Pearl South Padre — Hotel in South Padre Island

My family (of 4) stayed at The Pearl Spring March 13-15. The good: The best thing about this hotel is the location; it's a short walk to a clean and beautiful beach. The pools are large and I love the swim-up-bar pool, which was heated. The hotel staff is friendly. The bartenders and cooks outside by the pool are exceptional. I like that the hotel uses Bath and Body Works products in their guests' bathrooms.

The bad: Staff was not very knowledgeable and gave us conflicting information. The entrance to the room was very dark with no source of light in the room's entrance. There is a mirror near the entrance that is useless because there's no source of light. The closet wouldn't open, so we couldn't fully unpack our clothes until someone from the hotel came to open it for us. The balcony door was extremely hard to open. The walls in this hotel are way too thin; we could unwillingly hear EVERYTHING in the neighboring rooms. There were people physically fighting in the hallways and our floor and room constantly smelled like strong skunky weed (while I know this wasn't the hotel's fault, it definitely made our stay worse). I called the front desk and asked if they had air freshener, pot pourri, or anything to get rid of the weed smell in my room as I had my children with me. They sent a young gentleman up to my room to tell me they don't provide air fresheners or anything of the such and he was sorry as there was nothing they could do. I had to go to Walmart to buy air freshener so the air in our room would be tolerable. The beds were extremely uncomfortable and of low quality; we could feel the springs on our backs. The announcement speaker on the wall kept making popping and crackling noises; sounded like there's electrical issues going on with it. The a/c is very loud and would wake us up when it would turn on. Between the random cracking noises from the speaker, the uncomfortable beds and the loud a/c, none of us were able to get a good night's rest and as a result, were restless during the day. Our room only had 1 small trash can that was located in the bathroom and was not nearly big enough to dispose of waste for a family of 4. The shower head was of very poor quality and when turned on, most of the water came out of the faucet instead of the shower head itself. There are 3 small elevators; only 2 of the elevators were working during a busy Saturday on Spring Break weekend. We waited 15 minutes for an elevator before we gave up and had to take the stairs (which were very wet) down 7 flights. My husband is disabled so this was very difficult for him. The water in the stairway didn't appear to be water that freshly dripped off of someone who had just taken the stairs before us, there was an accumulation of dirty water on several flights of stairs. If the hotel has an elevator out on a very busy day, the least they can do is attempt to keep the stairs dry. (Photos are of the poor condition of the lock on the adjoining door, and of the top part of the closet).

We will not be returning to this property and I'll recommend that my family and friends skip this hotel when looking for a place to...

I don’t know where to start, photos of rooms are not what you will get. We paid $1K+ for 2 rooms hoping to get a decent stay however the room had mold on the ceiling, the lamps/lighting was not working and coming apart, rooms had no microwaves and an elevator was out of service creating long lines to get to 8th and 10th floor, which is where we were staying. The floors in the room had not been cleaned, we found trash from prev guests under the beds and floor was super sticky. Ice machine was not working and the covers on the bed were stained. Funny thing they had us place a card on file for any “damage” done to the room, yes I know it’s policy, but the irony on this was unbelievable.

We spent the morning at the beach then the kids got hungry so we decided to stay in the hotel and eat at the LandShark. We were a total of 8 adults, an employee was rude asking us to move our stuff out of the patio area while waiting to get served. We had bags with towels, ice chest and some chairs that we took to the beach area, which was understandable we moved our stuff and placed it in an area away from the bar. Right after, we get our waitress Ms.Daisy who took our order and brought drinks but never came back. We waited for our food for a while most of us ordered burgers and fries. Well, come receipt time everything had been charged separately.. my mom and brother in law ordered a plate that included some sort of coleslaw salad which they waited for and never came.. we all decided to pay our tickets just to get out of there ASAP, my parents paid cash, everyone else used their cards including myself. Once again waitress took forever to come back, to top it off she kept my parents change (wasn’t a lot but we had already paid our gratuity) we wanted our kids to enjoy the evening so we kept our cool and left the restaurant. The next day we check out and I come home to find that my tab was charged 2x for the same exact amount. Called manager because that was the cherry on top of our horrible experience and when I explained to him everything that we had gone through including the charges and the waitress keeping my parents change all he had to say was “the double payment will get fixed” and that was it! Did not care about anything else that happened. Honestly I had this place recommended to me but I think a motel would’ve been a lot better than stay. I understand there’s renovations and upgrades being done but the OG rooms are not safe to stay in so why even open them for booking? You all should at least place a warning before complete reservations. Only reason I rated 1 star is due to the nice receptionist that was there Saturday morning (wish I could’ve gotten her name) she helped us check in and explained how to get around, she made us feel comfortable before heading into the nightmare of a weekend. I had family with us coming from Houston, they drove 7 hours to this bs. Will not...

Update: Management reached out to me regarding our stay, which was a very nice gesture. Will update further if applicable. Original: Overall, we did enjoy our honeymoon week at Margaritaville, but there were a few things that were a bit inconvenient. First, not having a microwave in our room was something we realized we did not want to endure again. Second, the housekeeping was a daily frustration. The general manager was aware, and tried to make it right, but even thru our last day, there were issues. Having to ask for our bottled water daily was not ideal. It may seem small to some, but those two bottles were essential for our morning coffees and evening hydration. With the bottles downstairs being an outrageous $5 each, we appreciated those 2 bottles greatly. We had to track down staff to request toilet paper twice during the week, when they could have just left us a new roll, or leave one by default when the roll is nearly spent. Our shower gel was nearly empty on day one, and we didn't get a replacement until I happened to be in the room to ask for it halfway thru the week. The wine glasses were another issue...I must say that most of the housekeeping staff were very nice and friendly. The TV in our room says that it allowed casting, but the qr code and website it sends you to is a non functioning site, so we couldn't stream anything. The Friday and Saturday night band is actually awful. Since we were there a week, we realized she just plays the same set, obnoxiously repetitive songs, much too loudly. Y'all should judge the amount of engagement and applause, of which there was little. Your Thursday night singers from Mexico were amazing, though! These guys deserve the prime slots. They had engagement, interaction, personality, true talent, and a great selection of songs. There were massive spotlights shining on our balcony all night, which sucked. Weirdly, they're on all day, too. Thankfully, though, we were able to rest and sleep in, thanks to comfortable bedding and dark curtains. The hammocks are awesome and so was the decor. We loved loved loved that we could see both the beach and the sunsets from our room, and the chairs and table on the balcony were perfect. The staff really seem to be focused on improving the place from the former depressed Pearl, and they have made excellent advancements. Overall, I'd recommend the place if they installed microwaves and perhaps improved their coffee setup in the rooms. I think Margaritaville has real potential to become the top resort on the island, if they keep working...