Bay Palms Waterfront Resort — Hotel in Saint Pete Beach

I preface this review with the following statement: I have been traveling constantly for the past 7 years to over 75 countries and I have stayed in literally over a thousand different hotels during the past 7 years.||||During that time, I have never written a negative review about a hotel because I never had a negative hotel experience. This is my first negative hotel review. ||||I do not recommend this property to anyone – I experience several severe problems. There are many amenable hotels within a short distance of this hotel that would be excellent choices. ||||There were multiple negative experiences for me at the Bay Palms Waterfront Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida. My review addresses the three types of negative experiences, two of which prompted me to report this hotel to the local health department:||||1) Condescending and intolerant reception staff.||2) A serious health hazard in one of the rooms that I booked.||3) A disgustingly filthy swimming pool. Another public health hazard.||||RECEPTION STAFF||||This hotel is spread out over 3 non-adjoining properties, and the reception desk is located on one of those properties. When I arrived via car, I parked in the parking lot under the Bay Palms Water Resort sign. When I got out of the car, I saw a sign that said Entrance so I walked there but there was no entrance and no reception office. ||||After walking around a while, I saw a sign that said the reception office was not on the property, but down the street a distance. We had already unloaded our luggage hoping to check in, but had to reload the luggage back into the car and drive down the street to the reception office.||||When I arrived at the reception office, there was a man and woman working the reception desk. I commented that the reception office was hard to find, and in response the woman retorted to me in a condescending manner as if speaking to a child. Here exact words were, “Oh, someone didn’t read their email.” ||||There were also two other guests waiting to check in who commented to me that they also couldn’t find the reception office. Anyway, I told both of the reception staff again that the office was hard to find.||||At this point the male reception worker retorted to me in a very rude and condescending manner as follows. His exact retort was, “I did my part because I put up a sign and I included directions to the reception office in the confirmation email.”||||I tried to explain that people don’t really read their confirmation emails, they just give it a quick scan to see that their booking is confirmed, and that therefore the confirmation email is not a good place to include a message about the location of the reception office. ||||I wanted to advise them to use an sms text to inform about the reception office location as other hotels and Airbnb hosts do, and which is very effective. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to hear any more rude, flippant and intolerant remarks from them.||||HEALTH PROBLEM AND AESTHETIC PROBLEM IN ONE OF THE ROOMS I BOOKED||||I booked two units. One unit was a one bedroom apartment. We arrived at the units at about 7pm. There was an intense stink of mold and mildew in the bedroom of the apartment. So intense that it was unbearable. So we opened the window and balcony door in hopes that it would air out and we went to dinner. ||||When we returned at 10:45pm the intense mold and mildew stink in the bedroom was the same. So I thought that sleeping on the pullout sofa in the living room would be better where the stink was less intense. But when I pulled out the sofa bed, I immediately saw areas of black mold in several areas on the bottom of the mattress. I immediately pushed the mattress back into the sofa. ||||I called the reception desk. The phone was answered by the same man who spoke condescendingly to me when I checked. I told him a about the mold and mildew stink. His first response was as follows. In his exact words he said, “Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier, it is almost 11pm and I check out at 11pm.”||||At this point, I became furious. I told him he needed to come to the room and experience the problem himself and that I was fed up with my experience at this hotel. At that point he told me that he didn’t like my attitude and that therefore he wasn’t going to exchange the room for a new new room until the next morning because he didn’t like my attitude. Then I became even more furious. Despite the health hazard of mold and mildew, he insisted that the room be slept in that night.||||He came to meet me at the room in a big huff. I showed him the room and he kept talking over top of me. I asked him if he could stop talking. He then became extremely angered and told that both me and my friend had to leave the property. We left. We had absolutely no desire to stay there a minute longer. ||||I told him that I was going to call and report the property to the health department and the police. Which I did the next day. I also reported the property to my credit card company to reverse charges.||||A DISGUSTINGLY FILTHY SWIMMING POOL||||Unlike the lovely blue swimming pool that they display on 3rd party booking sites, the swimming pool is filled with filthy, stagnant, scum-laden, dark green water. I also reported this to the health department. Another...

I’m honestly surprised by the positive reviews this resort has received. The only highlights of our stay were Tyrell and one other female staff member (seemingly tenured) who were genuinely helpful and friendly. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience left a lot to be desired. There’s no daily cleaning unless you want to pay a fee. Wifi wouldn’t load for my laptop on the first day so I had to use a hot spot. For the $40 per day resort fee, you’d expect better amenities. Upon arrival, we found out the front desk was located down the street—something we were never informed about since we booked through Capital One. It would have been nice to get an email explaining this beforehand. There’s a sign on the building. We had booked a marina-facing room, but instead, we were given a room overlooking the parking lot. I contacted the front desk via text but never got a response. Fine, we decided to roll with it. However, it was clear the resort was almost empty, yet we were stuck in what definitely the worst room available—Room 801. Things only got worse when, on the second day, the bathroom started smelling like sewage after the smell of cleaning chemicals settled. We tried to resolve the issue ourselves with soap but it kept lingering. Maintenance came quickly, and while he was so polite and helpful, he explained that it was a city issue beyond his control. He suggested we request to move rooms to a higher level because we were in the off building. His customer service was far better than what we experienced with the front desk. When I called and approached the front desk (an older gentleman), I was met with skepticism. He questioned whether moving rooms would help, claiming that if it was a sewage issue, all the rooms would smell. Notably- there are two buildings and we were in the smaller building. The irony is that when Capital One tried to intervene on our behalf, the front desk insisted we resolve the issue with them directly, even though they could have facilitated a hotel change. What really left a sour taste was how dismissive the front desk was, almost insinuating that we were lying about the odor. After much back and forth, we finally got a new second level room, which—surprise—didn’t smell at all. The TV in the second room was broken. However, the damage was done. After the complaint, the front desk staff made us feel uncomfortable so that we didn’t even want to go back to exchange beach towels. These concerns shouldn’t have been taken personally. In the end, the attitude of the front desk staff made us feel that voicing further concerns would be pointless, regardless of how “nicely” we were voicing any concerns. Good customer service in a down season would have warranted a call from the front desk after the room change but we didn’t hear a word from them. Would I stay here again? No. I’m writing this review because I don’t want others to be misled like we were, as much as I hate to leave bad reviews, hence my review history. If we were put in a better room from the beginning, I don’t think I would be leaving this review. At $176.28 for the resort fee and $731.59 for 4 nights.. might as well book a nicer place. That’s over $225 per night for this experience. Overall, the rooms are outdated and need a deep cleaning (use a shampoo machine on the couches) and deep clean the bathrooms, not just a turnover clean. I know you will ask, so the reservation...

We live in Mississippi and we believe that the most beautiful beaches in the U.S. are on the Gulf of Mexico beginning around Ft Walton Beach, Florida, continue around the panhandle and down through the tip of Florida. We would normally visit the beaches in the panhandle because they are closer to home, but in 2010, the year of our 25th wedding anniversary, the Gulf Oil Spill occurred in this area. We just could not trust that this would be the best place to spend our special anniversary. I found Plaza Beach Resorts on the internet that year and we have been back every year (5 years) at the same time (late May) since and plan to continue this tradition in the future. At this time of year, the water is about 4-5 degrees warmer than in the Florida panhandle and the weather at St. Pete Beach is always perfect. We have only seen rain one time (and only an afternoon shower) during our 5 one-week visits! The beaches are clean and well-kept. We have never seen sea weed, jelly fish or anything else that would keep us from getting in the water. At the time of our visits it is stingray season, but we have never had any issue with them. On our first visit we stayed beach-side at the Plaza Beach Hotel and loved it! Each of the following years we stayed at either Bay Palms or Bayview that are just across the street on the bay. The rooms are always clean, comfortable and reasonably priced. The owners and management seem to be great people and are always there to help out. We have stayed in a different room every year except the last two. Each year, we agree we like the room better than the one before. We enjoy having a kitchen where we have breakfast and lunch, but dine at the local restaurants for our dinner meals. A CVS drug store and Publix grocery that have most anything you might need are within close walking distance of the resorts. Pets are allowed at the two bayside resorts and even though we have yet to bring our dogs with us, we have thought that we might each year. (We make reservations in January for our trip in May just to be sure we can get the room that we want and do not know if we have somewhere suitable for our pets to stay at that time.) The sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico are amazing! We love waking up to the sun rising over the bay each morning, spending the day on the beautiful Gulf beaches, eating the delicious fresh seafood at the local restaurants (most within walking distance), fishing in the bay in the evenings and visiting with other guests. This place is truly magical for us and we dream of about our next visit...