Stayed at the Bay Harbour hotel for 6 nights in December 2012. The hotel was very comfortable, nice clean, large room. I had a city view but try and get a room overlooking the water as it is lovely (Although you may get some music from Whisky Joe's Bar). There is no free breakfast, although Crabby Bills Restaurant is adjoining the hotel where you can buy breakfast. The hotel is conveniently located on the causeway which will take you to straight to Clearwater and down to St Petersburg. The juntion of I-4 and I-75 are also very close. The airport is literally minutes away and so is very easy to get to if you are coming into Tampa by air, but you cannot hear any airport noise from the room. There are vending/ice machines and also a microwave which is very convenient on floors. Parking is free in their very large car park. There is no guest laundry in this hotel, only a laundry service. On the whole, would recommend this hotel if visiting this area..

We stayed here pre-cruise (12/21/12-12/23/12) in a room with two beds on the 6th floor and had a great experience, hotel arranged transportation for us and the other guests who were going to the Tampa cruise port - the cost was $20 per person roundtrip. The only issue we had was at Crabby Bill's restaurant, you needed a chisel to get through the pancakes but the waitress quickly fixed that when we let her know.
Then we stayed post-cruise (12/30/12-1/2/13) in a room with two beds on the 4th floor and thats when everything went downhill and thats what is making me write this review. Before we left on our cruise we were told we could get an early check-in on our return trip - well that never happened as we got to the hotel at 10:30am and had to wait closer to 2:30pm in the lobby for a room. Then when we get up to our room neither key works so that forces us to go back downstairs into a long line of people who are also coming back from the cruise or coming for the Outback Bowl.

Then we go out New Year's Eve and when we return to the hotel around 9:45pm we are stuck in a long line of traffic on the road because the hotel is hosting a New Year's Eve party/Grand Opening of the new restaurant Hogan's Beach. We were in this particular line for about 45 minutes, which I find completely unacceptable. We saw people with young children hopping out of cabs and cars with small children trying to get into the hotel. We finally get into the parking lot and man doing valet asks for money ($5) and we told him No thanks, we'll go self-park the car.

I went to the front desk several times and asked to speak with a manager, every single time I was told that no one was available - which I find quite bizzare because at every hotel I've ever stayed at morning, noon, or night there has always been a manager to speak with. Upon checking out, the lady at the front desk was going to comp us lunch in the restaurant but we declined - we just wanted to get out quick.

Pros: shuttle service (the drivers were helpful & friendly) and gift shop in lobby
Cons: too many to name - extremely slow elevator, slow computers, restaurant

My boyfriend and I booked 3 nights at this hotel for a very reasonable price. Upon arriving, we could see why. The hotel, especially in comparision to others surrounding it, is very outdated on the exterior. The interior is a little better but has an overall Motel sort of feeling to it. It's VERY important to note that, though the doors are not accessible from the exterior of the hotel, the balconies are linked together such that someone in an adjoining room could simply hop over onto your balcony. Make sure you close your balcony door securely!!! We found this extremely troubling and worrisome because it would be very simple for someone to break in. When we checked in the lady at the desk was very friendly and curteous. We went up to our room, which was fairly nice but could use some minor repairs, and decided to order room service for dinner. We called down to Crabby Bill's, the restaurant advertised in the elevator and the one for which we had menus in our room. We were told that the hotel no longer associated with Crabby Bill's so we requested a room service menu. It took AGES to be brought up, so we tried to dial Crabby Bill's on the room phone. It took us to the same room service associate. Apparently Crabby Bill's had closed and been replaced with Hogan's Beach. You wouldnt know this by the signs in the elevator, the website or the menus placed in the rooms. I feel like this is something that could have easily been taken care of. We ordered from Hogan's Beach. The food was average and expensive, like normal room service food from a Best Western. We found it a bit disgusting that our room service trays were left to sit outside our room for over a day. That's probably why the hall had a slight odor. The hotel provides "convenient" cards you can fill out the night before with your breakfast order to be delivered the next day at a specified time. Ours came 45 minutes late, AFTER we had to call the restaurant and remind them that the order had even been placed. Good thing we had an open schedule! We went down to ask the front desk staff a question about the hotel shuttle and were literally ignored for almost 15 minutes by TWO different associates. It was incredibly frustrating so we just walked away. Upon returning that evening, we became even more frustrated. The Hogan's Beach restaurant was hosting a New Year's Eve party (which we attended and was fantastic!) so valet parking was set up. We waited in the valet line to get through to guest parking from 20 minutes to find that it was full because the parking lot had been mostly blocked off for the party. We went to the front desk and asked the associates what to do. She told me to get back in line and have them valet my car. We waited ANOTHER 20 minutes and the valet staff was rude. I asked to speak to the hotel manager and he was unhelpful to say the least. He explained away all of my issues so far and made me feel like I was complaining about nothing. Putting down a customer's complaints is NOT customer service. The next day we had yet another issue. We came back and both of our keys had been deactivated. Robert, who may well be the rudest person I have ever met and definitely does NOT belong in customer service, told us to come down and "just get a new key ma'am" with a snide attitude. We asked him what we should do if these didn't work and he responded "just call us again, ma'am." We were extremely offended. He should have offered to have someone make sure that the keys worked this time, not make us pay the price when it was their mistake. We have never been so excited to check out of a hotel in our lives! For all of our troubles, we were comp'd our breakfast that was 45 minutes late. Whoopdy-freakin'-do! Never again Best Western, never again!

In summary, if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is! Run far away from this shoddy excuse for a 3-star hotel. I've had better customer service experiences at 2-star Comfort Inns!