Cheeca Lodge & Spa

The bed was really uncomfortable—my husband and I kept sliding into a dip in the middle, which made it hard to sleep well. We’re now at Margaritaville in Fort Myers Beach, and the beds and sheets are noticeably better. We were a bit let down.

We stayed in the Premier rooms Ocean front w stairs from balcony to beach - simply fantastic! Cheeca is one of our most favorite Resorts - best place in the keys to kick back and relax while being surrounded by excellent service.

I do not normally write bad reviews - I prefer to speak to management to iron out any issues. I (& husband) did speak to management twice (Natalie - Assistant Manager). She was horrified with the issues raised and said she would escalate - I’m sure she will, but none of our issues were isolated problems - they have been raised in other reviews so are clearly not being addressed. I will list them below in no particular order - apologies in advance for the long post. 1. THE SMELL! Seaweed is left on the shore when the tide goes out. In 30 degree heat it soon starts to smell really bad. The manager says it’s cleaned daily but by 4pm the smell throughout the beach side of the resort is rank. 2. The front desk staff are very hit and miss. Some are really helpful, others barely make eye contact and are downright rude. More CS training required. 3. Check in is painfully slow due to very slow antiquated systems and poor staff training. Beware resort fees. We were unaware of them - they will charge you $60 per night as a fee for use of WiFi, pools, tennis courts, shuttle bus - all services that a luxury hotel usually incorporates in room rates. These room rates are not reduced though - they are still fairly high. 4. The rooms are fine - the ones in the new block are nicer. The attention to detail is not good though, either in the room finishing or in the cleaning of rooms or public areas - cigarette buts in plant pots for days, dirty hand marks on doors, balcony spills not mopped etc. Also in the new block, black mould in the shower. Lack of attention to hygiene. My daughter’s room was not cleaned for 2 days. 5. CANNABIS USE - although illegal in Florida we had people walking on the beach and hanging out by my daughters beach bungalow smoking HUGE joints. No member of staff would approach them so my daughter had to go to the front desk to get security TWICE to get them removed. One member of staff said they couldn’t risk the hotel getting a bad review! 6. Large groups of people on the beach at night. Not obviously other guests but again hanging around by the beach bungalows which is unlit and out of sight of the main part of the hotel. My daughter felt uncomfortable in her bungalow and called security. They came and the group ran away. But security do not patrol at all - given the resort is 27 acres, I would suggest that they did. Other large hotels do - especially with beach access. 7. A huge problem is the lack of attention to food / dietary needs. Within our family group of 7 we have 3 who are gluten/dairy intolerant. Not life threatening but definitely are made very poorly on ingestion. The kitchen are lackadaisical about this. No gluten? Ok just take that wheat bread off of your plate! No dairy? Oh you will just have to go without yoghurts, desserts, milk etc. Nothing marked on menus and you are left trusting the servers to ask the right questions of the kitchen and check what you are given. The kitchens seem totally disinterested. This is extremely unfair on the servers also. We had two great ones - Milton and Natalee who took great care of us and our needs. If you have a life threatening food allergy, I would not risk staying here. 8. The shuttle bus. It’s a great idea and generally works well. Except one night we left a restaurant expecting the bus in 5 mins. It finally turned up after half an hour (of us being bitten to death by mosquitoes) and three calls to the hotel with the driver obviously having been spending some time with his girlfriend who was in the front passenger seat! Not good. 9. Bell boys. Do not like lifting your luggage into and out of cars / buses. One this morning complained that our driver back to Miami was a woman and what was he supposed to do with the luggage. I said I thought it was part of his job to load it in the minibus? He didn’t seem to think so! So rude - just sums up customer service here really. 10. Customer services generally are lacking. The majority of staff with few exceptions seem not to know how to address a guest, to make eye contact, open doors etc. I know I’m English and probably obsessed with good manners but honestly this is the worst experience we’ve had with hotel staff probably anywhere we’ve stayed in the world so far! Staff do not take any pride in the resort or their place in it - lack of training, pay issues maybe - hard to say but it is reflected in the service provided to the guests. 11.The cheese platter! A mystery cheese platter was sent to my daughter’s room - she is gluten and dairy intolerant so she clearly did not order it. She asked that it be removed every day for 4 days. She did not want to dump it outside of her room because of ants, rats etc. the plate was finally removed on day 4 and put outside - out of general sight! Where it sat for another day and a half before we finally had to tell the manager who said she would go and get it herself! 12. Not the hotel’s fault but almost all local restaurants except the hotel’s own are walk in only. You cannot get a large group seated before 9.30pm especially at the weekend. It is a shame. The setting is lovely and the resort itself could be wonderful. It is now faded, living on past glories and suffering from a lack of investment by its property investment portfolio owners - who are clearly not hotel operators. I suggest looking elsewhere in the Keys for a stay.

If you are a couple without your children or grandchildren, go somewhere else. We reserved a very nice suite costing over 650.00 per night. It was very loud with children running up and down and all across all hours. The water in the rooms does not get hot and has poor water pressure. So you have a beautiful tub on the patio without hot water coming into it,, so it's useless. It takes twice as long to take a shower. The bed was not soft and had big pillows which were hard. We did not have 2 complete robes. One did not have the belt, it took forever to convince them it did not have it. Then we went to the pools and no chairs. Even at the adult pool ....no chairs. I'm very surprised it has such nice reviews. I wish I had booked Little Palm Island and paid more. We had a stay of 3 nights which we did not use the resort. Upon arrival we did enjoy their sushi restaurant. All employees of the resort were very unaccommodating.

Wonderful time celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Staff exceeded our eco by delivering a special treat to our room for our celebration. The lodge, staff and restaurants ( especially Pierre’s) were all excellent. Highly recommend this place!