My Sarasota Getaway — Hotel in Venice

WARNING||This is NOT a safe place to be. I feel like I've been catfished by a motel! It looked almost nothing like the photo's on their website. First off it's no where near Sarasota and it's actually called The Nokomis Inn. The whole property is completely run down the rooms were just filthy, to the point the bottom of my feet became black. The furniture in the room was broken old and disgustingly dirty and sticky. It's as if no one is making any effort to actually clean. I had to go and buy a mop and cleaning supplies to clean it myself. There are shady characters who live on the property namely the supposed maintenance guy, with his 7 dogs, he's the shirtless, toothless mumbling guy sculking around the place building a ramp for his puppies (possible Pitbull fighting dogs at this point in their size) and now fencing in an area for them that is supposed to be a recreational yard for guests. Doesn't seem like he actually does any "maintenance" , oh until 8pm in the evening when all of the sudden he's running a table saw??? There is dog poo everywhere and the whole place smells like dog poo. He has a motorcycle he drives on the walkway in front of our door and biker pals napping in chairs next door to us. Calling on his dogs at all hours and in the middle of the night, "come on guys, hey pups, come on pups, hey guys, come on" right outside our door. Plus he has an un plated Cadillac and an old f150 piled high with what looks like his former household contents, (kinda like the Beverly Hillbillies) taking up space where guests should be able to be parking. If I was the owners of this place I would immediately evict/fire this guy, cause he's digging his heals in and you're going to have a squatter on your hands, one who scares your patrons away.||The wifi didn't work until the second last day of our week there but we couldn't get the code because supposedly the maintenance guy spelled the name of Nokomis Inn incorrectly.||Our toilet seat was broken, like when you sat down it pinched your bum so we duct taped it ourselves, I didn't want to complain about anything with that guy as the would be fixer.||The room I booked advertised a small kitchen, when I got there, no kitchen like the photos advertised, and the manager said she upgraded my room to have 2 beds instead. Meanwhile she told me that Expedia was over booking the place and I was lucky I got a room because I showed up at 2pm earlier than check in, and that she is turning away about 14 bookings a day and it's all Expedia's fault.||Why didn't we just leave? We couldn't leave they had our money, frankly it was March break and everything else was booked, I feel very bad for everyone that got turned away. I also feel bad for the manager whom clearly had no control over Expedia or the actual owners relationship with sharing the inventory with Expedia.||There was no laundry facility despite it being advertised on their website. There is crap everywhere and clutter. The pool is unkept. The bbq area was consistently occupied by cigarette smoking residents, who I assume are taking up rooms and that is why they are refusing dozens of folks per day cause of the over booking and the squatting scary guy and his dogs. The manager lady is nice, but nice ain't getting the job done and she's bailing on this place in a month anyway, so what does she care.||From what I gathered the place is owned by a corporation that bought the property hoping to turn it into some type of medical facility and then couldn't get the townships permission for changing the property's usage. This corporation has stuck some poor schlub in charge of running the place from hours away, he's not on sight and he has no idea what he's doing, or what is going on at this property, clearly.... better watch out owners this "maintenance guy" is a problem and it's only going to get worse. ||Here's the thing, the structure and property have so much potential to be a hand over fist money maker in a great location 3 minutes from Nokomis beach and 8 minutes to Venice beach, if only someone gave a...

Advertised as “Casey Key chic boutique resort” (website description) – This hotel is in Nokomos (which we knew) and is a casual beach themed MOTEL that indicates it was remodeled in August 2016. The pool area in the middle of the property was small but nicely set up. Our room was confirmed as a Luxurious Sunrise King and though the bathroom and room were nicely tiled, the paint was very scuffed up, the A/C unit old and noisy and the furnishings/linens worn out. The bed platform was painted plywood, which made noise when sitting on or rolling over in. Parking by the rooms is limited and the unsecured overflow lot behind the hotel was not lit at night. At 10 pm on our first night I was startled when I almost stepped on a large fist sized (5 inch) toad in our bathroom - which we removed using wastebaskets. (The managers response via email: “The "toad" I can't be held responsible for a toad entering your guest room, it is Florida and there are lizard, snakes, frogs, toads, bugs and alligators. I'm glad we had 2 waist can so you could catch and release the toad, I'm sure it was just as traumatized as you were.”). Though the office staff was friendly, housekeeping was non-existent for us during our 3 night stay despite specifically asking for our room to be cleaned multiple times, resulting in our having to go to the office to exchange towels, get coffee packets, empty our own trash, etc. We were finally offered housekeeping service at 6:30pm on our last evening at the hotel, which we declined as we wanted to pack for an early departure. After multiple inquires the manager did consent to reduce our $475 room rate by $30 – so slightly over 6% - which was not satisfactory considering the issues we encountered. Their cancellation policy (from bottom of confirmation after check-in)- “One night stay plus tax will be processed 72 hours prior to check in time and is non-refundable. If canceled outside of the 72 hours, a refund of 1-night plus tax, less a processing fee of $25.00 will be refunded. Cancellation Policy after January 15, 2018 or holidays are as follows: 14 days prior to 3 pm of the check in date for a refund of your 1-night plus tax less a processing fee of $25.00. After initial check-in, if a guest wishes to check out earlier then the original check out date, the guest may be held responsible for the full balance of the reservation if the room is not resold for the remainder of said reservation”. - highly discouraged us from leaving earlier than...

I knew going in it wasn't going to be a 5-star experience. Let's just say I can barely give a 1 star. If you're looking to just sleep here its ok but it's not the cleanliest. If you can find an actual place to park in the lot after 8pm you'll be lucky. (one person that is living there is taking up 2 sometimes 3 Parking spots). Don't stay in room 112... the Maintenace person lives, yes lives in the room next door and has some dogs. The lock on the apartment door is questionable. The bathroom sliding door doesn't close all the way, a good 2 inches left open no matter how hard we tried to close it. The bedding is from like the 60's and was gross with holes. The air conditioner will kick on and off all night and no matter if you want it cooler it reads 66 but in no way was that cool. The receptacles are to lose and won't hold in your chargers. They did provide a power strip for the coffee pot and microwave that sits on the table, so we used that for all our charging things, and held it in place with the side table. Bring a sound machine to block out the rude people that live there with their dogs and yell in the middle of the night for then to "get back here" right outside your door and also have their tv up loud enough to hear over said sound machine all night. The place was overbooked when got there and watched 2 people be turned away because of this. The lady checking us in told us we weren't turned away because we were booked in Sept., and we booked to stay the week. Also, if you call and actually get someone on the line, that person does not communicate with the person that actually runs the place so even if you checked on your reservation the lady that is works there will never know that you talked to the owner. And if you leave a message hoping to hear back you will be waiting forever. |There are way better places to stay in the area I wound stay away from this one. We were lucky to have family close by who we borrowed blankets, pillowcases and towels from. If I had the funds to leave that place and find somewhere better, I would have just thrown away the $800 we already spent ti stay there but we didn't, so we were stuck. I will do better research next time and not look at price and fake pictures from just one source....