Casa Monica Resort & Spa, Autograph Collection

We thought it would be great spending the 4th of July weekend at this historic & highly rated hotel. We arrived at 1:45pm and we’re told that we would have to wait until our room was ready, even though I called the previous night to ask what time we could check in and was told 11am. We waited over 2-1/2 hours, before I started getting really antsy to ask the receptionist if she had any updates. The receptionist told checked her computer and then said, your room is ready”, even though she told me 2-1/2 hours ago that she would immediately notify me when our room was ready. Next we head to the room, the first thing we noticed is an overwhelming moldy smell. Now we check the bathroom and there’s 1/4 rolls of USED toilet paper on the rolls. We then turn on the shower and there’s water is completely non existent and scalding hot as it trickles out comically. We use the toilet and the handle doesn’t work correctly, plus after you hold the handle down to flush, it takes 3 minutes for the toilet tank to refill. We head to bed, after spending 2 hours of the scalding trickle shower. In the middle of the night, I hear a bunch of F bombs, as my wife screams out, “I nearly slipped and fell from the bathroom floor full of water. Before I could get up to investigate, I hear another barrage of swear words and screams. I asked what happened, and was told the bathroom door closed by itself jamming her toe. I had to prop the door open with the mountain of towels I had to throw on the floor for the flood. I found out that flood was from the shower that never fully shut off and water was splashing out of the stall and onto the floor throughout the night. The next morning we head to the pool and I stopped by the front desk to tell the receptionist how sleepless our night was. The receptionist got the manager and I didn’t want to make a big deal about everything that happened so far in this “$500.00” a night hotel. I asked for towels, toilet paper and the trash cans to be emptied. After spending a little while at the pool looking at the light fixtures coming out of the wall, the self closing “by law” gate staying open, it was time for us to close our eyes and head out. We went back to the room and found “1” rolls of toilet paper even though there’s “2” toilet paper holders, along with some towels. The trash was still in our room, and we were getting really upset at this point. We left the hotel and came back in the late afternoon, as soon as we got in the room, housekeeping started knocking on the door. I asked them to give us 5 minutes to change and we were done in about 4 minutes with our door open but no one was there. We decided to hang around for a few more minutes to see if housekeeping would come back but they never did. We started heading out and as we got to the end of the hallway a supervisor of housekeeping asked us if we needed anything and we said yes, followed by an explanation of some of our issues. This supervisor said he would take care of everything and we thanked him. Now we head downstairs to have some dinner and we are greeted by a female staff member at the entry of the dining area. The female staff member asks us if we had reservations. We said no because we were told that we could dine all day as hotel guests. Then she said, let me sed if I can find you guys a table, but there was literally no one in the entire dining area other than the bartender. She then turned to us and said I guess you can sit here. She was so unbelievably clueless, and me and wife just looked at each other in disbelief. The next 15 minutes we are just sitting there and waiting for anyone to greet us. Finally a male waiter showed up and took our orders. It took over an hour and fifteen minutes to get 2 steaks out to us. The waiter had a strange temperament, almost as if he was intoxicated. As we started eating our meal, we hear 4 young children screaming and running around all over the place. Staff never asked the parents to get the little wild ones to pipe down. We ended up leaving without finishing our dinner as a headache quickly ensued. This $200 bill comes out and the waiter sees the plates still fill of uneaten food but didn’t bother to ask if there was anything wrong. We paid the bill and headed back to our room. We expected the room to be tidied up and trash taken out. Neither was done, even though we were promised it would be taken care of “right away”.

This hotel is in an excellent spot a close to walking to most shopping and restaurants in the historic District. Upon checking in valet was excellent, and they took our bags up to our room and parked our car in a secure place. Front desk, staff was amazing very professional, even offering champagne upon check-in. Rooms were very clean with top-notch bathroom amenities. Before retiring for the night room service came to our door asking if we need anything else offering bottled water and coffee before they left for the evening. Their rooms are a little outdated, but is to be expected of this older historic hotel. I found it comfortable and quaint. We were a little disappointed we did not encounter any of the talked about paranormal activity for this older hotel. It is supposed to be one of the most haunted in the city of Saint Augustine. We will definitely be back thank you for the great stay.

Excellent service, beautiful hotel inside & out, character reflecting the St Augustine history, spacious room, good pool, very quiet central location - everywhere is walkable, restaurant's grilled bronzino with romesco sauce magnificent, room refresh superb, what's not to like?

We were excited to come back to St. Augustine this year to visit Casa Monica for memorial day weekend. The hotel was just as I remembered it. We very much enjoyed our time spent in and around the hotel, but the food in the restaurant was subpar. We were given a warm welcome by the valets, who helped us unload our car and provided service on our way to the front desk. However, an incident occurred in which my wife overheard the elderly man working as bellman accusing one the valets of “taking his money” after my wife had given him a tip for his service. She ensured him that he would also be compensated for his work when he delivered our bags. We felt as though he was hovering around us waiting for the tip in the room. This particularly left us feeling uncomfortable although the rest of the process went well. Other than this our trip was quite enjoyable and we will be back soon to visit.

Casa Monica used to be the best hotel in St Augustine, I’ve been a regular visitor for over a decade. It is now comfortably one of the worst hotels in Florida. You’ll be lucky to get a room with hot water, the rooms consistently smell bad and are not cleaned to a high standard. The tap water smells disgusting, even for Florida. Unsurprisingly my family and friends got quite sick after staying here. Avoid at all costs until new management takes over.