Quality Inn & Suites Tampa-Ybor City — Hotel in Tampa

If you are traveling alone or with a child, I wholeheartedly DO NOT RECOMMEND staying at the Quality Inn & Suites at Tampa-Ybor City for your SAFETY! For some context, I am a 26 yo female and I stayed at this hotel for two nights, January 16-18, 2025. The hotel consists of two buildings, one attached to the lobby, and the other located across the pool area. My room was on the second floor of the building detached from the lobby and the rest of the hotel. Aside from reeking like cigarettes and occasionally marijana, what mainly concerned me during my stay (and prompted me to write this review) was a lack and general disregard for hotel guest safety. Within 8 hours of me staying here, I was abruptly woken up at 1:30AM when two men opened my hotel room door, turned on the light, and started to carry in their luggage until I sprung out of bed and yelled “UMM, EXCUSE ME?!?”. The two men were just as surprised as me and freaked out once they realized the room they had just been sold was already occupied. The men quickly left and I decided to go down to the lobby and speak to the receptionist. So I walk to the main building/lobby and the family that walked into my room is also down there trying to speak with the receptionist on duty (EJ). The family apologizes to me and says that they just landed here from California, and they have no idea what’s going on and they are trying to get a refund and find a new hotel. However, at this point the receptionist has already called security on the family and is asking them to leave. The receptionist then asks me how they can help me, and I tell them that I am the guest who just had their room walked into and I’m just trying to find out what's going on. Without ever looking up from the computer, the receptionist tells me that “the system accidentally put them in the wrong room” and that I “can return to my room and lock my door” (implying the deadbolt). Only when I mentioned a fear for my safety did EJ finally offer a “sorry”, again without ever looking up from the computer. This is not the only incident that made me question my safety as a guest at this hotel. The hotel is located right off of the interstate and there is a noticeably large homeless population present in this area of the city (not an issue if the hotel facility were secure). While the facility does have a fence around it, the back door to the main building/lobby remains unlocked at night, and all entrances to the second building (the one I was staying in) are unlocked and do not require key card entry. That means literally anybody can walk onto the property and into the hotel during any hour of the day, and can even access the elevators and access room floors without key card access. While there is a security guard on the premises, I personally feel like this establishment is lacking basic safety protocols/training opportunities that would benefit the protection of their guests. If you’re wondering if I tried to speak to the manager - yes. On two occasions. On the second occasion I even left my contact information and room number and just requested to have the manager (Tiki Dennis) call me back at her convenience. I still have not received a call back and at this point I’m confident I never will. Something else I’d like to point out is that upon booking you are charged a ‘Hotel Service Fee’ of $4 for each day that you are staying. On the confirmation email it says “Hotel Service Fee: Beach Chairs, Bottled Water, In Room Coffee, Discounts from Hotel Partners, Long Distance Calls, Local Calls, Towel Service”. When I pointed this out to staff I was met with a little bit of resistance and told “I don’t know why the website says that”, but they eventually agreed to let me take some water bottles back to my room for "free". (THANK YOU to the other reviewer who pointed this out!) In my opinion, $200+ a night is an outrageous price for this hotel, and while I am aware that this is a popular cruise destination, the quality and standards of this hotel are not even worth...

If you are traveling alone or with a child, I wholeheartedly DO NOT RECOMMEND staying at the Quality Inn & Suites at Tampa-Ybor City for your SAFETY! For some context, I am a 26 yo female and I stayed at this hotel for two nights, January 16-18, 2025. The hotel consists of two buildings, one attached to the lobby, and the other located across the pool area. My room was on the second floor of the building detached from the lobby and the rest of the hotel. Aside from reeking like cigarettes and occasionally marijana, what mainly concerned me during my stay (and prompted me to write this review) was a lack and general disregard for hotel guest safety. Within 8 hours of me staying here, I was abruptly woken up at 1:30AM when two men opened my hotel room door, turned on the light, and started to carry in their luggage until I sprung out of bed and yelled “UMM, EXCUSE ME?!?”. The two men were just as surprised as me and freaked out once they realized the room they had just been sold was already occupied. The men quickly left and I decided to go down to the lobby and speak to the receptionist. So I walk to the main building/lobby and the family that walked into my room is also down there trying to speak with the receptionist on duty (EJ). The family apologizes to me and says that they just landed here from California, and they have no idea what’s going on and they are trying to get a refund and find a new hotel. However, at this point the receptionist has already called security on the family and is asking them to leave. The receptionist then asks me how they can help me, and I tell them that I am the guest who just had their room walked into and I’m just trying to find out what's going on. Without ever looking up from the computer, the receptionist tells me that “the system accidentally put them in the wrong room” and that I “can return to my room and lock my door” (implying the deadbolt). Only when I mentioned a fear for my safety did EJ finally offer a “sorry”, again without ever looking up from the computer. This is not the only incident that made me question my safety as a guest at this hotel. The hotel is located right off of the interstate and there is a noticeably large homeless population present in this area of the city (not an issue if the hotel facility were secure). While the facility does have a fence around it, the back door to the main building/lobby remains unlocked at night, and all entrances to the second building (the one I was staying in) are unlocked and do not require key card entry. That means literally anybody can walk onto the property and into the hotel during any hour of the day, and can even access the elevators and access room floors without key card access. While there is a security guard on the premises, I personally feel like this establishment is lacking basic safety protocols/training opportunities that would benefit the protection of their guests. If you’re wondering if I tried to speak to the manager - yes. On two occasions. On the second occasion I even left my contact information and room number and just requested to have the manager (Tiki Dennis) call me back at her convenience. I still have not received a call back and at this point I’m confident I never will.

Something else I’d like to point out is that upon booking you are charged a ‘Hotel Service Fee’ of $4 for each day that you are staying. On the confirmation email it says “Hotel Service Fee: Beach Chairs, Bottled Water, In Room Coffee, Discounts from Hotel Partners, Long Distance Calls, Local Calls, Towel Service”. When I pointed this out to staff I was met with a little bit of resistance and told “I don’t know why the website says that”, but they eventually agreed to let me take some water bottles back to my room for "free". (THANK YOU to the other reviewer who pointed this out!)

In my opinion, $200+ a night is an outrageous price for this hotel, and while I am aware that this is a popular cruise port, the quality and standards of this hotel are not even worth...

The Choice Hotels website lures you to this location with a decent price, pictures of recent updates (such as a new pool area and a remodeled front desk/cafe area), and the promise of a convenient location just off of I-4. But visitors beware. The remodeled public portions looked great, but that facade quickly fades away once you get to the living areas. You'll walk down awkwardly long hallways to reach your room. If you happen to be on the second floor, you'll have the pleasure of entering a rickety elevator or a damp, hot, poorly lit stairwell. You'll reach your room and reach for your key. Your key will entice you with a phrase: "It's Quality Time." But inside, you'll find anything but quality. You'll likely have a refrigerator that may or may not work. Water damage will be observable in the cabinet that the refrigerator sits in. You'll have carpeting that could be considered modern art because of the wild variety, amount, positioning, and size of the stains. Your AC unit will probably work, but it will probably not work well. And if you're lucky, you might even have holes burnt through the curtains like we did. It really set the atmosphere in the room, because the room always had light from the pool area or the neighborhood entering through the burn holes. Classy! While you're looking out at the surrounding area through the holes in your curtains, you might notice something else great about this hotel if you missed it on the way in: the location. As I mentioned before, it's right by I-4. Very convenient. But something they don't mention is the neighborhood. The hotel is in an area surrounded by abandoned industrial complexes and extraordinarily unsafe housing neighborhoods. If you want to purchase contraband from a local or be assaulted during your visit to the area, this hotel is in the perfect location. But don't worry! The staff makes sure it's safe. On Saturday night, they brought in a large van full of police officers and security personnel who seemed to be performing some kind of major bust. Walking out of an elevator and seeing an officer with a weapon drawn made me feel safe. Speaking of fun situations, you'll encounter many smells here. You'll first notice a recurring smell in the hallways. As you pass by other rooms on the way to yours, you might notice a few rooms that smell like an outdoor music festival: a combination of sweat, beverages, grass, and skunks. And if you're lucky like we were, you'll get to stay in one of those rooms! Our first room smelled like it was made out of marijuana. We kindly asked for a replacement. The front desk was very nice and handled the situation quickly. One of the staff members at the front desk pretended to be very shocked about the smell, saying "Whaaat? I can't imagine how that even happened since smoking is not allowed in the rooms!" Our second room smelled much better. It smelled like leftover Indian food had been used as an air freshener. Appetizing! The bathrooms are recently remodeled. If you are slightly taller than an average American, you will hit your head on the shower ceiling. Fortunately, the shower ceiling was squishy, so it didn't hurt! The shower itself worked great, except for the fact that the water just kept getting hotter the whole time I used it. I stayed with a group, so I had the pleasure of seeing three different rooms in total. They all had the same problems. It's a decently sized hotel, so maybe three isn't a good sample size, but we at least got very unlucky with the quality of our rooms in this Quality Inn. Overall, this hotel needs a lot of work. It looks like it's being slowly remodeled, so maybe that will help in the future. But for right now I wouldn't suggest staying here because the quality of this particular Quality Inn is...