Four Points by Sheraton Destin-Fort Walton Beach — Hotel in Santa Rosa Island

Roaches...the final straw!

I am a Marriott gold member and stay about 40 hotel nights a year. I stayed at this hotel last October for 3 nights and just now for 4 nights, both times for pleasure. I traveled with my family of 4 and dog. I stayed in the tower room with the larger balcony and square foot space (basically the most expensive room they offer)

First, the good. This hotel has an amazing piece of property. A cute lobby reception building with a bar and pool table and a restaurant opens to a palm tree filled piece of property containing 2 pools, a hot tub, a shuffleboard/corn hole court and a second pool side restaurant. There are several places to sit, relax, and enjoy. The grounds are rectangular shaped with guest buildings flanking the long sides. There is a 6 story tower with balcony views of the beach. The views of the gulf are amazing but only available if you stay in the tower. Beach access is convenient, and the beach is next to the aquarium and pier on the left, so it seems less crowded than the properties to the right. The staff is generally friendly, and the atmosphere is laid back.

Now the bad. The property is dirty and failing into general disrepair. The sprinkler heads are broken, the walkway and pavers are cracked, the trash cans are always full, the hot tub is hit or miss if the jets work, and the pools are dirty. Luckily, there was a skimmer there, so I skimmed the pool for my kids to use. The rooms are filthy and dated. Old carpet, old fixtures, old furnishings. Nothing works. The microwave doesn't spin, the air conditioner leaked, the thermostat didn't control the air unit, 2 televisions had no service on either one, and a toilet that ran. If you need something from housekeeping, don't hold your breath. They are never coming with it no matter how many times you ask. You have to be resourceful and catch the carts for toilet paper and garbage bags. Even with all this, I would still stay because of the view and beach, BUT the filth is inexcusable. The bed sheets are stained, there is mold/mildew forming on the ceilings, there were food particles on the rug and corners, and our room had roaches. Not one roach but many. I went to the front desk the second night after killing about ten roaches around 11 pm. and told the man working there that my room had roaches. He didn't bat an eye, wasn't surprised, and did even offer an apology for the inconvenience. This lets you know how common of an issue this must be. He said the hotel was booked and he couldn't move me but could send maintenance up to spray my room. When I asked questions about what would be sprayed and how long my kids would have to be out of the room, he became snippy and said he didn't know but was trying to offer me a solution. That interaction could have gone differently if he offered an apology, some compassion, and hospitality (i.e., I'm so sorry for this inconvenience. Do you want to bring the kids down to the lobby? I can get them some juice or a cookie or anything for the inconvenience. Instead, I had them sit in the car for 2 hours while the maintenance man and I moved furniture, sprayed raid, killed more roaches, and then I aired out the room.

I know the hotel will probably reply to this post with a half hearted apology and a claim that they are renovating this winter (see other posts on this hotel) but there is no reason why the OLD hotel can't be CLEAN which would reduce the bug issue.

It breaks my heart to give this place 1 star because I really want to love this place, and I see the potential for a 5-star sandals like resort.

Whether it matters to them or not, they have lost...

I recently experienced my worst hotel stay in 3 decades at this hotel.

I reserved a room at this property for an ocean view room with a balcony. Was given a Graden View room.

When we checked in we were told that the hotel Boiler was broken and our reserved room would not be ready until the next day and to come by the front desk at 10:30am to check into the room we reserved. This would be the first of many different excuses from 4 different hotel employees. I had to insist multiple times that we not be charged for the lower Garden View room accommodation. It was not going to be voluntarily given to me. The prices difference was $120. The key cards I was given were grimy and oily fingerprints on them. This was an indicator of how the rest of my stay was going to go.

The room we did receive at check in was an older part of the property. The room stank. The bedding had sand in it. The sheets had yellow stains. The room next door appeared to have had the door kicked in. The door was ajar and the entire lock and door handle was missing. There was a towel hanging up in this room and the lights were on. It appeared that someone may have been living in this room. This was especially concerning because it was an adjoining room with an adjoining interior door to our room. Later in my stay I observed a homeless man smoking pot in a common area on the hotel grounds. I also observed a homeless person sleeping in a corner of the parking garage next to a shopping cart.

The next day we inquired about changing rooms only to be told it wasn’t ready and they would contact us when it would. I had heard excuses from hotel employees ranging from the Boiler was broken to the rooms were still dirty. I had heard from other hotel guests that they had been given these excuses for days. One family had been staying on the property for a week without hot water. If we were not going to be given the room we reserved I needed to check out. I requested a late check out so I could reserve my right to move to another hotel if needed without incurring another hotel charge for the day. I didn’t want to wait until late in the afternoon to learn that we would not be receiving a room and would have to pay for another nights stay. The hotel staff was unwilling to give me a late check out. I was told they had given out to many already.

I asked to speak to the manager and was told they were unavailable and would call me back. I never received that phone call. It wasn’t until after an uncomfortable verbal confrontation at the front desk that my reserved room suddenly became available.

The Ocean view room in the Tower part of the property was cleaner but still not clean. My socks were black after walking around the room. The TV didn’t work. We only had two towels in our room. The elevator and areas around the elevators were filthy during my entire stay. I never observed pool towels being available during my stay. There were spots to hold towels at both Pools but were always empty.

The food was as bad as the rest of the hotel. They sell a buffet breakfast for $20 that is just a continental breakfast at any other hotel. Everything included was unedible. Bread was stale, gravy was a watered down flavorless mess. The eggs tasted like what I assume a salt block would taste like.

The property in general was unclean and felt unsafe my entire stay. This is just a dirty poorly managed hotel. I attempted to make Mariott aware of the problems through, surveys, phone calls and emails only to be referred to this hotels management. The ones responsible for...

This was the worst hotel I have ever experienced.

The night we arrived, I had my kids take a shower. My son slipped and hit his head because the bathtub did not have non skid strips installed. We called the front desk and they brought us up more towels…I guess they misunderstood. My husband caught maintenance in the hallway the next day, and he was prompt to help us. He was the only staff member that seemed concerned that my 4 year old had been injured from neglect of the hotel.

We asked the front desk the next day to have housekeeping come and clean our room and they didn’t. We later called and asked for clean sheets and they brought us the wrong sized sheets twice. We made due with what we had but when we were making the beds, we noticed stains all over the beds and pillows. I was horrified and disgusted.

We called our Marriott platinum line and they managed to have the front desk move us into a new room the next day. When I went to the front desk, they said the room wouldn’t be ready until 2:00 the next day. Finally we get into the new room, and it smelled like cigarette smoke. I told the front desk I couldn’t move my kids into that room because one had asthma.

This was day three of our stay and , I finally threw somewhat of a fit with the front desk, telling them housekeeping needed to at the very least come and vacuum all of the sand. I was told housekeeping leaves at 4. When I asked them to bring me a vacuum so that I could just do it myself, they said no. I got extremely upset that my children were having to sleep in sheets that had sand all over them and used a few choice words, and then we were told the manager would have to call us since I was being unreasonable.

Becky, the GM, called and said that it was my fault because they accommodated us and moved us into another room and I refused so that was everything she was willing to do. I told her that was unacceptable and housekeeping needed to do their job and I finally asked why this was the first time we were hearing from her after so many issues with our stay. She stated “ma’am this is a very large hotel I can’t entertain every guest”. We stayed in a Marriott in New York City and they had over 1,000 rooms and the GM was so helpful and accommodating and we didn’t even have issues with that stay! This is not a large hotel. 600 rooms and a small property.

The next day housekeeping came but they only made one bed, with the same sheets, except they took the fitted sheet and left everything else. Didn’t make my kids bed or change the sheets. Didn’t clean the toilet, didn’t take out the trash or vacuum.

I called the front desk and she said she would personally see to it that the other bed had clean sheets. She said this twice more as I called two other times throughout the day to check. Came back at 10:00 tonight and nothing had been done.

Packing up the car this evening to leave in the morning, a gentleman stopped us and warned us that there were bugs in his room and he was vacating the property and that management laughed at him when he brought up the issues.

The entire property is gross. The rooms are so dirty and are not cleaned properly. Nothing it kept up with. The manager, Becky, is horrible and rude. I am so ashamed I let my family stay here for so many days. And I am disappointed this is a Marriott property. We will definitely think twice before booking a...