This past week my family and I took a nine hour trip to Beaufort, SC. Beaufort is a very close town to Parris Island, SC where my stepson, Billy, graduated from the Marines boot camp. I made our hotel reservations a couple of months early to insure that we would have somewhere to stay when we got there. While I wouldn’t say my experience was horrible I still can’t say it was good.

Check In:

There were no problems checking in. I had made my reservations early and my credit card had already been charged. All I had to do was show the lady at the front desk the email verifying that the room had already been paid for. We were given 2 electronic keys to open our room. There was no line at the front desk and this experience was positive. The lobby looked nice and so far all was good.

The Price:

Our price was $92.99 per night.

The Room:

We walked into the room and the air conditioner was already on. The room was nice and cool. It looked nice and clean. There were two queen size beds, an alarm clock, iron with ironing board, a coffee maker, a small refrigerator and a microwave. There is a dataport in each room. There was a very small bathroom counter and a stand up shower.

I was really upset that there was no bath tub. When I go on vacation I love to fill the tub up and take a relaxing bubble bath. The shower had a see through glass door on it. So when I was in the shower my kids had to wait until I got out until they could use the bathroom. The day I just wanted to shave my legs it would have been so nice to have a tub to sit on the side of. The water pressure was horrible. It came out in a slow trickle. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get all of the shampoo out of my hair.

The bathroom door was a door that slides across. It was very hard to shut and there was no lock on it. That isn’t much fun when you have a 3 year old that might decide at anytime he would like to come into the bathroom. There were huge black marks on the bathroom door that I have no idea how they got there.

There was a small table near the air conditioner. I moved it out to see if there was a plug behind it. I was not pleased to find a couple of dead bugs sitting there. There was a nice desk area where I could do my writing. There was a 25" television on the desk also. We had cable with two movie channels.

The Pool and Hot Tub:

One of the reasons I picked this hotel was because it not only had a swimming pool, but a hot tub as well. I thought that would be relaxing for my husband and I to sit in. The first evening we got all dressed to go to the pool. What a shock when we looked out and there was no water in the pool. That was a huge disappointment. We checked with the front desk and she told us it was closed for maintenance and would be filled up first thing in the morning.

She did offer that we could go a couple of miles down the street to the Comfort Inn and use their pool. Both hotels had the same owner so that would be no problem. So we got in the car to head down for the other pool. The indoor pool was open for us to use. The water looked terrible though. The kids begged to swim so we stayed. It wasn’t much fun though because the water was so funky.

The next evening we checked to see if the water had been put in the pool at our hotel. There was no water added until two days later. So we only got use of the pool one night out of four nights of staying. What a disappointment to come all this way and not have a pool that was open.

The evening we did get to swim was fun though. The pool only went to 4 ˝ feet. The water was very clean since it had just been filled up. It was an average size pool with enough room for everyone to swim. There were lawn chairs all around. The hot tub looked disgusting. The water was green so my husband and I never did get a chance to relax in a hot tub.

Housekeeping:

The ladies who cleaned the rooms were very nice. They stocked us up with towels and made the beds. The did a nice job straightening up the rooms. We had left our portable DVD player in the room with some DVDs and CDs. Everything remained safe and secure inside our room.

Some of the towels that we got had holes in them. The towels were small and very thin. I think they should throw out the towels that have holes in them and get some thicker towels. You expect something nice when you go on vacation and the towels had a lot to be desired.

The Continental Breakfast:

This was served every morning in the lobby from 6:30-9:30 am. They served doughnuts, waffles, muffins, cereals and fruit. They had orange juice, milk and coffee to drink. On the morning of family day for the Marines we went down to the lobby area at 9:00 am. There was nothing left so we headed out that morning with empty stomachs, which isn’t much fun when you have kids. They should have planned better to make sure they had enough food for all of the guests.

Location:

Sleep Inn is located at 2523 Boundary Street in Beaufort, SC. This is about five miles from Parris Island, where the Marines graduate from boot camp. It is three miles from downtown Beaufort and 65 miles from Savannah International Airport.

The hotel is located on a main road with several eating places close by: Wendy’s, McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC, Captain D’s and Pizza Hut. There is also a Kmart and Walmart very close by. There is a BP gas station within walking distance of the hotel. That is convenient if you need to buy snacks or drinks and just want to walk to get them.

Misc. Things:

There is a laundry room with one washer and dryer located on the third floor. The washer costs $1.75 per load and the dryer is $1.50 per load. They sell detergent in the laundry room and there is a table to fold the clothes on. This was a very nice feature of the hotel. I was able to keep up with our laundry and not bring home so much dirty clothes to wash. The hotel is three stories. You could either take the elevator or steps up to the laundry room.

The first time I was headed to wash clothes I asked the lady at the front desk where on the third floor it was located. She told me that they did not offer any type of laundry room. I knew that I had read about it in the booklet in the room. She acted like I was crazy. At my insistence she called someone to see if there was a laundry room. She told me that it was on the third floor, but she didn’t know where. What a big help she was. I was irritated that they had someone so clueless working the front desk.

One night a friend of mine tried to call me several times. The phone would just ring and ring. It was the same night I had the incident with the clueless front desk lady. It seems she didn’t do any better answering the phones than she did knowing what was located in the hotel.

Then when I went to checkout it was the same lady. She insisted that I had not already paid for my hotel and that she needed my credit card to charge me. My credit card was charged when I booked the hotel. Finally she quit arguing with me when she realized her computer showed a zero balance. This was the same lady who didn’t know about the laundry and the one who didn’t answer the phones.

Local calls are free and calls that I charged to my calling card were free. That was nice also. I have stayed in places before that have charged .50 per phone call even if it was charged to a calling card or a local call.

To get in the side door of the hotel you needed your electronic key. It was very hard to get the door opened. We stood out there and tried over and over just to get in. We saw other guests having the same trouble that we did. It was very frustrating several times. The beds were comfortable and we did sleep very well during the trip.

On each floor there are vending machines and an ice machine. We used the ice machine several times for drinks that we had in the room. They have an exercise room located near the pool. Guests can get a free newspaper each day. The refrigerator in our room was set to extremely cold. We put drinks in there and it was so cold that our drinks froze. That was irritating too.

Would I stay there again?

No, I wouldn’t. There were too many things that I didn’t like such as the pool being closed, finding the bugs in the room, holes in the towels, the clueless front desk lady, the problems with the card not letting us in, running out of breakfast too early and the bathroom situation. I know there are worse places around, but I don’t feel I got my money's worth for the time I stayed there. I feel like I should be refunded something for all of the problems I did have, but I know that will never happen.

This review is apart of The Great Hotel Write-Off 2004. You can add your review by going to http://www.angelfire.com/trek/greathotel2004/index.html

Recommended: No