Seaside Sands Hotel — Hotel in Seaside Heights

I feel customers can benefit from reading our experience, hence this post. We arrived to this hotel for one night. When we arrived, we were offered a parking space we felt could be obstructing another vehicle's exit. We were told not to worry and just park there. They noted they had done this many times and that as long as as another parking space (empty at the time was not occupied), all cars will be able to pass. Around 9:30 pm an attendant came to our room to ask us to move our car so another car could park. They needed to rearrange cars to fit in one more that had just arrived, and had parking in their reservation. We were already resting in bed. We figured that we could help the people who just arrived at that late hour and went downstairs to move our car. However, hearing what they wanted to do, we were already concerned that by moving our car we could be blocked and unable able to exit in the morning. There was now a car parked in the area in front of the office door which would not allow cars on that alley to exit, at least without risk of hitting another car, not to mention being potentially blocked in case of an emergency. This is the space they said would be left open so cars can pass. After all the cars were rearranged, the space for us was the very last one of their parking strip, angled to the sidewalk. Our car was very clearly taking almost entire space of the sidewalk to the point that pedestrians would need get on the street to pass. At that point we demanded to talk to the person in charge as we were not willing to leave our car blocking pedestrians, get a parking ticket, or have our car blocking others from exiting. There was no logic reason why we in our sane mind would agreed to that. The person in charge was absolutely unreasonable asking us that we leave our car the way it was as there never had been an issue and that is how they had done. I suspect that nobody had complained about this issue perhaps because of the lower fee of the hotel parking there. This was so frustrating. We had booked room and parking, were resting already in our room when they called us out to move our car to help them accommodate other costumers. There we were, on a parking area talking to the worst service costumer person we could ever imagine. We were asking they found us parking in a nearby lot as we had booking room and parking. We argued that they were asking us to park unsafely and clearly committing a parking infraction. We were not willing to accept that. I even tried to reason with the manager that while she was reviewing her parking arrangement, we had just seen a family with a baby on a stroller getting on the street to be able to pass. I strongly suggested that they looked at their ability to provide parking and don't advertise parking if unable to provide. She did not seem to care about putting pedestrians at risk, creating a parking infraction, or that we could get a ticket. At that moment we learned that she was the manager! We thought we were addressing the check-in person. When we asked her if she could put us in contact with the manager, she noted that she was the manager and was how they arrange parking. She then said that the only think we could do was to reimburse us and for us go find parking elsewhere. It was about 10 pm, our kids in the room, and we were tired. We had been pulled to this mess. I then asked to talk to the owner of the hotel. When talking to this person over the phone his response was the same, take a refund and park elsewhere. This was infuriating! He also noted that if we had given up our original parking space, was not his fault as it was based on availability. This was the worse treatment to say the least. We felt this was costumer abuse!! We had been called to give up our space because our car was larger. I told him that he was offering unsafe and illegal parking. He then asked for the manager, who then arranged for parking in the near lot. Beware of abuse....

DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY. If I could give them 0 stars I would. We have done our fair share of traveling and staying in different locations, motels, hotels, you name it, but this was the worst experience I have ever had to date. My wife and I had planned to spend a few days at Seaside Height. We found the Sands Inn to be the only motel with availability on the dates we were going to stay. After speaking with Alison on the phone we booked our 4 night stay (which came out to be upwards of $700!!) and let them know that we were going to be traveling after work and would be checking in pretty late at night (approx. 12, 1am). We arrived and rang the office bell. Frank opened the door and got our check in completed. Afterwards we walked outside and he pointed to a door on the second floor, said go through that door and you will see your room.

We walked ourselves up the stairs, and found our room. I felt like I was walking through a dilapidated/abandoned building. We had rented a connected room (two rooms connected with a small door inside, but both have their own entry doors.) where only one of the entrances to the room worked. The other door Frank mentioned "didn't work, we need to change the lock". This was worrying and did not contribute to the feeling of being safe. Upon entering our room, my wife and myself were overtaken by the lack of respect and lack of cleanliness we were stepping into. Walls had been painted over a hundred times, scuffs on the walls, stains, ripped and broken window shades, doors that didn't close properly. There was a mini fridge in the room which looked as if it was never cleaned. On top of the mini fridge was a microwave, on top of that was a cable tv box, and on top of that was a crooked tv. The sheets looked ratty, the bathroom was something out of a horror movie with soap scum and grime still present. This is not a place for a dog. This is not a place for adults, and this is certainly not a place for children. Due to it now being 2am and where else were we going to stay, we covered the entire bed/pillow with our home brought sheets, and slept on top, with our clothing still on.

That morning we woke early and decided this place is not fit for living, we are getting the hell out of here. After expressing our disgust for the room we told the office that we will gladly pay you for the night but we could not bare to stay here any longer, Alison could not care less. She stated "you signed a contract, we already charged your credit card", "the room is clean, it was checked last night", "you will not be getting a refund, I am not authorized to give you a refund". Frank and Allison could have not been any more rude and lacked any sense of tact in this situation. Shame on them for treating their customers like the dog's you would expect to be living in these rooms. I have no issue paying for what is advertised, but this place is a dump, and is not accurately reflected on their website, or photos that are on the web. We were not going to stand there and argue the deplorable conditions they failed to "see", we left and immediately let the credit card company know of what had happened.

We quickly searched the area and found some availability in a motel that happened to be right on the boardwalk, with a comparable price. The kind lady in the office listened to our story, and we asked that she show us the rooms which were available before we made a decision. They were great rooms, normal rooms, clean, private. They had been remodeled and we felt safe and welcome.

My experience at the Sands Inn had made me very angry, and the owners/managers there showed a complete lack of respect for human beings/customers. A complete lack of respect for their property. I will NEVER return to this...

We were in a rush to find a place to stay for a funeral and I was not finding many great options left available that met our needs so we settled for here as it offered a great location and of the crop of mediocre reviews this one offered better recent reviews combined with a better price. Two other family members also ended up booking here because of my search although one actually opted to book a Airbnb for themselves the second night in disappointment and offered for us to stay with them, but we were so exhausted from the day I really didn’t want to pack up all of our stuff. There have clearly been some updates although there’s a lot of room for improvement. Our first room had a pretty massive hiccup from a previous guest where the smoke detector was completely missing because they had broken the microwave so when the microwave was turned on by accident it started sparking and smoking. While these problems might not be the most obvious, they also probably shouldn’t have been overlooked with a cleaning/maintenance checklist especially when a separate cleaning fee is required when you complete your booking. The woman at the desk was very nice and quickly rectified the situation by switching us to another room. However there were holes in the wall in our second room where the toilet paper holder had been ripped off and someone clearly punched the wall that I didn’t notice when I accepted it as we were in a rush to set up enough and meet family. It seems as though there should be a contract regarding fees for property destruction and a plan for checking frequent problem areas after stay as opposed to just a required cleaning fee. My biggest complaint is actually the floor cleaner that makes the floor completely unsafe for walking with certain shoes then is disgusting to walk on in shoes or bare feet. My toddler slipped almost immediately and luckily we stopped him from hitting his head and quickly took off his shoes I almost slipped a few times and was thankful I was never carrying our infant or toddler at those times. The floor cleaner is clearly not made for tile floor and any water makes it even worse. There were also weird inconsistencies in items from room to room. Our first room offered two bath towels, 3 shampoos, 3 lotions, and 3 soaps. Our next room only had several hand towels, 3 lotions, and 3 soaps. Luckily my husband ended up bringing the extra towels from our first room when he moved our stuff so we ended up having what we needed when we were getting ready early in the morning before the viewing started. That being said the beds were comfortable, the staff was nice, the location was great, because we were there in the off season we had no problem securing one of the 8 or so free parking spots, and as we were leaving there was a crew who were completing quite a few maintenance tasks so I do have hope that others will have better experiences in the future, but only...