Sandcastle Resort and Club — Hotel in Provincetown

There are many things that can turn an 'okay’ stay—where the 'free breakfast' is a sad package of store bought muffins, and whose 'indoor pool’ is a slimy, chlorinated disappointment—into a good experience. A bargain hunter by nature, I’ve stayed in many a dubious hotel where the warmth of service and helpfulness of staff have outshined its flaws and made me want to return. The Sandcastle Resort is not one of those places. The “resort” is a pretty decent, if kind of run-down vacation spot; clean, but a little shabby. The rooms are outdated, the hot water was iffy, and the murphy bed was pretty uncomfortable. My husband and I weren't looking for luxury, though, we just wanted a place to crash after a long day exploring the cape, and the location is great. The one major issue we noticed was that the sound carried super far between rooms. On the first night this was at worst a mild annoyance, and at best a source of humor: we slept to the soundscape of toilets flushing, TVs murmuring, and snores from the room beside ours. On the second night, the nightmare began. We'd had a long day out, and came back for a quiet night in before our last day of vacation. At around 11pm, as we were getting ready to sleep, our upstairs neighbors arrived, and what proceeded can only be described as elephants practicing tap dance directly above our heads. For Three. Hours. There was music, loud drunken laughter, and the worst, this nonstop parade of footsteps. With the lack of sound isolation, it was like the party was in the room with us. My husband went to ask them to keep it down around midnight, but this did nothing. We called the front desk, but there’s no overnight management, so no-one picked up. We finally drifted off around two am, but were unpleasantly woken at 7am when the elephant brigade began again. Now obviously the hotel is not to blame for the bachelor party of pachyderms. Nor can management control the fact that the building is built like an echo chamber. However, their handling of this was the final straw that prompted me to write my first ever negative review. First, the hotel was all but empty the nights we stayed; there were plenty of rooms for the six thirsty twenty-somethings. They might have noticed, 'hey, this is a large group, maybe we should put them in a room NOT directly above other sleeping guests.’ This seems like basic common sense. Second, knowing how bad the noise is (and they do, there’s a little sign in each room about it), it might be helpful to actually enforce the “quiet hours” after 10pm. From what we could tell, there is nobody on-site overnight, either to take calls or deal with unruly guests. This was great for the Bacchanalian revelry upstairs, but terrible for two tired hikers trying to sleep. Worst was the attitude of management in the morning, when we tried to make a complaint about the raucous guests. Here we were with dark circles under our eyes, mostly wanting to let them know so that if the group was coming back, they wouldn't put someone else in the same hellscape we had been in, and they were super rude. 'The number for security is in your packet, you should have called,’ we were told sharply, as they charged our card and sent us on our way. Even if this would have solved the situation, it was too late now, and it wasn’t necessary to berate us. Our last day at the cape was ruined, since we could barely keep our eyes open, let alone enjoy the outdoor activities we’d had planned, and now we were being shamed for daring to complain. At the Sandcastle Resort, we found courtesy—and just basic empathy—to be completely lacking. You may be tempted to book a stay here, and you may have a better experience than we did. It’s a gamble though, and if we were playing vacation roulette in the off-season, I can’t imagine the odds in the summer when they’re fully booked. We will not stay here again; next time we'll spend the little extra to book a place can't be described as a...

Worst experience I ever had in a hotel! My friends and I booked two rooms for my bachelorette weekend. Friday night I’ll admit we were blast music and being crazy at 1 til about one in the morning, but no one ever complained or asked us to quiet down. Saturday night we got back from dinner around eleven and we’re just chilling in the rooms laugh. No loud music and one girl was even asleep on the couch. Then this child who I guess was watching the place over night, because he WAS NOT the manager, said we were being too loud and quiet hours started at ten. No one ever told us anything about quite hours and the night before we were ten times louder and no one said anything. Also this kid came to our door without a mask on and when my friend asked him about it he claimed “well there isn’t anyone in the hall.” Mind you there were signs everywhere saying that you had to have a mask on unless you were in your room. We made sure to be more mindful of our volume after this though cause hey were in a hotel. As things happen though we got a little loud for a moment because of laughing but all instantly started shushing each other and within seconds this kid was knocking at our door. He clearly had nothing better to do but to wait down the hall for the second we made a peep. Again not wearing a mask. I’d also like to add that both times he came we asked him if there were any complaints and he said no but we had to keep it down or he would have to call the cops. Third knock on the door comes about ten minutes later when we hadn’t even made a peep and the police are there making us get out at 1230 in the morning!!! Oh and this child of an employee is finally wearing a mask. We asked to speak to the manager and wanted his name but he said the manager didn’t have to speak with us and he wasn’t “legally required to tell us his name.” We obviously had no choice but to leave. As we were packing up the couple from across the hall poked their heads out to see what was going on and when we told them we were being kicked out for being too loud they were confused because they didn’t hear anything until we were in the halls trying organize all our things. The police eventually left once they saw we were cooperating because obviously they have better things to do. As a few of us were leaving to put a things in the cars this employee had his mask off again as he was watching us go in and out to pack, so I said “Still don’t have your mask on that’s great.” To which he replied that “you are all trash and are what was wrong with this country and that’s why I signed up to defend it.” Mind you that our group was full nurses and teachers who have been working incredibly hard through Covid. The group of us then went back up to the rooms to get more things to find that he had gone into one of the rooms and locked the door and told the remaining girls upstairs that we were gonna be charged for trashing the place!!! We then call the police officers right back to look over the place so they could put in the report that we did nothing to the rooms. We all then drove back home THREE HOURS to Connecticut at one in the morning!! We tried to call to speak to the manager for DAYS after the fact with no reply. That’s how you treat your guest?? I don’t know how this place has such a high rating. They treat people like trash and don’t respect Covid procedures. They need to...

My wife and I stayed here mid October 2017 and booked it using our Global Vacation membership We picked the Sandcastle because of its location and club reviews. I called three days prior to our visit to confirm reservations and specifically if the swimming pools and hot tub. Who ever answered the phone was polite and confirmed our stay and that AS FAR AS SHE KNEW BOTH POOLS ARE OPEN. The was Wednesday. We arrived on Sunday and saw that the out door pool had been closed for weeks and the indoor pool had an emergency shut down for the work of our stay. During the work we did not see any service or repairs being done in the pool area. We agree with other reviewers that the bed is the most firm surface ever experienced. We considered sleeping on the carpeted floors but they appeared dirty. We did not try the sofa bed but because of the size of the room we told my brother to change his plans to visit even though the description said it slept 4. I can go on with things like cable TV failing within the condo section we were in, being able to hear the people in the room next to us including how one of them had a terrible “smokers cough” that made my wife nauseous. The coughing stopped when the person went out on the deck and smoked resulting in our deck access and slider had to be closed Our Global Vacation rules is that all member condos are non smoking.

The reasons we gave it 2 stars is location to State and National Parks and Shoreline. Plenty of areas to drive to and free parking during the off season Even in mid October the Whale watch cruise was great with over a dozen sightings . A great restaurant was 10 min down RT 6 and the crab/salmon dish was so good we went back 3 times during the week Being off season a lot of places were closed or short staffed but it also resulted in less visitors and an older crowd and school age children were well supervised and respectful to others. Not all the younger crowd drew our attention but some held doors for us And said please and thank you! Others were quite while their cell phones kept them busy

We don’t regret staying at the Sandcastle but learnt a lot about reading and trusting reviews like mine and not the ones posted by the condo club. We did feel young again at times thinking back when time shares like this one were first introduced to gullible investors and glad we never bought one. This is the first time we experienced this sort of condo using our membership and I don’t think it will be our...