Haley's at Anna Maria Island Inn

First impressions are important. Hotel owners know that. And yet Hayley's did nothing to make a good first impression. After we booked (via a platform), we tried to get in touch with the hotel to ask about bike rentals, laundry facilities and checking in times. We got no responses and ended up asking the platform we booked through to make sure the place even existed! The link in the email confirmation that was supposed to give us an access code didn't work, and more emails to the hotel were ignored. When we arrived from Tampa Airport around 10pm we were therefore not entirely surprised but were very disappointed to find the hotel in darkness, no staff to check us in and a small piece of paper pinned to the door with a phone number to call. We had to knock on the door of some neighbours to borrow their phone as ours wouldn't connect to the number and even then it took a long time for the person who picked up to be persuaded that we were legitimate guests and that she could provide a door code to us. Not the welcome we expected, given the price we paid. From there it was basically just "meh" -- the room is lit with flourescent light so has little atmosphere, the bathroom was miniscule, the pool was supposed to be open 8am-8pm and often wasn't unlocked until 10am or we found someone to unlock it for us.

Our room was very clean, and very close to the beach access location. Probably better than what you'd expect for a motel. Having a pool was definitely a plus. Overall, I would say a successful stay; however, I called to ask some questions about whether or beach chairs were provided or beach towels. I never got a call back so we ended up renting and spending over 100.00 for these items only to find out that they were available when we got there. Hopefully this will help someone else save some $. The housekeeping services were great. Very friendly.