The Exchange Hotel — Hotel in Saint Petersburg

Let me start off by saying that I am local and stayed at this hotel only to enjoy the conveniences of downtown St. Pete for a wedding we were attending this past weekend. The positives of this hotel are the friendly staff (A+), bar located on-site in the lobby which is quite convenient and the close proximity to all that downtown has to offer. However, the negatives quite greatly outweigh the positives on this one. We paid $500 for a two-night stay, which, can be expected for being in the heart of downtown but there are things one would assume would be provided for such a price. The entire hotel reeked of mold. The air itself is damp and humid all throughout the building. We were in a second floor room and the hallway to our room was hot and truthfully felt as though we were walking through a damp cellar. The main (only) elevator is rickety to all hell. There is a sign up explaining that the elevator is the original 1957 and it did get us to the second floor and back to the first safely, but I cannot say it is a comfortable ride. I get the historical aspect of keeping such an elevator, but it's condition cannot possibly be a selling factor. During our two-night stay we were met with several groups of kids (around our age, honestly) that were drunk to the point of no return and one group seemed to have been doing cocaine inside the elevator.... Not exactly our kind of crowd and maybe not even truly the hotels fault but just a warning more or less of what kind of crowd to expect staying here. Our floors were sticky, covered in some sort of what I will assume is floor cleaner that was not properly washed up. The rooms all don Large wall AC units, which isn't much out of the ordinary, if they worked well it wouldn't be listed as a negative. They weren't on at all when we entered the room and so we walked into a humid, sticky floored sauna. If all of that isn't enough, we were in a king suite and the bed is an old spring mattress with hardened sides. A mattress I am unsure is even sold in stores in todays time. They were popular in the late 90's but... I haven't seen them in a single hotel since then. It was beyond uncomfortable and we cut our short stay, shorter. Disgusting yellow stains on the bottom of the curtains in our room (221 for the hotel staff if they see this). As mentioned in other reviews I have now read, the shower curtains are too short and so when you shower the entire bathroom practically floods with water. Walls are paper thin. Cleaning crew was outside our door and in adjacent rooms at 8am on a Saturday morning. I am a pretty heavy sleeper, akin to a bear in hibernation and was startled awake by the noise. Additionally, you can hear just about everything outside, from cars to busy city life. I truly think this is the least of the problems, but certainly bad enough to mention. The overwhelming smell of mold and musk is enough to not stay here frankly. The staff do their best, I cannot say enough positives about them as they were kind and helpful, but the state of this hotel is well below the price-point. I cannot urge you enough to not stay here. You will regret it. For the price you can stay in much better places and not have to worry about the mold stink and other issues. Do yourself a favor and stay...

When this hotel was booked the pictures seemed like it would be a nice hotel to stay in and the reviews were good. Would not stay here again. I stayed there for a week. Only a few minutes walk to the pier and there were quite a few resturants (definately recommend Doc's Rum Bar) so you didn't need to drive unless going further out. The walls were thin. I could hear things outside and the shower running from the next door room.

For the bathroom: It's just big enough for the toilet and a sink with maybe a foot between them so a bigger person would have to do some maneuvering in there. There was barely any counter space to put things on. Shower curtain does not go all the way down to the bottom leaving a big gap therefore you get water all over the floor outside the shower. The toilet paper holder was less than a foot away from the floor and below the toilet which is not very sanitary to me.

First day we checked in there were bugs on the curtains and wings all over the bed. Based on the front desk guys cursing and reviews here it's a common occurance and were given a new room. The AC had this screetching noise when you turn it on that somehow stopped after changing the settings a bit. Also the front desk guy was very pushy on their $20 a day valet parking claiming it's the same parking everywhere. That was not true as I was able to find parking for only $8 max a day (Sundial Parking Garage) that was literally a 5 minute walk. The TV was small and far away from the bed or any sitting area.

Overall if you're going to be staying here for a day or two then it'll be a cheaper option for you but if you're staying a week or longer I suggest you go elsewhere and spend a little more. And of course the elevator is broken. Doesn't seem like they're going to fix it at all since it's been months based on the reviews of elevator...

DIRTY ROOMS And worst service! My daughter and friend stayed one night to find a gross big bug and blood stained sheets! Called front desk finally got new sheets for them to change the bed themselfs???? What kind of room service is that? So they didn’t want to even touch the other bed so they slept together! Upon check out was given Hannah Harpers business card to complain to her and I called the next day and spoke with her and wanted to give me 1/2 off the dirty room and Told her I wasn’t paying anything for bad service and then she agree it wasn’t right what went on! So the next day after that I get an alert from my credit card saying $736.36 was charged to my account from the exchange hotel?.. 4 additional nights?. So I call the hotel in the morning and phone just keeps ringing and ringing no answer?..seems like no one wants to work there! So I call my credit card and they explained 4 additional nights were charged but then credited back?? So now I’m very unhappy and not sure what was going on ,so I put a freeze on my charge card and call the hotel again and finally someone answered but was put on hold for 10 minutes… Get tired of holding on and call up and call again that day and same thing!! Finally get thru ask to talk to Hannah and she’s in a meeting and leave my name and phone number and no shock but no call back, so all again and again still in a meeting!, call back later that night and Michael answered and guess he knows my voice and says she’ll call me back and does t even get my name or phone number?… then call back 10:00 pm and again Hannah left so asked to talk to,another manager and was told there wasn’t any manager working? So I’m not bothering calling back since Hannah is just as unprofessional as the rest of the staff and decided to write a review to warn other guest not...