Bayview Plaza Waterfront Resort — Hotel in Saint Pete Beach

Just returned from a 5 day/4 night excursion to the St. Pete area. I was travelling with my family that included myself, my wife and my 2 youngest sons. My oldest son and his girlfriend also made the trip but they stayed at a different location. When booking the trip we mistakenly used Trip Adviser to base our lodging choice.

The Bayview Plaza Waterfront 'Resort' was a disappointment. Although the people in the office were great, the accommodations were not what we had hoped for.

Let me start with the room itself. The 2 sons that were traveling with us are big kids (6'4" and 6'2") The beds that we had in our room were double beds that were probably in the room since the mid 80's and our kids simply didn't fit. When we attempted to use the pull out sofa there was absolutely no room to maneuver around the room. I can honestly say that this was the smallest 'efficiency' hotel room that I have ever seen. Our mistake for not being more diligent in looking for a nice place to stay.

The bathroom in our room was much like those on a cruise ship...small and uncomfortable. It was pretty obvious to me that the room that we were staying had the bathroom added as an afterthought. When I was in the shower (we had hot water most of the time although there were 2 mornings were we took warm showers) I could not face the shower head as the shower area was too narrow. I'm not a bit guy (6'2", 190 pounds) and I can't imagine what it was like for my larger son. As for the other bathroom 'facilities', lets just say that there wasn't enough room to comfortably take 'care of business' without your head hitting the wall.

Another issue I have when travelling is the lack of space to hang anything. There are no hooks in the room to hang towels or bathing suits etc... We had one small chest of drawers the contained enough space for about half of our stuff. The other half was left in the suit case. As you could imagine for a 5 day trip, living out of a suitcase gets old very quickly.

The final negative things I'll say about the Bayview Plaza is the location. We were right on the street and we could hear the traffic all night long.

Now for the positive items...the people that work in the front office were very nice. If we needed towels or suggestions on where to eat (or watch the Basketball games) they were very helpful and made us feel right at home. The rooms were clean (even though there was no maid service on Sunday).

In conclusion, I think that the rooms might be OK for two people, especially if those people didn't want any amenities, but for a family I would STRONGLY suggest...

I booked the penthouse for the week of May 4th-10th on January 29th. received an email on April 21st from Capital One saying that “Our hotel partner just let us know that, unfortunately, your reservation for Bayview Plaza Waterfront Resort could not be confirmed due to a system error on the hotel's end.” To ensure this was really happening, I called Bayview Plaza Waterfront Resort and I was told that yes, this is true and “We thought we’d be able to open by May 1st, but due to the damage from the hurricanes last year we can’t open due to permits.” I was also told that there was no phone number to reach me at. I find that incredibly doubtful as there are many ways you could have contacted me either through the contact information provided at checkout, or you could have made Capital One Travel aware far in advance other than 14 days away from when I’m suppose to be arriving. Also, on April 7th I emailed frontoffice@plazabeach.com to inquire about having an early check in since my arriving flight is early. I got a reply stating the policy on early check in. So, you can reply to my email and tell me the policy for early check in, but you couldn’t tell me my room was no longer available. There is absolutely zero excuse as how you could not tell me my room was no longer available. First lie- You had my contact information. The second lie is that you ARE open, and you do have rooms available, you just over booked or gave it to someone one else while I was responsible and booked my room 4 months in advance. I know you have people staying there because I can read the hundreds of recent reviews online. Like I stated before, you ARE open, and there are no “permit” or hurricane damage problems…you messed up and now my family has to face the brunt of it. There are slim to no places to stay in St. Pete Beach now that I’ve had to start a new search for a place to stay, while STUCK paying high prices because you chose to cancel my booking and I now have to find a place to stay within 13 DAYS. You really do not understand the trouble you are putting my family through because of this. There was no solution offered. I don’t understand how a company can do this. With such high pride in your customer service and that you strive to be the best, this is the most unprofessional, un-moral thing to do and I’m absolutely disgusted by this. I’m almost at my whits end and will just cancel my whole family vacation because...

My kiddo and I stayed here last month for part of our vacation, and it is definitely being added to the list of places I’d stay again! The service was top notch from the beginning, and our room was very comfortable with a beautiful view.

We really enjoyed having access to all of the locations during our stay. The pool at the Bayfront was usually calm and empty, but we also liked the fountain at the Beachfront’s. I highly recommend walking along the beach for about 15 minutes to eat at Bongos, their tables are IN the sand- amazing!! Beach access is super close to the Bayfront, you just walk to the corner, cross the street, and it’s right there! An unexpected but very appreciated detail was the EV charger- I loved being able to drive my hybrid around the area without using any gas.

My one and only complaint would be that our AC unit was pretty loud. It made an oscillating noise that was hard to tune out at first. But after the first night it wasn’t so bad. We usually sleep with sound machines anyway so it basically replaced ours for the trip. But the room overall was great. Kiddo loved the art, the full-sized refrigerator was a huge plus, and we really appreciated having access to streaming services on the tv- most hotels don’t have that feature yet! I would have loved if the gate on our patio locked, but I still liked having that little peace of mind of SOME separation between us and the people walking by to the docks/pool.

Overall, a really great experience and we highly recommend Plaza...