Sleep Inn near Bush Gardens – USF

Horrible Service from the front desk to the scent of the room. I would never go back.

The Continental breakfast was a good spread that actually had meat. They had Otis spunkenmeyer muffins and danishes. The room I had was 313, I thought it 2as beautiful and up to date. The bathroom was nice but the toilet sat kinda low; glad I’m not a dude if you catch my drift lol got the room through
got a 20% discount (
happened to be running some special) the room was $ 83.99 with tax for 2 adults. Not bad considering I hit a Caribbean party, got some good sleep, got some good continental eats, then was on my way to Fort Lauderdale to then head to st thomas. I would stay there again.

We messed up our reservation and Melissa Bathe went out of her way to fix it for us. I hope Sleep Inn knows what a great manager they have. The next morning she was walking around checking on guest at breakfast, then help us with bush gardens. We are down from RI and on our way back she really made it a great start to the journey home! If you ever have an issue here just ask for Melissa!

Update: we were offered a free night’s stay with complimentary upgrade on behalf of the manager. Good looking out, sleep inn.

I’m not sure why all the one star reviews because this was a great mid-​range hotel and looked to be reasonably new. Clean, comfortable and quiet and just off Interstate 75 with easy access. The front desk staff was very friendly and accommodating. A Bob Evans restaurant is next door and other major restaurants are a short drive away. Although I used neither, the hotel has large breakfast area and a nice pool. Free wi-​fi is available and was easy to access. «Near Busch Gardens» might be stretching things just a little… it’s still about a 15 minute drive to the park but if you don’t mind staying slightly off the beaten path it’s an easy drive to get there. The University of South Florida campus and the science museum is also just a short drive away. Other Tampa/​St. Petersburg area attractions are easily accessible via the interstate. I had a pleasant 2 day stay and would certainly stay at this hotel again.

I just read through these reviews and I’m convinced they are for another Sleep Inn in Tampa. This is our second time staying at this hotel and we have been pleasantly surprised both times we have stayed here. The rooms are clean and well kept. The staff is friendly and helpful and go the extra mile to make guests feel welcome. I even like the free breakfast! Their sausage gravy is delicious (one tip, warm up the biscuits in the microwave to make them fluffy:) and so is their Belgian waffle. Plenty of cold foods and instant breakfast cereals.
The best part of this hotel is the sweet and helpful staff. From the manager Melissa Bathe to the ladies that clean the rooms, I have never been at a hotel where every employee is eager to help. It is a sign of good management when the staff is as willing to help as the manager! We will be continuing to stay there when we go to Shriner’s hospital for followup care!

Ok, I travel regularly and I’ve stayed in everything from $ 39/​night to $ 390/​night. But, I try to be fair and I am attending an event near USF and my room was paid for by someone else.
At first I was open to giving the Sleep Inn 3 stars… that is, until I found someone’s shorts and underwear hanging on the back of the bathroom door!!! I posted a picture, because this was a FIRST!
Then I started looking around since it was obvious that housekeeping was not paying attention. I noticed that the vacuuming wasn’t very complete. Also, the desk chair had some kind of gray/​brown residue on the arm.
The sheets didn’t look knew and had a small stain, but they were clean. Still, I opened the pillows and looked at the mattresses to check for bed bugs. All clear.
The AC unit had no wall control, but work dwell and was quiet.
The TV sound was distorted, but intelligible.
All in all, you don’t get the «Ahhh, I can relax her» feeling, but I should be able to sleep… because I’m exhausted. BUT, I can’t forgive the underwear and shorts. Hanging in my bathroom!
ONE STAR.
UPDATE: 11:27PM– phone rings for no reason. Once.

I’ll start with the positives — generally clean rooms, easy check in/​out, and extra toilettes (ie toothbrush, soaps/​towels when we asked). Neural comments — they are not a full service hotel, so when we wanted anything after 10pm we needed to go to the front desk ourselves. Complimentary breakfast was bread, bagels, cereal, yogurt, bananas, coffee & juice. Negatives — mattresses were real soft, paper thin walls, hallways not the cleanest, further from USF and Busch gardens then expected, disinterested/​dismissive staff. Not worth the price, should be more like $ 60 a night no
more.

Where to begin? Should be renamed the no sleep inn. Paper thin walls and outmoded décor. Extremely limited breakfast buffet — no protien; carbs only. But the best was the vibrating air handler which woke me & my wife (an unusually heavy sleeper) up at 4am because it sounded uncannily like an alarm! I assumed it was initially someone else’s alarm they stupidly left on, but it persisted & wouldn’t let us go back to sleep. I finally recorded it to play back to the desk clerk.
It was pretty clear the place has a ‘no refund’ policy as the desk clerk said «that’s a new one», and «I’ll tell the owner.». I also contacted sleep inn’s twitter customer service experts who couldn’t be bothered to respond. So, they get an honest review since the only service to be had evidently is lip service. Consider yourself warned, and beware.

Do I really have to give one star? Can’t I give them a ½ star? That would be being generous. Now let me start off by saying that I’m not one that usually complains about things, but I am beyond annoyed about my stay at this hotel.
We got to the hotel around 6pm and checked in. They put us in a room right next to the ice machine, so, I went and asked to be moved to a different room. Hubby checked out the room as I went and did that, and noticed that there was food left in the fridge. Ugh.
So we get moved and go to our new room. Our new room has food in the fridge. The toilet wobbled when you sat on it. I thought, ugh, what the hell, it’s not *that* bad, so we just threw the food away and dealt with the toilet.
We left the room around 1pm the next day after having breakfast at the hotel. The area they serve breakfast in is way too small to accommodate all of their guests and there was a line 8 deep for the waffle maker.
Anyways, we took off our «do not disturb» sign when we left and noticed the people were on our floor cleaning. We stopped at the front desk on the way out and told them that we needed to have our room cleaned and the girl assured me that as long as it didn’t have a do not disturb sign up, it would be cleaned.
We arrived back to the hotel at 10pm, to a room that hadn’t been touched. I called the front desk and they stated that they could bring me up fresh towels and sheets so I could make my own bed. Um, no? That’s what I’m paying $ 80 a night for! So I handed my hubby the phone, and after talking to the front desk, we had to move all of our stuff to a new room.
So, we get to the new room and to our surprise (please note the sarcasm) there is food left in the fridge. It was late, so we just got settled and went to bed.
The next day, the cleaning people totally went by our room, so my husband went out into the hallway to get them to come clean. So in they come and we are in the room. Please, if you don’t want to know how well, or in this case, not so well, the cleaning staff at a hotel cleans your room, don’t stay in there while they do it. The cleaning lady cleaned our toilet (let me remind you she had no gloves or anything on) and then proceeded to change our bed sheets. REALLY? Ugh.
So we leave for the day, come back and go to bed. I’m up at 5am to go to the bathroom and I look at the wall and there staring back at me is a roach. Not one of those outside roaches that are huge, it’s one of the small, brown, German cockroaches. Ugh. I kill it and wake up hubby cuz I’m so grossed out. We looked at another wall, and there goes another one climbing up. Hubby kills it and leaves the bug gut remainders on the wall.
I tell the front desk all of the happening, and they «adjusted» my bill for our troubles. They gave me $ 10 off a night, for a whopping grand total of $ 30.
We check out, I get in the car and I call the corporate office. I talked to some lady that seemed very disinterested in my complaint, but she gave me a reference number and stated that someone would call me within 72 hours to resolve my issue. This was about oh… 94 hours ago now and I haven’t heard from anyone. I will be calling back on Monday for sure.
I’m really disappointed, cuz we stayed at a Sleep Inn when we went to Asheville and we loved it! Don’t get me wrong, the staff at this hotel is nice enough, but they just don’t go that extra mile to make you feel welcome.
We’ve stayed at the Fairfield Inn which is right next door and I’d suggest you do the same if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods.