My husband, 6 year old and I spent a week here in July. I selected it based on the reviews on this site and it lived up to my expectations. It isn't fancy but it is clean, the rooms are good-sized and the price is so right for a family on a budget. Did I mention it was clean?! It's clean! I am a runner and ran the beach a few days during the week. In those mornings I did get to see dolphins swimming very near to shore. The ocean is calm and clear and the beach is huge with plenty of room to walk or to spread out and relax for the day.

There are shops and restaurants around and the hotel has good coupons around for discounts to most. Try Crabby Bill's if you like seafood. That place is fantastic!

We tried The Great Explorations Museum in downtown St Pete which is for little ones. Our daughter had a blast on one of the rainy mornings.

There was painting going on while we there and they do keep up with things. I would recommend this hotel to anyone wanting an economical vacation to a beautiful beach.

We stayed at the Plaza Beach Hotel on St Pete Beach from July.28 -Aug.4.2008. This was probably one of our top three Best Vacations ever, everyone had some much fun and nobody wanted to leave. This was the first time we stayed on the west coast of Florida, normally our family stays in Daytona Beach. We chose Plaza Beach Resort because we were looking for a small beach resort with a good location to activities and restaurants. We were not disappointed. Plaza Beach is located next to a shopping center with a grocery store, lots of shopping and many restaurants. The rooms are spacious and clean, our room was a Delluxe Efficiency and the setup is a large apartment room with a kitchen, two beds and a sleeper sofa. You also have a large T.V and free DVD’s in the office. Location was perfect with the property being directly on the beach which we really enjoyed. However we did a lot of sightseeing: We visit Fort DeSoto state park, took the ferry Egmont Key island, the Salvador Dali museum, the downtown Pier, Baywalk Shopping, Johns Pass Fishing Village, we even went to two baseball games to watch the TampaBay Rays beat the Detroit Tigers. There’s was so much to do but as always never enough time. We hope to come back to St Pete Beach next year and we will definitely stay at the Plaza Beach Resort.

This budget, family-run motel has a perfect location on the beach, a nice-sized pool (for a motel of it's size) that overlooks the beach and is immaculate (with lots of chairs) and towels available at the front desk. The staff is friendly and welcoming and very responsive to any complaint you might have. There's seating areas outside all around the resort, plus a heavily-used shuffleboard court. We had an upstairs gulf-view, and the views were great. There's a laundry area with folding table and laundry baskets.

There were many return guests ... which is a real compliment to a place. I liked this place more everyday that I was there.

I do think the housekeeping could be kicked up a notch, with the housekeepers changing the bedspreads more often, and taking care to clean all the nooks and crannies in the kitchenettes and baths. Don't expect a Hyatt in decor; the furnishings are a real mix of patterns, colors, etc., but the rooms are very large, and comfortable with plenty of space for luggage and hanging clothes. The bathrooms are not large but certainly adequate.

A good place to take kids ... they all seemed to be having fun!

We stayed in this hotel for 3 nights in early June. We had what I believe is called a Deluxe Efficiency - we had a king bed, kitchenette, couch, and of course, the bathroom. We were very impressed with the kitchenette (it was very well equipped and roomy) and the bathroom (again, well stocked. Husband loved the full bar of soap!). A couple of things that we didn't like so much - there was a dirty towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door when we checked in (ew), the pillows were extremely soft, and the walls are pretty thin. We were on a corner, so we only had 1 room next to us, but that room had multiple children that loved to jump on the bed. We heard every minute of it during the day (luckily, they were pretty quiet at night).

There was free wireless in the room, and that worked great and I had no issues with it. We liked the table and chairs that were sitting outside the room - it was nice to sit outside in the evening with a cool drink and people watch. The pool left a little to be desired, since it didn't open until 10. We ended up staying away from the pool because there were a lot of children playing and splashing (definitely not a relaxing area for a childless couple).

Overall, the hotel was worth the $$. There are a number of restaurants within walking distance, and it was especially nice to have a grocery store just a couple of blocks down the road to easily stock up the kitchen.