Move Over Chase Suites
Written: Jul 05 '06 (Updated Sep 28 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Location, cleanliness, large suites
Cons: hmmmmmmm
The Bottom Line: Plan it, do it.
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| PPerky1954's Full Review: Quality Suites Oceanfront |
Florida's friendliest Beach Hotel - you won't want to leave our desirable vacation get away! That is the logo for Quality Suites Oceanfront in Jacksonville Beach. So, is this true?
This is our experience:
My yearly vacation itinerary included rolling over to Jacksonville Beach to visit my grandmother’s grave and see her old homestead. I checked the internet to find a hotel that was on the beach close to my grandmother’s old home. The closest hotel was the Quality Suites Oceanfront so I checked out their website (www.qualitysuitesjacksonvillebeach.com) to get their room rates and telephone number so I could call them to make reservations.
Their website indicated that all the suites had an oceanfront view (nice) and private balconies (double nice). The least expensive room they had was either two queen beds or one king size bed for $199. I sort of choked because I did not want to pay that much, but I really had a hankering to be within walking distance to my grandmother’s old home.
Then I noticed that Quality Suites offered a discount to senior citizens. Their definition of senior citizen is anyone over the age of 50. YEAH! Since I barely, oh so barely (All right, maybe a bit more than barely) made it over this milestone, I am qualified for the discount. Woo-hooo. $179 for the room. I also had a travel redemption voucher for $100 on my next hotel stay, that cuts the room rate down to $79 - THAT I can handle.
I call to reserve a room. The young lady who answered the phone was pleasant, made the reservation quickly, and gave me a confirmation number. They also sent me a confirmation email letter which I printed out and jammed into my purse.
Check In
Quality Suites Oceanfront is on 1st Street, which runs right along the beautiful, sandy beaches of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. There is plenty of parking in the front of the hotel - and there were several handicap parking spaces. The parking lot was clean and the outside of the hotel looked well maintained. They say check-in time is 3 p.m. but we arrived a bit early - around twoish.
When we went inside, the front desk was on the left and there was a large lobby with a small dining area on the right. It looked to be the breakfast buffet area. Clean and neat it was. Two young ladies were working the desk, college student looking kids. I approached them and happily said “We have reservations” and gave one of the girls my name.
She happily responded “You are not on our computer as having reservations.”
So I happily reach into my purse and whipped out the confirmation email I had printed out.
She happily gave it to the 2nd young lady working the desk, who also looked and could not find the reservation.
They smiled very nicely as they called in the supervisor, who happily found my reservation and gave us a room on the 6th floor. The top floor. Woo-hoo - - we get a great view of the Atlantic ocean!
We found out later that we also had a GREAT view of soccer playing men on the beach - - some overseas team was here for a soccer tournament and the team was staying at OUR hotel. Oh yes! Great view!
Wait a minute . . . I’m getting off of the subject here . . . So sorry, just . . . those pictures in me brain . . . (Heyyyy, looking does not hurt, right?) Uhhh, oh yeah, the hotel.
There were several luggage dollies by the front door and yes, we were allowed to use one ourselves, did not have to use the bellhop.
In the back of the lobby was a door leading to a very delightful looking patio, with tables and chairs for those folks who like to eat outside in the ocean breeze.
You could not see the ocean when you sit on the patio because there was a small sand dune between the hotel and the ocean, but you could hear the roar of the waves and breathe the clean ocean air blowing in off of the water. A wooden walkway goes from the patio, over the sand dune and out to the sandy beach. To the side of the patio was a square bench with a faucet and hose that can be used to rinse the sand off of your feet before entering back into the lobby. I liked that they had a bench next to the faucet.
There were two elevators in the lobby, one on each side of the hotel. So whatever room you get, there is an elevator nearby to carry you up and down, up and down, up and down (we did a lot of elevator riding).
A hallway across from the desk led back to large conference rooms and the lobby restrooms. Pass all those rooms (which we did because we had no need to confer with anyone) and you end up at a door which leads outside to a swimming pool and hot tub. Ah ha, our place found at last.
Swimming Pool
The swimming pool was rather small and the deepest end was, like, five feet deep. Fine with me, Get Smarty can’t drown me here. The pool was completely fenced in, the only entrance was from the door I mentioned above. This made the pool private for guests only. The hot tub was next to the pool over by the corner. There were lots of lounges, chairs and tables around the pool
.
The first time we went to the pool it was over run by soccer players and a couple of families with children. Get Smarty was shy about hopping into the pool with all those fellows around (yes it was her not me) so we made our way out to the beach.
We later went to the pool area and found it empty. No crumb crunchers, no soccer players, just an empty bubbling hot tub and refreshing cool pool, inviting us to please jump in. We accepted its invitation.
Room
What a sweet suite! Forget the rest of the vacation….I jes wanna stay heah.
When you open the door, you walk into a living area with a sofa (which lets out into a bed), a coffee table, an end table with a lamp on it, a desk, a television, a telephone, a mirror on the wall, and a beautiful ceiling fan. The walls were painted earth tones - one wall sort of rust colored and the other walls were like a sun burnt orange. It was tastefully decorated and very clean.
A hallway led from the living area, past the bathroom into the bedroom area. The bedroom had a king size bed, end tables with lamps, a large dresser with 4 deep drawers, another smaller dresser with 2 drawers and the television on top of it, a small suitcase stand, and a large beautiful armoire (wouldn‘t fit inside my suitcase). It also had a big ceiling fan overhanging the bed.
The kitchen area consisted of a counter with a small sink in it, a microwave oven underneath the counter, a small refrigerator (with drinks and bottled water inside) and several overhead cabinets with dishes in them. On the counter was a small coffee maker, a tray with coffee cups, drinking glasses, and cream and sugar packets. An ice bucket was also on the counter next to a large basket FULL of goodies (candy, chips, crackers, and cookies - egads, hide them!). The goodies were actually reasonably priced - like a dollar per snack.
Cold Air Conditioning . . . a nice welcome from hot fun in the sun.
All rooms are no smoking rooms. The rooms have 2 chairs and a table with an ashtray on the balcony. They request their smoking guests to please smoke on the balconies only.
Oh the luxury of being an old person, I get the king size bed - which, by the way, looks out of the sliding glass doors, over the balcony into the wild blue sea, watching the fishing boats way off in the distance and the sea gulls searching for morsels along the coast, hearing the waves lap against the shore, and . . . Well, you get the idea. The king bed was like, totally comfortable. Mattresses felt like new ones.
Get Smarty over there gets the pull out sofa in the living area, where she can see the tasteful décor of the room (hehe) and pick out what channels she wants to watch on her own private television (mwahaha).
The bathroom was just regular, tub/shower, sink, toilet. It was clean and had plenty of thick towels, shampoo and conditioner. Everything in good working order, no complaints here.
Beach
The beach could not have been more peaceful and beautiful. It was not overly crowded, only a few families staked out side the hotel area - well, they were not really staked out there, their giant umbrellas were and they were relaxing underneath them. A few people walking through the breakers and continuing on their journey down the coast, and life guards galore.
The Red Cross lifeguard building is directly next to the Quality Suites Oceanfront, so lifeguards were mingling around it and every few hundred feet along the beach was one of those tall life guard chairs with a lifeguard stationed in it, watching the swimmers, blowing whistles at those who get too far out in the ocean.
One thing I noted about Jacksonville Beach that is totally different from the Gulf Coast beaches - quietness. There were NO motorized boats and no jet skis skimming across the water. The only boat I saw was a kayak, with a lone gal paddling it through the surf. The Gulf Coast has like, 50 million Jet Ski Rental places all along the beach and the noise of those jet skis blots out the sounds of nature there. But at Jacksonville Beach, as far as me little eye could see along the beaches, no motorized boats. Waaaaay off on the horizon I could see fishing boats, but could not hear them at all. Loved it. Truly. Madly. Deeply.
Eats
Well, since we were only here one night (sadly), the only food we actually ate at the hotel was their free HOT breakfast. It was delicious. Eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, potatoes, muffins, continental stuff, coffee, juice, just too much food to name. It was all very fresh and good. The breakfast lady hovered over the buffet and any time some food item was getting low, she dashed into the back and came out with fresh whatever it was that was low.
I understand that each week night between 6 and 8 they have a managers reception thingy. I know they serve free drinks to their guests, but since I didn’t go I was not sure about the food. I think she said something like snack foods, finger sandwiches, that sort of stuff. We didn’t go because we were doing something even more fun, but more about that later.
Directly across the street (on the other side of 1st Street) is a local bar and grille. They, like almost every restaurant I saw at Jacksonville Beach, had an outside patio and tables/chairs. It was bright and cheery at night because it has such colorful lights. Looked like a neat place to go if you are over 21, but since one of us was not yet 21 we did not go over there.
The hotel is only 3 blocks from downtown Jacksonville Beach. Easily within walking distance. There are tons of shops and several local cafés downtown. The downtown area is small and quaint. It is not much different than I remembered it from 39 years ago. The streets are narrow but parking is abundant, so we just found a shady parking place and walked the downtown area to do our swimsuit shopping.
I really wanted to stay longer to try out some of these neat looking eateries, but, alas, we had an agenda to adhere to.
Other Amenities
They had a gift shop, a game room, high speed internet access, laundry facilities, and hotel security folks. Regular stuff. I did not see a gym . . . DRAT . . . I was planning on crunching some iron . . . . . Har har har, that is a joke. I was on vacation yall. I only crunch iron, like, at home . . . . . in my dreams.
A Note That Has Nothing To Do With the Hotel
So if you are reading about the hotel and do not want to hear about people you do not even know, you can skip this part of the review. BUT, if you are a regular epinionite you might find this part a wee bit interesting.
One of the most fun parts of our journey to Jacksonville was during the evening when we skipped the Manager’s Reception. We hopped in our vehicular and drove back to the giant city of Jacksonville. The purpose of this backward trek was to meet up with and annoy one of our own - who I had heard was spending his summer in Jacksonville working out his college internship. Poor, poor Nikefreak had no clue what he was getting into when he actually agreed to meet us at Chili’s in Jacksonville for supper.
Not only did we wind up at the wrong Chili’s and make him have to drive across town to find us, but he had to fend off the stars that gathered and shot out of my 16 year old niece’s eyes when she saw him. He was adorable and he made me laugh as usual. It was so much fun getting to meet him in person and talking about all of yall…..er…..I mean - uh, talking about Epinions and the great review site that it is. It was sad to say goodbye to my friend Micah (the niece was even more sad than I), so after peeling her away from his side and stuffing her back into the vehicle, we headed back out to the beach for our after dinner swim.
Yes, we ate and then swam and we are still alive to talk about it.
Checkout
Checkout time is noon, and it was much easier than our check-in. We used one of their dollies to tote our luggage out to the car. We turned in our keys and I signed the statement and we were off. Boo hooo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. (Can you guess I did not want to leave?) Boo hoo. So yes, their logo was right, I did not want to leave their desirable vacation getaway.
Final Thoughts
This hotel has booted Chase Suites out of First Place on my list of favorite hotels. It was clean, the food was great, the people were nice, the parking was ample, it was totally handicapped accessible, the beach was a dream, and the location was easy to find and close (but not too close) to downtown Jacksonville Beach.
The only bad thing that happened was that while hunting my grandmother’s old home, I went to 111 7th avenue south and immediately began boring Get Smarty with tales of days gone by at this house. I took tons of photos of the remodeled house and then sneaked through the gate, up onto their porch to photograph the porch and around the corner of the house. I was so proud that I had all these photos to show my siblings.
Well, yall, it was the wrong house. My grandmother lived at 111 7th avenue NORTH.
So, now I must go back. I must get photos of the correct address. Too bad.
I guess I gotta call Quality Suites Oceanfront again, book another room. This time I think it is going to take several days to get proper photos of the correct house. Right?
Thank yall for reading.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
PPerky1954
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Member: Patricia
Location: sometimes FL, sometimes AL
Reviews written: 54
Trusted by: 236 members
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