Sleep Inn Clearwater-St Petersburg — Hotel in Pinellas Park

First off, on a positive note…this is a great location and also rooms and amenities are decent for the price. They even allowed me to extend my dates 2 more nights in the same room. Breakfast was decent. The hot water and hot coffee was not always hot. Half of the time it was cold/luke warm. Options were not much but again, decent for the price. Waffles, toast, bagels, eggs, breakfast sausage or Patties (depending on the day), and hashbrown (depending on the day), yogurt, and milk. Rooms were clean and kinda spacious. Air conditioning was very good. Laundry was okay… one of the washers did not wash well and the one of the dryers was nasty inside so I did not use. The main issue was that on Saturday (6th night), I received a text from PAM in the morning that housekeeping was going to come in and clean. I texted back and stated that I don’t want housekeeping. On a side note, I never have housekeeping clean my room ever… I go to vacation twice a year (every year for yeaarrss) and never had ANY issues with this or a hotel demanding to go into my room to clean. I received a text back from PAM stating that it’s company policy that room needs to be cleaned at least once in a week. I have NEVER heard of this and I have been to many hotels, including other locations for Sleep Inn. I was already leaving on Monday, two days away. I went downstairs to talk to PAM and explained that I don’t need housekeeping. She stated again that it’s company policy. I said that I was already leaving in two days and have never heard of this policy. I tried to explain that I have lots of stuff around my room, especially that I have kids. I told her that I would need to take two to three hours to even organize & clean up everything in the room for housekeeping to come in and I was already leaving for a event. I didn’t have time to do that right now and I didn’t want housekeeping to go in my room without me organizing and putting all my stuff decently away. She told me that “they are only going there to tidy up and change sheets”. I told her that it doesn’t matter… I have lots of stuff everywhere and do not feel comfortable having strangers in my room while all my stuff is everywhere. I asked if they can just come in Sunday so I can take time to organize. She agreed. This was ridiculous… I actually had to take time away from my vacation to put everything away. As you know, when your on vacation, everything is a time crunch and can’t waste time on useless things. I already had plans on Sunday. I always took time night before I had to leave to organize… now I am here organizing everything on a Sunday morning , wasting my time on my last day of vacation instead of doing something fun. I was so mad. Definitely needs to be change of policy for this specific hotel because we are on vacation and don’t need to worry about nonsense things. It was very inconvenient. I was going to give 4 or even 5 star but with this issue, I have...

We stayed at the Sleep Inn near St Petersburg Airport for multiple nights on both sides of a cruise out of Tampa. We had a mixture of average experiences and exception experiences.

The rooms are generally nice, with minimal problems. If you are looking closely, in both rooms we could find a few small maintenance or wear and tear type issues. In both bathrooms, some of the paint around the trim and door frames needed work and small sections of the floor were lightly stained near corners. In one of the rooms there was a broken door latch to the sliding door for the bathroom. Otherwise the showers were relatively new as well as most of the room furniture.

The outdoor pool and hot tub were both generally nice and clean. At least one piece of outdoor furniture appeared slightly damaged. The pool area may be nearing a point where repairs and maintenance are required. For example, sections of stone tiles are missing from the side of the pool and some of the deck pavers were loose. Otherwise, the style of the pool area was nice and the problems were minimal.

Some staff members were friendly and simply met our general expectations (nothing amazing, nothing bad). One staff member in particular went out of her way to be particularly helpful. Pam was one of the most helpful hotel staff members I've interacted with in the last few years, going well beyond our expectations. She worked with us on check-in when we had an early arrival from the cruise ship debarkation. She arranged bagged breakfasts for us when we had a very early departure to the airport. She helped arrange a van taxi service to get us to the Tampa Airport very early in the morning at a rate that beat taking ride share. The only concern with this arrangement was a miscommunication between the driver and us involving number of available seats and payment method, the driver was also almost 20 minutes late causing some anxiety; this could possibly have been remedied if I communicated with the driver directly.

The property location was convenient to a few locations of interest. The bus that can take you to Indian Rocks Beach and also the express bus that can take you to Tampa Airport and downtown Tampa were each within walking distance. Unfortunately, the Tampa airport/downtown bus runs infrequently and only on weekdays, which was a negative for us. There was a convenient shuttle to St Petersburg Airport from the hotel which was very helpful. Only a few stores and food options were within walking distance. There was periodic noise of planes from the St Petersburg Airport when the take off pattern was north-to-south, almost directly over the hotel. Someone might be living in a van at the open lot directly west of the hotel, but didn't bother us. Breakfast food options were a little better than the average continental fare at most budget hotels; a few hot items including waffles...

We stayed last week for a week. We stay at hotels three times a year for a week at a time, and usually have to request our clean towels, having our trashed dumped and cups replenished. This hotel cleaned our room each and every day as part of the service! The bed was made, floor vacuumed, sink tidied, trash collected, and clean towels provided. They never once knocked on our door to see when we were leaving, and we always came back to a refreshing room! The bed was super comfy, and I am picky about beds! Breakfasts were chaotic every single day, probably due to Spring Break. The person working sometimes had a helper, but really, with it that busy she could have used 2 helpers. It also bothered me that so many people cart food off to their rooms, plates full, yogurts, etc. I'm not too picky, so ate what was there, but really wanted a bagel. Cereal machine dispenses cereal all over, so it would be nice for the help if they replaced it with one that didn't. The almond milk was a wonderful touch for dairy-free people. A word on the pool area, I really feel that if this is a no-smoking establishment, that patrons ought not to smoke in the pool area. We called the front desk about a chain-smoker seated at the far table (the smoke drifted our way), and they said it was ok and there wasn't anything they could do about it. So we ended our hot tub time and went inside. The only other complaint, and I'm sorry to have to write this, is that 2 nights before we checked out there was a cockroach on the cup in our room. We tried to kill it, but it went under where the fridge was. We dared not pull the fridge out, or they may have been more. So we spent a couple of nights and days wary of the critters, and upon returning home we did the necessary checking and washing of all our laundry and baggage before bringing it inside. Bugs are something we have never encountered in our stays at any hotels, and is something hotels must get...