The Melrose, Bed & Bath — Hotel in Neptune Township

I would give zero stars if I could for the 2 night/3-day stay my friend and I experienced at the Melrose in rooms 2C and 2D. It's clear by going back into the reviews that beloved owners Randy and Dan, with their kindness and breakfasts, have been gone for several years. The woman who now runs the Melrose, Sheila, doesn't provide any form of breakfast. She appears to be collecting every cent possible from this business while spending the bare-bones minimum. Amenities are non-existent: no beach towels, umbrellas, or chairs, one extra roll of toilet paper, cheap liquid soap (shampoo?) in a shower dispenser. A broken night light in the bathroom of 2D. The beds were fine, the sheets clean, but the rug on my bedroom floor (2D, see photo) was so filthy, I jumped across the rug to and from my bed nights and mornings. ||There is no check-in location or process. On Wed, July 7, I was late meeting a friend who arrived to find she couldn't get into the building. Even after we received a key code for my friend in 2C, the code didn't open the front door and intermittently failed to open the room for our entire stay.||Guests are not given access to anyone who can actually help with lockout problems. We only had Sheila’s number because of 2C's initial problem entering, when a phone response number called Guesty had reached Sheila and she called us directly, which was over an hour after initial contact with Guesty. Guesty's voice mail emphasizes it's for "emergencies only," including lockouts. It did not seem that Guesty had contacted her. ||I surmise this is an ongoing issue, maybe because the lock code box next to the door appears to be outdated technology. On Fri, July 9, checkout day, the new key code to 2C stopped working after my friend returned from getting coffee. Could not get in her room to pack or in her bathroom to shower. For an hour and a half.||After 3 days of continual problems reaching anyone to fix the lock problem for the rest of our stay, I bumped into Sheila in the hall on Fri morning and asked for a late checkout due to lack of room access. She refused at first, then angrily said "you two" could stay til noon. I called our experience "unacceptable" and said I would be reviewing our stay. Sheila started yelling at me. She pointed to a camera on the wall above our heads, and screamed, "That camera just recorded everything you've said and that you're threatening me." I said I'd never stayed anywhere in a vacation rental, where there was no help immediately available. She called me "smarty pants." She also tried to lock us out of the front door while we were still...

The best way to describe this place is "fine."

The pros: Super convenient location. It's clean. It's quiet. It felt safe.

The cons (we were in room 3B from 4/28 - 4/30): Everything in the room is SMALL. My husband is a lanky 6'2" and his feet were hanging off of the double bed. The bathroom was small - short shower and I joked that his knees would touch the door if he was sitting on the toilet. (I mean I know that you can't make any changes to accommodate this. This is more of a jsyk for any guests who may be tall!) No staff on hand. I booked through the website, so I didn't see any information about how to access additional linens if needed. It was also super cold when we visited, and it would have been nice to have access to an additional blanket. Hit or miss responsiveness. I emailed them prior to visit about parking and never received a response. I noticed in the reviews that they offer 24/7 customer service through external messaging? If that's the case, maybe include that information in an auto-reply when customers use the TheMelroseog @popular email host dot com email address to contact you. We couldn't access any of the streaming apps on our tv. The check-in email suggests that you log out prior to your departure, and I guess the person who used it last didn't do that because we couldn't watch anything - quite a bummer during peak playoff season. The walls are thin, everything creaks, and there are huge gaps underneath the doors - again, not really anything you can do about it, but if you're sensitive to sound, this may not be the place for you. They did include a white noise machine in the room though + my friends were in the joint rooms and there's soundproof padding between the doors so it seems like they're trying.

This last one isn't necessarily a con, but more of a suggestion. I was visiting with two other friends for a wedding. It was wet and rainy the entire time, and we honestly did not feel safe walking down the stairs to the street. Some type of grippy strip on the stairs would really make a huge difference!

In a town like this, your accommodations are limited, which is to be expected. The Melrose did the job, but if you're coming in with high expectations, set them to zero.

P.S. The snarky responses to reviews are not a good look. As a business owner myself, had I seen these prior to my stay, I would have picked somewhere else. Based on my experience, the reviews you're calling "fake" or "inaccurate" are a direct reflection of what to expect when staying at The Melrose. The customer isn't always right, but...

First let me start off by saying the location is perfect, literally a block from the beach and the view from the balcony over looking the water is very nice. I will say that the pictures on google are very deceiving, the entrance way is a small sitting area with a coffee pot and some coffee pods, and two little couches. Walking down a hallway with doors on either side that are rooms. We enter our room, what I walk into is literally a bathroom, I thought we entered the wrong room at first, it took a second or two until I realized I had to look behind the door I just opened to the bedroom. The bed was comfortable, wobbly, and needed to have its legs replaced, the pillows were lumpy, lumpy like you just stuffed some laundry in a pillow case and called it a day. So, if I were you I would bring my own pillows. The bedroom, or room with a bed in it, was small, but did have a nice little rack to keep our bags and clothing hanging. Other than that, there was no storage. The bathroom that you enter into did have a good size mini fridge, which was nice. Now, the portion of that bathroom that you shower and use the toilet is another story. I am 6 ft tall about 230 pounds, my girlfriend is also 6ft tall, the shower stall is no bigger than a phone booth. I literally had to step out of the shower to wash my feet it was so tiny. The toilet was stuffed into a corner, in which was very tight and difficult to utilize. The small bathroom is one thing, but the ants, and ant trap in the bathroom was a bit much, we had dozens of ants in the bathroom as our weekend went along. For spending nearly $500 I expected a little more space, no ants, and an overall better room. Especially since the pictures make it seem like you are getting a top of the line, modern, spacious room. I would recommend this spot ONLY for the location. I went off season. I gave it two stars for service due to not having to interact with any staff, nor was there any staff to interact with. They did send me several e-mails prior to check in with proper clear instructions, which was a positive.

It seems as if they converted as many spaces into rooms to max out their income. Hope this...