Sandcastle Resort On The Beach — Hotel in Virginia Beach

I really wanted to rate my most recent stay lower. But after some thought, 3 stars seems fair.

We recently stayed for 4 nights, and it was our 2nd stay with the hotel. Unfortunately it will be our last. Nothing about our stay was terrible, but nothing was great.

I'll start with the good. The staff was nice. Everyone at the desk was friendly and helpful. The hotel has an attached parking garage, which is a very convenient feature. They do offer hot breakfast with decent options. And the convenience store located on the ground floor, is a very helpful amenity as well. Not only for food and supplies, but also for tourist attractions like bike rentals. The hotel is located right at the pier, central to most restaurants and shopping. It has oceanfront balconies if you opt for the "full ocean view" rooms. Although the privacy is lacking and the balconies are only furnished with plastic lawn furniture. Again, not the end of the world, but for the price I’d expect better.

My biggest issue with this hotel is that it seems like a place that was remodeled and was nice, but was then immediately handed over to people who neglected it and allowed it to fall into disrepair. It just seems run by people who simply don't care.

The room was nice enough. It was entirely covered in hard flooring, which was annoying at first. But after a few days of walking in with sandy feet, I can understand it from a cleaning and efficiency standpoint. The AC always worked well and the room had all of the expected amenities. The biggest issues were maintenance and appearance being neglected. There were giant cracks in the sheetrock surrounding a structural beam. The hanging light fixture attached to the beam was falling out of the ceiling. The faucet fixture was partially detached from the sink but still operated fine. The sink mirror was on the verge of falling off the wall, and the glass doors to get into the shower were falling off the tracks and sticking constantly. Again, nothing that was a deal breaker, but the overall theme of neglect carried through the entire hotel. For $300+/night summer rate, I would expect basic cleanliness and upkeep to be better.

The theme of neglect carried outside of the room. Every day, at least one elevator was out of service. Which was better than our last stay, when both elevators were out of service the entire time. One elevator was completely missing all the decorative covers over the ceiling lighting. Leaving exposed bulbs and wiring. That same elevator had a giant spot of adhesive left behind from a sign that was removed and never cleaned. Another paper sign was left up but had information crossed off with Sharpie.

Everywhere you look, there's a wall with damage to sheetrock where a sign was ripped off and never repaired. Or areas in need of repainting. Old signs about mandatory masks are left up all over the building, yet none of the staff are masked. The hallways smell and are always dirty, and are not air conditioned. Every single ice machine was broken or out of service. I tried every floor with no luck. The breakfast area seemed like it was half used for storage of old blinds and chairs. The AC unit in the laundry room was installed on the wall completely crooked with the plumbing just haphazardly installed into the wall. There was also multiple new beds still wrapped in plastic just thrown into the guest waiting area in the lobby for storage.

Again, nothing was TERRIBLE, but for the money I would expect better. Our first stay in 2019 was mostly positive. I think your experience can differ based on the room you get. We booked the same class of room this time and had a worse experience and a worse room. I'd like to hope maybe short staffing is to blame. But charging these prices for that experience is a little unacceptable. We'll be taking our business elsewhere in the future.

The fact that the hotel has responded to multiple Google reviews, both positive and negative, with the same bland, and corporate response says all you need to know. They simply don't care. We'll try our...

So let me start by saying that I was going to leave a 2 star review until tonight. Upon arrival, it seemed like it was a nice place! The front desk staff were really friendly and helpful. I saw a guy vacuuming the rugs by the elevators. I thought to myself, this seems promising! Also for $400 a night, I figured it would be pretty decent! I was wrong. We got into our room and it was dark and just outdated, which we can handle. The photos online are deceiving but we figured it’s not the worst that could happen. Wrong. The room was just dirty. We lifted the sheets to check the beds (a routine when we stay at a hotel) and the protectors were all torn up and the mattresses were dirty. The sheets and blankets seemed clean though. The floors were gross. The hallway was gross. We watched the housekeeping go in and out of rooms in just a few minutes. I own a cleaning company and know that a room can not be turned that quickly. They’re likely just stripping and remaking the beds and doing a quick wipe down. The hallways weren’t cleaned once in the 3 days we were there. We literally watched 2 roaches go behind the trash can in the hallway by the elevator 🤢 Everything is just dirty. The location is the best part of this motel (that is the vibe the rooms give is of a motel, not a hotel.) The staff is nice and somewhat helpful. We had to ask about 5 times for washcloths. And then were told they ran out… I don’t think I’ve ever heard that and we travel quite a bit. I also never leave a bad review unless it’s truly warranted. And this one was. The breakfast… oh the breakfast. I wouldn’t even call it a breakfast. There was a lot of bread. Bagels and bagged up pieces of bread. Bagged up folded pre cooked eggs that you microwave. Yep you read that right. Bagged up burritos of some sort. Maybe 1 or 2 kinds of cereal. Coffee machine was broken. People were LIVID over the breakfast. They may as well not include breakfast. Our final night there, the guests above us were banging for HOURS. I had to call multiple times over the course of a few hours and it took until almost 1 am for them to finally “check it out.” If they ever did. The staff were great outside of that issue. But the walls and floors are paper thin. Now fast forward to tonight. We checked out this morning. We get home and notice a few strange charges on my wife’s credit card. We used this card to book the hotel room. The one and only time she has used this card online. She hasn’t used this card in months. Sure enough the card was somehow hacked through their site and had to be disabled. Multiple charges the day we checked out. That is why I dropped my 2 stars to 1. This place could be great. It is a prime location. The staff is pleasant. But the hotel itself is just disgusting and very misleading. Save yourself a headache and book elsewhere. I wish we had. I wish I had taken photos but we tried to spend as little time in the hotel as possible. I am regretting not taking them but if you don’t believe me.. spend $800 like we did and see for yourself. And be quite disappointed like we were. The only photo I got was of the empty containers in the sad...

I only gave this two stars instead of one as the bed was comfortable and we slept well. That was the only thing that went right. First of all, I booked this hotel for one reason, it was close to the pier and had a roll in shower. My fiancée is in a wheelchair and needed this. I booked it two months in advance. I also confirmed about a week and a half in advance by calling that I had the roll in shower room booked. I booked this on the hotel's own web site. Magically when I arrived and got my room key, much to my shock it was a narrow tub/shower with very high sides. Apparently, this hotel only has one room with the roll in shower. The desk clerk and supervisor tried to find another room for me there with a lower tub, but that was taken as well. As this is a difficult room type to find at the last minute, I stuck with what we had as the doors were wider as we needed. They also stated that it did not say on the computer that I had a roll in shower room. Which means one of two things, system error or worse, they bumped me out the room for someone else. The floor in the room didn’t look like it had been freshly cleaned. The coffee maker in the room was disgusting and had not been cleaned. The balcony was dirty and the chairs were so dirty I probably could have wrote “wash me” on them. The pool area is completely inaccessible to someone handicapped as there are about 5-6 stairs leading up to it. No jacuzzi (it’s a kid pool in the picture). No real breakfast other than bagels, cereal, and juice. I went to the pool at 10 am when it opened, the walking area had sand all over it. No shower in pool area to wash sand off from the beach. The front desk clerks were nice and I could tell she felt bad about us not having the room we booked, but what could she do. I asked for a shower chair, told me they would get me one. They were out of those as well. They gave us a bedside handicapped toilet to stick in the tub sideways. The elevators were scary as they seemed to move horror movie fast. I asked to speak with the manager as I was very upset about the room situation after I put my luggage in the room. He treated me like I was lying and told me to email him the proof that we booked the roll-in shower room. Three days later, no response from him. For almost $400 for my one night, I was very disappointed. This is NO RESORT. They charge a resort fee for your stay, but why when you have to go downstairs for everything as the phone didn’t work. If you are handicapped, DO NOT STAY HERE!!! They allowed me to stay an extra hour so I could go eat somewhere and then pack my things, which is why...