bad. We booked based on the location to the boardwalk, outdoor water park and the ability to have a room with a kitchenette and a semi-separated bedroom for our 3 children. We booked a 4 night stay in a Tower Oceanfront King Junior Suite. Upon arrival we found blood stains on our bath towels, a crusty stain on the couch in our room, non-working light bulbs in the room and a room phone that was totally not plugged in to a phone line with no phone cord even existing in the room. After making staff aware of this we had our phone fixed, light bulb fixed, new towels provided and housekeeping came in our room and stain treated the area on the couch. (Upon drying the crusty/flaky stain never went away but we decided to ignore it). I was offered 50% off my 1st night which equaled $111 which I accepted. After settling in we noticed overall the pictures online were somewhat non-representative of the resort as a whole. Our room had dust hanging on our curtains, rust was existent on surfaces on the bathroom door and air conditioning units. Paint was peeling in multiple areas, mirrors in the bathroom had water damage, there was a hard gum-like stain on our rug in the living room and the blanket for the Murphy bed had a circular presumptive-cigarette burn in it and every nook and cranny seemed to not be clean or well maintained. Replacement linens requested for the Murphy bed due to a child juice spill had light brown stains on them in multiple spots. Throughout our 4 day stay we went to the pool 4-5 times, sometimes around opening, sometimes in the evening and sometimes at the standard noon-ish time range. Not once was there pool towels available to use, the towel area was always 100% empty. Maintenance was made aware, the front desk was made aware and 1 time they were restocked. The explanation was that people take them and bring them to their rooms per the front desk? Further, I made 5 trips to the front desk due to room keys becoming deactivated. After the first 2 days I was careful to not have the room keys next to a phone or another credit card. I received roughly 15-20 keys in groups of 4 at a time. I threw away 2 keys due to frustration, when I checked out I had 3 working keys to turn in. I was locked out with wet, tired children twice and locked out myself when trying to run to the room another 2 times due to non-working keys. A maintenance visit was requested to look at our lock (room 1026). I am not sure if this occurred. The towels for our room felt old, thin and thread barren and didn't have the typical plush feeling of most hotel level towels I've experienced. The main outdoor pool was closed for 2 days during our stay (however I understand sometimes these things are unavoidable and there were other indoor pools to swim in). Lastly, the elevator situation was troublesome.The elevators had consistent very foul odors and the waits were astronomical. Multiple times the elevator started at floor 10 (our floor) and stopped 5 times on its way to the 1st floor. The area on the 1st floor where you wait for the elevator was mostly consistently overcrowded with people bumping into each other, dripping water/sweat on each other coming from and to the pool. I would like to compliment the front desk staff, whenever I approached them with a problem or request in a non-rude manner they were always understanding and apologetic and worked to remedy the situation. I guess ultimately this resort would be absolutely, 100% what I would expect if I were booking a $99 room with no view. In fact, I would say it's a great value if you are on a major budget. However, with taxes and fees over 4 days my average cost per night was $468. I expected better for this price and anyone paying over $200 should probably...

My husband & I stayed for our wedding wkend. We booked the king essentials oceanfront room. Absolutely beautiful & highly recommend oceanfront view. Getting there via GPS was easy. ||The parking lot was not ideal. There's a slight hill to go down (& therefore back up on leaving) to get in & limited parking to check-in. Check-in took a bit due to limited staff but they were very pleasant & welcoming! They do a $100 hold on your card. It's takes like a wk to get it back, however.|Once checked in you have time to unload the vehicle, but unless you have a handicap tag, they tell you to park in the parking garage across the st. No big deal honestly, but finding a spot can be difficult if you come back late night. Cars were parked in that lot overnight so I'm not sure how that really works.||Our rm was decent. Clean looking & no ordor on arrival. I'm a nut so I always wipe down every touchable surface (to include light switches) whenever I stay in a hotel so that's no fault of them. Just how I am. There was a full fridge & 2 burner countertop thing w/a microwave in the cabinet. Had an ice bucket w/the bags. Ice was on the 1st & 2nd flrs. Kinda sucks if you're higher up like we were & have to wait for the elevators. ||The bed was ok. I like soft but it was a bit too soft for me. The ironing board was a bit broken. I brought my own iron so I don't know if theirs worked. The lights were pretty bright. The bed lamps seem like they should've had dimming bulbs but didn't. That would have made a huge difference especially if you need light but not bright light that could wake someone up. ||The sliding door keeps out a lot of noise. All the outside & ocean noises came in when we opened it. It wasn't terrible but noticable. ||We checked in Sat. All was good & every time I called front desk they answered with kindness & were helpful. That night, they had music near the bar. If we kept the door open, it would have been loud, but with it closed, it wasn't that bad. Plus we were higher up so that may have helped too. We didn't have neighbor issues or noises too bad. We could hear the ppl above us but again, it wasn't too bad. If I lived there, I may have been irritated but the wkend stay was nothing to complain about. ||Sunday was pretty peaceful. That night we didn't hear music. We could have missed it as we were out celebrating, but we got back quite early so we figured because it was |Sunday that's why everything was quiet. ||They have several pools & a lazy river & ppl were out enjoying them. The children we saw seemed to be having a great time. We didn't use any of these but passed it all on the way to the beach. They have a bar, a food stand, a mini store & a breakfast restaurant. No Continental meals.|| We did get $10/day credit. I tried to use it at the bar but they said they'd have to charge it to the rm to use the credit. I wanted to split pay to not have a bill at checkout & sadly he couldn't do that. Also, the bar doesn't take cash. They also charge a 17% gratuity on all charges so basically they force a tip.|| All staff we encountered were nice & friendly. The other guests we interacted with were as well. The one concerning thing I noted about this place is the elevator on the far right side. It's a bit sketchy & could use some maintenance. Check out was a breeze. I went in person to check out but they did or do a text message thing to check out. Just leave the key in the rm. ||Overall, we enjoyed our time there & this hotel helped make our wedding wkend wonderful. I read reviews on several places prior to booking & choose this one due to the good reviews. It did not let us down. We live close so coming back to this hotel for our next MB trip is...

Beautiful bargain - was able to book a last minute trip.

Check-In @ 4:00pm Located on your right as you enter the property. Can get very busy with not a lot of space to line up inside. I recommend following any instructions about saving time in order to expedite your check-in experience. We were able to check in early. Even if you can’t, you can still enjoy most of the amenities while you wait for check-in time. You will need: -$100 refundable deposit required -License plate number -I.D. for all adults staying in room(s)

Parking ADA/Handicap spaces available directly outside. Most of spaces in immediate parking area are for loading/unloading. There is a parking garage located across the street. It DOES have an elevator.

Breakfast This is where I felt a little tricked and deducted one star. Breakfast is AVAILABLE but it is NOT free/NOT included. There is a cafe located on the fifth floor across from check-in that serves Starbucks coffee and has breakfast items for sale. A 17% gratuity is automatically included for all food and beverage sales. Two bagels and a latte was $19.00.

Bar Great poolside bar with ocean view and music (no live band). Serves a great variety of drinks but beware — prices not posted. Again, 17% gratuity already included. Two daiquiris were $30.00. People can and do smoke in this area. Very clean though.

Grill We did not purchase any items from the grill but it did smell great and is located adjacent to bar.

Pools Get there early to grab towels which aren’t the biggest nor most absorbent. You may want to bring your own. Open from 7am - 10pm I think but well lit and saw people down there up until midnight. NO lifeguard at pool area nor on beach. -2 ‘indoor’ jacuzzis (I recommend using the one next to the ‘indoor’ lazy river as it is cleaner) -2 lazy rivers; one is shaded and sort of indoors and the other is not -huge kiddie pool that is shaded with mini water slide -huge kid waterpark area located outside/no shade with 2nd story water slide — great for toddlers. Pretty much a giant splash pad. -small 1ft kiddie pool located outside with no shade -large ‘indoor’ pool; heated -large outdoor heated pool

There is an amazing selection of on-property fun in case it rains, which it did quite a bit the two days we were staying.

Beach Access There are two gates to get to the beach. I think only one has a foot shower as you come in and then a full body shower station before you hop in a pool. It is not a very long walk at all. The one straight across from elevators is NOT ADA accessible so I think the other one to the far right might be.

Other Amenities -on site laundry (not in rooms) -Loco Gecko restaurant located adjacent to resort behind guest services -Java Cafe -Gift shop/essentials like laundry detergent for sale

Rooms Great ocean views, roomy, excellent kitchenette. Kitchenette has an almost full sized fridge, two electric burners, coffee pot. I didn’t take notice of any microwave mostly because we didn’t use kitchenette. Wifi worked decent. Satellite TV provided by Spectrum — kind of spotty. EXCELLENT water pressure in shower but it does keep making a thunking noise. Room darkening curtains worked great. You can sort of hear your neighbors from above but not so much on shared walls. 4 pillows on each bed and plenty of places to charge electronics.

Check Out You can text guest services with any issues. Check out is at 11AM. You can leave keycards in room or in drop box.

NOTE: key cards did deactivate on us — to avoid this please keep your keycard away from your phone.

Overall, very pleasant stay and will...