SpringHill Suites by Marriott St. Petersburg Clearwater — Hotel in Pinellas Park

This was the worst stay I have ever experienced at any Marriott Hotel. Our family checked in late after a 17 hour drive at nearly 2am with a nearly dark parking lot. We got up to our room (312) and it smelled like some kind of smoke but we could not tell if it was electrical smoke or cigarette smoke. In addition, there was blood splatter on the floor near the bathroom. Absolutely disgusting. The front desk clerk went up to the room and apologized for what had happened and said that she would do something about trying to give us a credit on our bill and then moved us to room (205). This room smelled a lot better but there was a paper bowl of microwaved rice under one of the beds that looked like it had been there for weeks. There was also some other minor damage to the room along with multiple light bulbs out. Then the front desk clerk came up to our new room at like 2:15am to tell us to keep the noise down. It was bad enough that we had to move our luggage from out of our car upstairs to one room and then downstairs to another. Other neighbors were making way more noise and this continued throughout our entire stay. The beds were not comfortable at all. We requested housekeeping multiple times and it took 4 days to get someone to clean the room (we stayed for 7 days). The outdoor pool and spa were closed (no direct reason given other than "sorry for the inconvenience") yet I have recently stayed at other Marriott's (about a month ago) in which some of these areas (they were indoors) were open. The breakfast was okay but it could have been served a bit longer and/or not put stuff away before the designated breakfast time is over. For one week of staying there, our room got cleaned once (there are 5 of us including 3 small children). There were times that we had to request additional linen and at one point they had almost nothing to give out. During the morning of our check out, I had once again pointed out all of the problems to the front desk and yet nothing was adjusted on my bill. All the front desk clerk did was write down what the problems were on the paper sleeve of the small envelope that my key card had came in. She then said "this is one of the best hotels in the area and I would let my family stay here" and "people pay big money to stay here and they deserve to have a good experience." The least that could have been done would have been to comp me for at least the first night due to the inconvenience. Absolutely terrible! Do...

Great location near restaurants (panera bread, local restaurants), fast food eatery (chick fil-a, wendy's, taco bell, dunkin donuts, Starbucks, etc), grocery stores (walmart, costco, Sam's club, publix), pharmacy (cvs), close access to freeway, beaches (indian rock beach, county beach)

Pool was ice cold. Hot tub was nice. Laundry room - 1 washer and 1 dryer. $2 each per load.

Front desk personnels (Kaneisha and Zachary) were amazing, quick, sufficient in getting my family checked in and checked out. Getting us directions to places we need to get to. Giving us advices of what was hip around the area. Gave us items/necessities that we may have forgotten.

Housekeeping personnel (Ashley and Cindy) were stellar in keeping our rooms tidy and refreshed.

I especially wanted to send a special THANK YOU to Ms.Cindy. Cindy had the most upbeat and amazing demeanor, attitude and presence whenever we are around her. Cindy's job may not be ideal and is a very thankless job from my family to Cindy- THANK YOU for being such a phenomenal person. You are sensational at your job and I know my family appreciates it a ton after a long day of being out and about and driving from Clearwater to Lakewood Ranch daily for soccer having a refreshed and tidy room is something we always look forward to and you ALWAYS get that done in impeccable timing. Your note cards that you left letting us know you have serviced our rooms and the little uplifting saying, "Happy Holidays" may not mean a lot to anyone but it does mean a ton to us. That shows character and shows that someone like Cindy cares for little details and making sure we knew that. Cindy keep up the fabulous work. You definitely need to he promoted and have your skills in work ethic and customer service reflected throughout everyone and the facility.

The only downfall I can say is of breakfast. The kitchen woman that worked was great. She kept the food coming but as soon as the light is turned OFF letting everyone know that breakfast was done the staff members that were there stormed the food line like scattering insects to get food when the lights are turned off. That looked very unprofessional. I can honestly tell you that that was the very FIRST time I have ever seen employees dressed in uniform storm the food line since staying with your company from Hawaii, Utah, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina, NYC and Minnesota.

Other than that everything...

We checked in on a Saturday evening, but our room was filthy. Used q-tips littered the floor, and a used stick of deodorant was under the sofa bed. We asked to switch to a clean room, and when we moved to the second room, we had a similar experience--used tissues under the sofa bed, stained mattress to the pull-out sofa bed, and no bedding for the sofa bed. When I called the front desk the second time, they said that they had no other rooms available. I asked to be switched to a different property, but they could not help me with that. After two hours of me being on the phone, bounced around from person to person and finally connecting with a supervisor, the Marriott representative attempted to rectify the situation. We still had to finish the night in the filthy hotel room, but were partially refunded for that stay. It was difficult to sleep the few hours that we remained in the room as there was a party at the pool (just below and outside our room's window) continuing until 3 a.m. with no enforcement of the 11 p.m. pool closure policy. To add to the difficultly, the next morning the hotel ran out of food at the continental breakfast (breakfast sandwiches, yogurt, and coffee all gone an hour before the breakfast time ended). I was told by the management that the hotel is extremely short-staffed, but in my opinion, this should not be an excuse for lower the standard of service. I intentionally choose Marriott hotels because they typically have a higher standard regarding cleanliness and hospitality. That being stated, when I have an expectation of excellence, it makes the disappointment from an experience like this one more poignant. I want to close by stating that I am thankful for the attempt to make it right as we did end up staying in a cleaner, newer, and nicer hotel (still in the Marriott family) at no further expense. We will continue to stay in Marriott hotels, but I cannot in good conscience recommend this...