Sonesta Resort Hilton Head Island

We loved our time at the Sonesta for an end-of-summer trip, just my wife, daughter and myself. We noticed the rates in August were much lower than peak season and it wasn’t too crowded either. We stayed in a terrace king room with sofa bed on the second floor and had a nice view of the pool. The room was immaculately clean and a good size for 3 of us. We spent each morning with a coffee from Sea Glass, then the day at the pool. The mini fridge in our room was perfect for storing food for lunches, as the on-site restaurants can be quite expensive. We’d spend the afternoon in the pool or explore the beach. They have blue beach umbrellas and chairs setup for rental through a third party and we used that for our last full day to enjoy the beach. Each evening we’d drive to local restaurants and highly recommend Sandbar, Hudson’s, Carolina Crab Company and Quarterdeck (in Harbor Town). There are paved trails in Shipyard (where Sonesta resides) and they have bikes to rent. All the staff at Sonesta were so friendly and professional. This was the first time we’d been to Hilton Head in 20 years and our first time at Sonesta. We’ll be back next year!

Celebrated our Wedding Anniversary with our children and grandchildren, 21 in total. The staff is outstanding and very attentive. Amenities were great, pool, food, room and overall facility. The facility is on the beach and it was a very short walk to the water. The grandchildren loved the activities and the nightly movies. This was our second time staying here and we will definitely be back. The concierge, Jeff, was very helpful and very easy to work with.

Just arrived for a family vacation was planned 4 months prior. Arrived to hear that they had double booked my reserved room, so had to accept a lesser room. Not a good start so far - will see how the rest of the stay goes.

First off, everyone we encountered in person was lovely. Our experience in this aspect reminded me of the type of customer service we had 20 years ago. The front desk, the pool staff, the bell hop, the employee at the little store by the pool were all lovely. Well done, especially on a crazy holiday weekend. The grounds are gorgeous. We were happy to lounge by the pool for hours, which isn’t something we typically do. It was very clean. They have an AI assistant, but it was actually pretty helpful! There is an absence of a book in the room that explains checkout procedures, etc. I think I would have still liked the old school physical book, but the AI is a good bot. We had a whole conversation about the (spoiler alert) bathroom fan issue. My only complaint is the room. This is my first experience renting such an expensive room (~$700/night for 4th of July weekend). Room 3115 is as far as I can tell the most expensive room type. It’s the Signature Sonesta King Room. After we unpacked, someone in my party took a shower and noticed how muggy it got and how moldy the grout was. Right after, someone else then used the restroom. Our room filled with muggy bathroom smell. We realized the bathroom fan wasn’t working properly. I called guest services and the young girl who answered was very sweet but didn’t really seem to know how to remedy the situation. She said she could bring a box fan up. I re-explained the problem and how a box fan wouldn’t help the situation. I asked if we could be moved and she said no as the hotel was full. I wasn’t offered any compensation, but she did apologize. She did end up offering to send the engineer up. I told her they could come in while we’re at dinner. We went out and came back a few hours later and no one had been in our room. My husband looked at the fan a bit more and you can see it spinning but almost no air is being sucked in. It’s not broken. It’s just terrible and given the mold, this is probably a known issue without an easy fix. Therefore it’s unlikely to be remedied while we were staying there without great disruption. With that information, he called guest services back and asked them to cancel the engineer request as we were going to bed. During our 3 night stay, we needed to close the bathroom door in between use, which made the hot box miserable to reenter. That led to the “mommy says you can’t go #2 in this bathroom unless it’s an emergency” rule. (We used the pool bathroom when possible. Up and down 3 flights of stairs). We all skipped one day of showering too. We did open the bathroom door when we would leave the room periodically. Shout out to the room A/C. It worked HARD at cooling and dehumidifying. This bathroom appears to have been updated somewhat recently, but as mentioned the tile grout is molding significantly at the bottom (probably due to the trapped moisture issue). I wouldn’t count this against housekeeping as I know how difficult that was to clean in my own shower at home that needed to be retiled. It’s not reasonable for a housekeeper to address that in a same day turnover of a room. The bed was not comfortable. Felt like a cheap box spring or base. Every centimeter my husband moved woke me up. Every night for 3 nights. Cheaping out on that was definitely a choice for a $700/night room. I’m so conflicted about this stay. The room experience was terrible. But the resort is amazing and has a rare, hardworking, amazing staff (who probably take some grief from hotel guests about issues like this outside of their control). All in all, it was not worth the very high cost. We probably won’t be back.

If you want dogs barking all day and night in other guest rooms then this is the place for you. Seems to be that the hotel staff doesn't care enough for non pet guest.