Ocean 7 — Hotel in Ocean City

This was our fourth year staying at Ocean 7 and in the same room, which is room 201. Some units are privately owned and our room is one of them. Each year the room has been upgraded in some way and the owner does a really nice job. The layout of the room has a sofa bed in the main room and a king sized bed along with a futon in the bedroom. We move the futon out into the main room since our four kids hang out there. This gives us a little privacy and let's the kids do their thing all together. We make sure we put everything back where it was when we leave.

Pros:

The staff here is AMAZING! Every shift of workers are fantastic to deal with. Regardless of what you need, they take care of it with a smile. From the housekeeping crew to the manager on duty, all of them are great! Best hotel/motel staff I have every encountered by a long shot.

The location of the hotel is great if you have kids. Gillian's Pier is a half block away. They have a rear street entrance so you an avoid the big lines on the boardwalk. The beach is a half block away and the hotel is the first building off of the boardwalk. The location for those with small children couldn't be more ideal.

WiFi! YES... FINALLY SOME WiFi! They charge a small fee, but it's great to have it. This also makes the con's list... more on that later.

Heated swimming pool! On those cloudy days in the seventy degree area, the pool is warmer than bath water. It makes some of those dreary days a fun day. Even on the hot days the pool water seems to be perfect. The pool is clean, easily accessible and they have pool towels to use in the office. Just ask and you shall receive.

Hot water in the shower seems to be endless. It's so nice to be able to take a nice long shower and relax a bit. I wish the shower head in this unit had a couple of settings, but it works fine as is. I'm just dreaming some.

Cleanliness of the room is always top notch. The housekeeping staff does a fantastic job. They are quick and efficient. Most of them look like they were on some eastern euro gymnastics team. Not that I look at them, but I just kind of noticed it. They are super friendly and do a great job. I'm guessing the genius that talked the owners of the hotel into getting WiFi also recruits the housekeepers. Nice job, bro!!!

The price of the unit is reasonable. I would rather pay more and get the location and things that fit our family than sacrifice to save a couple of dollars. We pay for the unit when they email us the bill in January, so we save quite a bit paying ahead of time.

Verizon's 4g/LTE is blazing fast down in OC. Even in the hotel room I was pulling 15mb down. It was nice to be able to upload all of our pics to our cloud storage for the grandparents to watch in almost real time.

Cons:

The WiFi is throttled. Pretty bad too. Unless you're just checking email or browsing the web it's almost useless. I had to run my WiFi Hot Spot on my phone so the kids could watch NetFlix when they were falling asleep. Netflix requires a slow connection in todays speeds and it stops to queue every couple of minutes. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to watch a twenty two minute episode on there. So, WiFI great for basic needs, but not for anything that requires above DSL levels of bandwidth.

The bathroom door on our unit opens in. The problem is the bathroom is so small that if anyone fell out in there they would need to cut the door apart to get to them. Change the swing of the door to out into the kitchen. It will also make the bathroom easier to get into. It's not a big deal and nothing happened, but it just makes sense.

That's about it. We already have our room reserved for next year. I can't wait to go back! Thanks again...

UPDATE: Shortly after this review, the Board of Directors for the Ocean 7 property (owners of the actual rooms / condos) reached out to me to inquire about our experience. They have been incredibly helpful, understanding and sympathetic to our experience with the management company of the property. Since my review, the full charges have been refunded. In addition, through talking with multiple owners, we have confidence that they will continue to work diligently to ensure Ocean 7 remains a wonderful place for families to vacation in OCNJ. We are very appreciative of the owners' interest and response.

I will start by saying we've stayed at Ocean 7 twice before this trip and had a great experience. The location is great. However, this past trip, we were not happy. I got into bed on the first night, and quickly realized my sheets were wet. Got up and smelled them, and they smelled like urine. It was late, and the man working at the desk was apologetic. He gave me new sheets but that didn't do anything to help with the blankets that were still damp, and smelling like urine. We remade the other bed, and tried to sleep there. We decided we wanted to stay somewhere else and asked for a refund. The manager was helpful and we thought a full refund was issued. Fast forward just over a week, we see that we weren't seeing a full refund on our account. I called and the manager was suddenly defensive and saying he did more than he had to do by refunding us the 2 nights we didn't stay. It's against their policy. Really? There was obvious URINE on the bed (and I laid on it, disgusting), and we should be charged for that one night we stayed? I'm sorry, but staying in a room where one of the beds was useless and then not knowing if everything else was cleaned/changed, that warrants a full refund. I don't even know how it could be an argument on their end. I even asked him, "If you were a guest somewhere, and you realized there was urine on the bed, would you assume the rest of the room wasn't clean?" He agreed. Well then, do the right thing and issue a refund. While I do appreciate the other two nights were refunded, the whole thing should have been, no question. We are very reasonable people, and didn't even confront him in front of people at the front desk. We didn't want to make a scene, and talked to him in private. Not happy, and very disappointed in Ocean 7. For a family friendly motel, you would think they would do the right thing in...

We booked the same day we checked in by phone and the elevator was broken - I think this should be disclosed many guest have difficulty using the stairs and transporting luggage is less than ideal.

When we went you our room at 10pm they were several large groups of teens on the balcony’s and parking lot this carried on until at least midnight we heard groups again at 3 and 4 am.

At checkout at 8:30am I inquired about a late checkout, it was offered free until 12 and half the room rate until 3pm - the room was not occupied the next night. I said we would take the late check out for free and if my husband wanted to extend we would come back. We went to breakfast and came back to pool my 16 year old went to lay down since we got little sleep and at 11:40 they start knocking on the door telling her we had to get out my husband ran up to get a quick shower, he was headed there anyway. I followed right behind and the same person I spoke is saying we missed checkout that I never confirmed it’s 11:54 and if we’re not out by 12 she’s charging us for the next night. I was polite. I didn’t know I needed to confirm I thought I made it clear we were staying to 12.

The truth is we were gonna extend our stay another night until this ridiculousness. I get the rules our rule and fully respect that - there was not any cleaners in sight we stayed at the pool the room is still not been cleaned. I have NEVER had someone standing at my Room door so obnoxiously rude!

I gathered our items that were packed and at the door went to the lobby and told Her we were out. I was still calm And I said I asked for a late check out because we were up most the night with loud teenagers outside our room.

Her response “ yup, it’s Memorial Day weekend that’s what you get - teens are gonna be here”

I really could care less about the teens but for the amount of money you’re paying to stay in basically an efficiency with broken elevator, broken ice maker - there was never pool towels out! I do not want to be treated like I am freeloading trash and needing to be escorted out of a...