Ocean Crest Motel — Hotel in Oak Island

My husband and I have stayed here before. It’s a quiet little motel next to the pier and it’s just steps from the ocean which is it’s most endearing factor. The rooms are small but have always been clean. The decor is simple but adequate. The employees have all been very nice. But a few things happened this time that caused us to shorten our stay. We arrived on Friday. The COVID scare has been on for 14 months. The employees were wearing masks, there were glass partitions between us and them, and masks were provided.

We were told that no-one would come into our room to make the beds or clean during our entire one-week stay because of the virus. We had to place our dirty towels & garbage in plastic bags outside our room where someone would take them and drop off fresh towels. We found our sink was draining very slowly but a maintenance man came and unplugged it. I liked the large bathtub in our room but when I ran the water to fill the tub, it was yellow, which wasn’t earth-shattering but didn’t give me a feeling of being clean.

On Saturday & Sunday I made the beds myself and straightened up the room. Twice we spotted a cockroach, one in the room and one on the shared walkway. Thankfully my husband took care of them. Sunday evening I was relaxing in our room on the bed watching a little tv when the picture went out. Someone came to the room to fix it but she wasn’t able to do it so I had to wait until the next day.

Although I swept our floor every day with the broom they provided, we noticed the floor wasn’t very clean! Just walking across it left the bottoms of our feet dirty. So Monday a.m. I asked the clerk if she could send someone to mop the floor. She said they could only do this if I bagged up all personal items before-hand and called them around noon when the employees would be available. Then we would need to leave for two hours during which someone would come in and spray the room with disinfectant. After that a housekeeper would come in and mop the floor. I said it was crazy to go through all that so I would mop the floor myself using one of their wet towels. She suggested I use the broom to swish the towel around so I wouldn’t have to get on my hands and knees (I’m 69 years old). I left the service desk thinking I wasn’t being serviced very well, but determined to clean my floor since we had 4 more days to stay.

I decided the broom and towel idea wouldn’t work very well so I wetted a hand towel in the tub and got down on my hands and knees washing the entire floor. By the looks of the very dirty wet towel when I finished, the floor had not been mopped after the last guest left. After I washed the floor, I noticed we couldn’t really see out the window very well since it was cloudy from ocean mist and spray so I washed that too on the inside & outside. I then noticed the door was dirty around the doorknob and thought to myself, if the cleaning service did what I just did at least once a week, it would make a big difference in the cleanliness of the building as well as reducing future maintenance issues.

It’s interesting as I look back on this experience that 2 employees came into our room, one to fix the plumbing and one to fix the tv, but no employees were allowed to come into our room to clean. We decided to check out 2 days earlier than planned. I can’t help feeling that if they had been more concerned with the basics of cleanliness than with the fear of covid, the guests would be safe, & there would be no bugs crawling around. I think the better plan would be to suit-up an employee with masks and gloves, sending them into the rooms to do their cleaning duties every day rather than to expect the guests to do their job. By the way, our room charges were not reduced for our doing most of the work to...

I am very upset with this place. I accidentally left behind my brand new expensive bathing suit. When I realized it I called the motel around 3:30 pm and asked of it was found. Lady on the phone said room was cleaned and no bathing suit was found. She says she looked in the room and didnt find it herself. That it must have been mixed in with the linens. I gave them my contact info and asked if it was found that they please call me. Couple hours later I called back got a different lady she checked the lost and found and said they would look for it and call me back in the morning. The first lady I talked to called me the next morning with an attitude upset that I had called back the day before. She immediately got defensive and told me that they were not responsible for items left behind. That the housekeeper put my bathingsuit in a black trash bag and threw it away. Why would they throw an item away immediately like that? Why was it not turned into the lost and found at the end of the house keepers shift? So please be advised if you stay here and leave something by accident which does happen often as the lady stated you wont believe how much people leave behind. They will not turn it into lost and found to see of an item is claimed in a couple days they will immediately throw your stuff away. What's the point in a lost and found if it's not being utilized? We will not be staying...

We came many consecutive years and always stayed in the spacious rooms in blue building. We had to skip 2016 & '17, luckily we got back in 2018 because after that the blue one burned down. Then we had to miss 3 years. So, now our lil' kids are grown adults and we had to make a smaller room work. We reserved Oceanfront in yellow building. It was cramped with 4, but like you say, while at the beach you are mostly outside. As always, our room was very clean- and was kept clean- thru the week. We were reminded, after a one-night stay on way there & another on way home; how at Ocean Crest , their "stuff" works! Meaning, all lamps light up when turned on, toilet flushes powerfully, plenty of water pressure, and BTW the shower is heavenly! Also, nice quiet A/C, simple decor but bright and uplifting, and love the vinyl plank floor. Often at the chain hotels we use on the road, there is an "issue"- or 2- with room.|| The staff are friendly and helpful. The ONLY area with room for improvement is, the ||property lacks enough operating ice machines. We believe one was lost in fire and only saw one between the 2 buildings. And we don't expect to be able to fill a cooler (we go next door for that) but to once in a while fill our ice bucket,|| We will definitely come back, may need to trade up to two rooms...