Sandcastle Oceanfront Resort Hotel

Sandcastle is where i stay when i’m in Va Beach

I’ve stayed at the Sancastle before and have never had a problem. The rooms are always clean and the staff is very friendly and its right on the beach. On this particular stay Va Beach was rather warm for the time of year, and when i called the front desk to report a problem with my ac, they informed me that they switched to heat only for the fall/winter (understandable), but they offered to bring me a fan and not even 5 minutes later a hotel employee was knocking at my door. This is the hotel i will always stay at when i’m in town visiting.

Virginia Beach vacation

The Sandcastle Hotel is located right on the boardwalk and near the fishing pier. The view from the room balcony is excellent. The room was very comfortable. It had cable TV, DVD player, room safe, microwave, 2 queen size beds and small refrigerator. The room rate included the daily continental breakfast that was a very good deal. There are numerous restaurants and souvenir shops within walking distance.

Nice oceanfront view

Great view of the ocean and the pier from our balcony.

Old and Affordable

This hotel is an older hotel and it shows. Older carpet in the halls, older tile in the pool area, old hotel smell. But it was priced accordingly. They didn’t try and charge a new modern hotel price which is commendable. Expedia did not give an option for "smoking or non" so we ended up in a smoking room. That tainted our whole trip. The room was nice, but the smell of smoke was very strong. The view was great, the beds were comfortable, the room was clean.

Traveler's tip on local attractions

The kids loved the pool and it was perfect being right on the beach and boardwalk. The convenience store and "mall" on the first floor was a plus as well. The hotel was right next to a small amusement park for little ones as well. Fishing pier is within walking distance too.

Enjoyed the hotel.

Good location.

Hotel Management Not good

We found the rates online to be better than booking directly through the hotel. It was very silly because we told management what rate was being offered online and they made us sit in their parking lot and book the hotel via the web. Lesson well learned...

Okay for the price

The hotel was ok, but the bathroom fan made a very irritating sound once you turned on the light, so I had to go to the bathroom in the dark so not to hear it.

Enjoyable

Pros: Clean room. Staff very nice and helpful. Great location right on the beach pretty much in the middle of the boardwalk. Loved sitting on the balcony in the evening, watching fireworks, the ocean, and all the people on the boardwalk. Cons: Had to keep replacing one of our key cards because they just didn’t seem to work. Doors in the hallways to the parking garage were left open all day to let in air as the halls were not air conditioned. This left us feeling a little unsafe as our room was right near one of these doors. Bathroom sink and vanity were actually outside of and separate from the bathroom itself. It was the first thing you see when you walk in the door. This may just be a personal thing with me, but I didn’t care for that. Plus the vanity was very small. Our family of four had trouble trying to keep all of our toiletries together. Neutral: The room was not very spacious, but seeing as we spent most days on the beach, and nights walking around the main street, we were really just there to shower and sleep. The cleaning service came very early in my opinion. Most days they were there by 9:00 or 9:30 am. We were always still there when they would show up and a couple of times I was still in bed. I’m all for getting up and greeting the day, but while I’m on vacation I want to get some rest! Overall, I enjoyed my stay there. I’ve paid a similar amount of money for much nicer hotels, but I guess on a beach vacation, you’re paying for the location - on the beach.

Perfect beach hotel

My hotel search produced many expensive hits and only two in my price range, of which this was one. For a small extra fee per night we upgraded from "ocean view" to "deluxe beachfront with continental breakfast" (worth it for the view alone, but the daily free breakfast saved us more than the $15). It was the perfect beach hotel: nothing fancy but exactly what you’d want at the beach: an adequate room with a beachfront balcony. As a bonus, ours was on a floor with adjacent garage parking (which worked extremely well for my parents, who are older and had the room next door). Sure, the place is a little older and run down, but perfect for a few days on the beach: we were there for the sand and surf, not the hotel itself. The nearby food was as you would expect in a vacation community: expensive but not great, but certainly nothing I’d fault the hotel for.

Traveler's tip on dining

The hotel has two attached restaurants, an adequate but overpriced Greek restaurant (complete with belly dancer) and a seafood buffet (we never tried it: whenever we looked, almost nobody was in there). Right on the pier in front of the hotel was a seafood place called Ocean Eddie’s which we tried. It was also overpriced and not horrible. Once again, we were not there for fine dining.

Great Location but air conditioners need work

Great speedy check in and check out. Front desk people very polite. Rooms clean and the location on the beach was great. The full breakfast was only fruit,cereal and donuts breakfast not what I call a deluxe breakfast - but it was available and quick. The air conditioner would not work unless dialed to 90-100 degrees (the thermostat was a problem)..so the room got really hot before it worked. Would I go back - yes - only complain louder/earlier/ more about the air conditioner not working properly.

Traveler's tip on getting the most out of your stay

See Fort Story and Cape Henry Light House. See A.R.E. Center. Otherwise - the kids are bored.

Not a good place to stay

The hotel didn’t honor what I bought from expedia didn’t get an ocean front room brekfast service is really poor I wouldn’t recommend this hotel

Traveler's tip

Don’t go there if you want to do something different that enjoy the beach There’s nothing else

needed a getaway, glad I picked this place

The SandCastle Hotel is a very nice place to stay. Had Ocean Front room and it was all that was needed. The contential breakfast was just enough. Didn’t expect so much entertainment on the boardwalk itself so that added to my relaxed and enjoyable weekend at SandCastle Hotel. You can bet I will look into staying here again.

Traveler's tip

If possible, plan to stay a little longer than a weekend. It’s so much to enjoy if you plan accordingly.

Old Hotel in a Good Location

Positives: location on the beach, beach view, attached parking garage, friendly service, in-room fridge and microwave. Satisfactory: continental breakfast, TV/cable, balcony, hotel convenience store. Negatives: old hotel, old furniture, old bed linens, 2nd floor street- facing hotel pool, small bathroom, poor room housekeeping.

Traveler's tip on getting the most out of your stay

Travel south on Pacifica/General Booth for from 2 to 5 miles for more and better restaurants and shopping than is in the immediate area. The battleship WI in Norfolk is free but limited to topside only. Virginia Beach provides outdoor nighttime family friendly entertainment.

Bang for the bucks

We wanted an ocean-front hotel for a family of four but didn’t want to pay for the premium. This hotel is definitely the choice. The breakfast is included, too. The room is clean and in a pretty good condition except the air conditioner looks a bit dirty. Overall, it’s a good stay.

Cozy stay in the heart of Virginia Beach

I like the hotel considering that it isn’t a famous chain. We were first given a room on the first floor, which reaked of cigarettes. However, staff kindly accomodated us and moved us to the 5th floor. Overall, very pleasant stay.

Traveler's tip on recreational activities

Pier was nice is you’re a fisherman.

Great location nice overall stay

The hotel was located right by the fishing pier on tha boardwalk. The location was great and the hotel itself was clean and comfortable. My only problem was the resturaunt in the front. There are 2 resturaunts I did not go to the Greek one but did go to the other. I am in a wheelchair and it wasn’t very accomadating. The owner was very rude and we were overcharged on our bill. The menu showed a price for burgers and said it included fries and toppings when we got the bill they were extra ... ripoff . The seafood buffet which we were going to get did not look fresh at all. So the hotel was great but don’t go to the front resturaunt.

Traveler's tip on local attractions

There are things up and down the boardwalk and on the other side of the hotels on Atlantic Ave there is tons of shopping and concerts and things going on in the streets. Take a bike (they have single double and 4 person) down the boardwalk, there is a bike lane so it’s easy to get around. They are lots of fun and much easier to cover the 3 miles. Up a couple streets they have several miniature golf courses that are fun too. Drives to the aquarium the ARE and the lighthouse are pretty close too.

Good for the price

Nice view, close to the beach

VA Beach

Overall the Hotel was good. The rooms a.c. worked very well. The hotel is right on the beach. The parking lot was easy to get to and there was always a parking spot. I would stay there again.

Motel-quality, but location is everything

Our room was as described - two queen beds, balcony overlooking the ocean, etc. and the price was competitive with other hotels. A bit lower, actually, which was a big reason we chose the place. For rather stiff resort pricing, the room was nothing to write home about though. The balcony was just enough for 2 people to sit on. There clearly had been a wall-mounted climate control system there, as the hole was still in the outside part of the wall; evidently someone had patched it with plain cardboard, which had come loose. Not very attractive! There was, strangely, no provision in the bathroom for hanging wet bathing suits - odd given this is an oceanfront hotel. The continental breakfast consisted of mass-produced muffins / danish, blah bananas / apples, cereal, bagels and juice. About what we’d expected given other reviews. One unusual but nice feature: the parking garage has numbered levels - and doors directly into the hallways. So we parked on level 4, and walked directly into the hotel on the same floor as our room. This made dragging our bags to the room a VERY easy task. All in all, it met our needs and the price was competitive with other oceanfront places, but I’d never pay more than a fourth of the price for such a room elsewhere. We really wanted to be oceanfront this trip. Next time, I’ll go for a place a block or so back from the water, and get more bang for our lodging buck.

Good location and accomodations

The hotel was right next to the pier which was an excellent location for our family, as my children like to fish. It was not luxorious, but was very nice and clean and had everything we needed.

Traveler's tip on recreational activities

Fishing was somewhat expensive. You don’t need deep sea rods, so you can bring your own. We ate at the hotel restaurant several years ago and were not very impressed.

Beach Time

This is a ok place to stay at, because it is right on the beach. The rooms were alright, nothing special. Had a hard time trying to get the room to a right temp. Also the bathroom fan was very loud and would liked to have more counterspace. Overall the hotel was decent and may possibly stay here again.

Not Impressed

The lobby & elevator were hot, making the luggage moving miserable, and then the doors kept shutting fast, on our stuff! The room air conditioner units made it hard to keep comfortable, it was either hot or cold in the room. The lobby was connected to a retail store that smelled like curry also! gross

It is worth a few extra bucks to stay at a better quality hotel.

Breakfast was not impress, But great location

If you like fishing, this hotel will be great for you. The pier is in front of the hotel.

Never again

I don’t usually write reviews, but I am at this hotel now and cannot believe they allow people to stay here. The furniture in the room looks like it was salvaged from a hurricane -- and we are on the 5th floor. Wallpaper is peeling from the walls. My kids are afraid to close the bathroom door because it is "scary in there". I stay in a lot of hotels for business; if I were on business travel alone, I would have checked out and gone elsewhere.

OK

the housekeeping was good, the pool was terrible, cold, too deep for little ones, no shallow end, no towells ever available, breakfast was good.