Island Grand at TradeWinds — Hotel in Saint Pete Beach

We stayed at the Island Grand for 5 nights, 6 days with two kids ages 10 & 13. It was an amazing family vacation! Ignore the bad reviews. We only encountered friendly staff!

We booked transportation through the resort (airport). Our driver, Jeff, was so nice!

Our room was ready as soon as we arrived, which was a bonus. We did the villa with a kitchenette. The extra living space was so nice. We did a Walmart delivery. They delivered to our rooms but I think this isn't always the case for deliveries. Kitchen had everything we needed including dish soap, sponges, etc. Bathrooms also had shampoo, conditioner, soap, & lotions (we did bring our own shampoo & soap). There were plenty of towels, blankets, & pillows. Room was very clean. It wasn't perfect (bathroom door stuck when opening & closing, shampoo pump on wall didn’t work) but I didn't think this was a big deal breaker. There are laundry facilities on each floor, which I didn't know beforehand...but a great convenience to dry up some of the wet clothes. Also, our flight to leave wasn't until 5 PM. We were able to extend out checkout time until 1 PM with a small fee. This allowed us to enjoy the beach & pool one more time and we were able to use our room to shower up before leaving for the airport.

The resort is on a barrier island that was hit with a hurricane a year ago. With that said, elevators were excruciatingly slow. We took the stairs (6th floor) during busy times and I think it was faster than waiting for the elevator. I had to remind myself & my family that we were on vacation time and we weren't in a rush to get anywhere...we could wait for an elevator if we had to. The Flying Deck was the only place that we noticed still wasn't open from the hurricane. It looks like a really cool place, so hopefully they are able to get it fixed and opened up soon.

The beach and pools were amazing. They do charge $15 extra for beach loungers in the first two rows. Again not a deal breaker, but those first two rows were mainly empty. I'd recommend implementing a fee during peak season. We were in the water most of the time & didn't really sit in the loungers. You have to grab your beach towels before getting onto the beach. There is a place, when you enter the beach, where people will leave sand toys & tubes for others to use. We brought our own, but did adopt a pool noodle from this place. The pools were also great. We loved the quieter pool by the craft table, but the activity pool was lively and entertaining. There is little shade by the pools. They have two cabanas & two sets of loungers with umbrellas that you can rent. I believe it was $195 & $75 to rent them. We didn't need to reserve any loungers on the beach...there are so many that I can't even imagine it being full during peak season.

The same with reservations. We made reservations to Palm Court but it wasn't necessary. All the food and drinks on the resort are really yummy. But there are so many walkable restaurants nearby as well. We did boulevard burgers and coconut charlies...highly recommend.

There is so much to do at the resort that you don't really need to plan much else. But, we did use the freebie ride to John's Pass for shopping and dinner/dessert. You really only need an hour or two here unless you book an excursion. Don't fall for buying one of the many Labubus...as my daughter found out...they are all fake. She did get her money back after having a complete meltdown.

The beach, pools, and all activities close down if lightening is within (I think) 5 miles. This happened everyday. And then it doesn't reopen for 30 minutes after the lightening has passed. We had one day where it was a few hours of waiting, but most of the time it was within an hour. We were lucky that there was no rain so we occupied our wait time with eating lunch or exploring the resort or just relaxing.

We really enjoyed this resort & the St. Pete area. We can't wait...

My family and I stayed this past week from Thursday until Monday. 4 adults and a 2 year old. I am so disappointed in my choice to book our family vacation at TradeWinds. We arrived on Thursday around 2pm. At that time our room was not ready and the fee we paid for early check in was not applied. We decided to grab lunch on the property thinking by 3-30 our room would be ready since check in was at 4. By 345 I went to the front desk to ask about our room. They said it had not been cleaned yet. I asked if it would be ready by 4pm (check in time) and was told probably not since it’s a big room….i asked to speak with a manager. The manager came out I believe his name was Michael. He was trying to be friendly and talk about the eagles and football…I stated I just wanted to be in a room because we had a toddler who was exhausted from travel. I said my room should be ready by 4pm since this is check in time to which I was told that since I booked a big 2 bedroom room that check in time does not apply…..that’s absolutely absurd. We paid a lot of money for that room I told him I expected it to be ready by check in. He again tried to joke around and I was not amused. He said the room would be ready in the next half hour….because it needed to be up to their standards. Instead of waiving any fee or trying to make it a better experience I was given 4 drink tickets. Again we paid a lot of money for the room and that was not an okay response to a later check in time. The room was okay in general. However the beds were uncomfortable, there was pink mold in the bathroom, and the curtains had many stains and the curtain in the one bedroom was broken on the end. We noticed the room temp in the main room and living area was 80 degrees. We let it go thinking that was because of the door being ajar while being cleaned. By the next day the air still was not working and maintenance came after I filled out a mid stat surgery…they stated the air needed to be turned off that the unit was iced over. We let maintenance turn it off since we were headed to the beach. It was off for about 3 hours we turned the unit on upon arrival and still did not work. Maintenance again came out the following day and during our whole stay the room was 79-80 degrees. I put in a request on Friday for just the room to be vacuumed and it was never done, someone knocked and we said we would be leaving in just a minute and they left and never came back. We had the do not disturb sign off the door. We did our own trash the days we were there and left it outside of the front door. Our room was only refreshed once during our stay. Again for the hefty price tag I expected towels to be refreshed and trash to be done daily. The restaurants and bar were very overpriced. The place has potential but I will never stay there again and have recommended against staying to family who was wanting to visit there. I understand it may be understaffed post hurricane but then prices need to be adjusted until staff is at par. It was my child’s second bday during our stay and again I wish I would’ve picked another place for our family vacation. Although there is potential the front desk staff was super unhelpful and the fact that management wanted to joke their way out of a problem was not professional or productive. They could’ve waived a resort fee for the night or gave us a discount on the first night but NOPE. I kept my anger in because I did not want to spoil my child’s birthday. I am so upset about the experience overall. The price is far above what they should charge for all of these...

ALERT ROACH INFESTATION !

Paid, yes through Expedia, aprox $1600 for a couple of nights today, for a suite room which turns out not to include a balcony. The room is probably the oldest they have as it is not in the renovated section of the resort. This section has not been modified since I was a regular 15 years ago. The window which supposedly faces the courtyard faces a concrete wall, if you turn your head 90 degrees you will see a slither from the courtyard. I called to complain about the room to no avail. As we look around the room, this big boy of a roach is just staring at us. Size of a tennis ball, these come in colonies and for each one you find there is a whole tribe behind it, specially when they are this big. They refused to refund our room, Expedia refused to refund our room. First proposal: “I’ll send a crew to take the roach out”

Second proposal: “ we’ll put you in a different room”

That was it. On Expedia, they had a suite with a balcony for the same price of what we paid. Now we’re in the same building, different floor. BAD RESORT, Flying bridge restaurant is closed. They have a makeshift grill that sucks. I won’t return even if they pay me, very bad client service, telling us they are sold out when half the people have not checked in yet, bad manager taking us to the side to talk to us knowing they have a ROACH INFESTATION and trying to keep it on the down low, the other guests NEED TO Know they are sleeping with ROACHES. I am a Floridian from Tampa, I Don’t have roaches, they are manejable, I pay for pest control, this resort, DOES NOT have this INFESTATION under control. I immensely REGRET coming here, I am captive in their Terms & Conditions of the contract, and my vacation is ruined, as we are highly allergic to ROACHES. It is in my allergy report. Resort could have upgraded us, moved us to a different building, allowed us to cancel without a penalty, but they DENIED each of those propositions we BEGGED them for. This is beneath us, they did give us back the $50 resort fee! LOL!!! Thank you for the 3% refund!!!! No ROACH is worth 3%. You can stick it up where the sun does not shine, this is my yearly family vacation and you ruined it with your INFESTATION.

—- review Update: I got a call from Tradewinds letting me know that due to the close encounter with the Roach, they were going to refund one night.

On checking out, they informed me that the note is in their system but that all they need is a call from Expedia.

I have Expedia calling them, and they are not responding to their email requests Expedia is sharing their communication with the property and I will be posting them. So far, no refund. So Be ware of false promises as well with this so called resort.

the comment mentions they do not have roaches , then what is that creature on the curtain??? If you are denying having roaches, then you definitely are not taking it a priority to take care of the problem. Same type of attitude with customer service, I will never step foot on your property again. Imagine sleeping...