My wife and I kicked off the new year with four nights at The Seagate Hotel in Delray Beach, Florida. Even though this hotel isn’t part of any major hotel chain, it is bookable with points thanks to it being a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts.
The Seagate Hotel & Spa Bottom Line Review
When we arrived, the Seagate Hotel had just finished major renovations to their hotel, pool, and beach club. And their in-hotel restaurant was still closed while under renovation. The physical space was terrific. Our room was luxurious but not ostentatious. And we loved visiting the beach club where we lazed under an umbrella on the beach, and dined outside at the beach-club restaurant, with an ocean view. While the physical space was great, the hotel’s service was mixed. Most interactions with staff were good, but there were some very notable issues. In many ways it felt like we were visiting a brand new hotel that had just opened, with issues that are common during opening months. I’m guessing that there was a lot of turnover during the renovations and that they haven’t yet fully trained their new staff. That said, I’d happily stay at the Seagate again. And, hopefully they’ll heavily invest in customer training in the meantime!
- Price:
- The cash rate for a base level room at the time of our stay was $515 per night, after taxes.
- Alternatively, there are two ways to pay with points:
- Preferred Hotel iPrefer points: 75,000 points per night
- Choice Privileges points: 57,000 points per night
- Value: Very Good. At the time of my stay, there was no award availability for booking with iPrefer points, but there was plenty of availability for booking with Choice points. At 57,000 points per night vs. a $515 cash rate, I got 0.9 cents per point value. Since our Reasonable Redemption Value for Choice points is 0.67 cents per point, 0.9 is very good. For those transferring Citi ThankYou points to Choice at a 1 to 2 ratio (for those with Citi Strata Premier cards), this award would have netted 1.8 cents per Citi point value. That’s very good. In my case, I already had enough Choice points so I didn’t need to make a transfer.
- Location: Very good. Delray Beach is a lively beach town with the main strip, E. Atlantic Avenue, running east to the beach and west towards most of the restaurants and bars. The Seagate Hotel is right on that strip, closer to the beach, but an easy walk to either the beach or the restaurants and bars.
- Room: We were assigned the same room type we had booked: Classic Interior King. It was spacious, comfortable, and very nicely decorated. The only big negative was that the windows overlooked an ugly undecorated courtyard between the hotel and its parking deck.
- Parking: Valet parking is available for $40 per day, after tax
- Resort Fee: $40 per day, before tax.
- Service: Mixed. While most service was good, we ran into several issues:
- Post Booking Woes: After booking the stay with Choice points online, the hotel didn’t know how to process the booking and I went through a back-and-forth process that ended with me teaching the Seagate person how to find someone at Choice that may be able to help. Hopefully booking will be smoother in the future! Details about my booking issues and solutions can be found here.
- Valet Scoff: When we first arrived at the hotel, it was unclear where to stop the car. The first area, which looked the most like a valet drop-off area, was unattended so I pulled up to the hotel’s front door instead. I told the valet that we were checking in and he literally scoffed a laugh and waived towards the first area and said “you could have just parked over there.” That was an awful first impression of the hotel! The good news is that every valet we interacted with afterwards was very nice.
- Breakfast? At check-in the desk agent told us that breakfast was only available via room service, but we could get coffee at their in-hotel cafe, The Gate. Apparently no one told him that The Gate actually does offer breakfast.
- No member or elite benefits: I have iPrefer Titanium elite status and so was expecting some benefits. When it was clear that we hadn’t received a room upgrade or any sort of welcome gift, I returned to the front desk (to the same guy who didn’t know that breakfast was available at the cafe) and asked about these things. He claimed that he couldn’t upgrade us because the hotel was sold out (not true) and he didn’t see anything on my reservation about a food or beverage amenity (which is supposed to be given to Titanium elite members). He then said he’d call someone about it and if there wasn’t something planned for us he’d send us a bottle of Prosecco. That never happened.
- Mistaken robe / coffee request: One day when we returned to our room we found that housekeeping had only left one robe and hadn’t replenished our coffee pods. I tried to use the in-room phone to call about it, but that didn’t work so I used my cell phone instead. I called the desk to ask for the missing things and was told that they’d be sent right up. Fifteen minutes later someone came to our room with a bottle of shampoo. That was weird. I told him what we really wanted and he quickly fetched them. This situation was more funny than problematic. It was just another example of how the place feels like a brand-new hotel that hasn’t yet figured things out.
- Turndown service: None. This surprised me for a hotel that advertises itself as a luxury hotel.
- Breakfast: Breakfast is not included in the rate we booked. Breakfast is available to purchase via room service or at the in-hotel cafe, The Gate. We preferred going out for breakfast instead. A very short walk away is a restaurant called Pura Vida Miami which proved to be a great place to breakfast outside with terrific food.
- Shuttle Service: The hotel offers free shuttle service to anywhere within 3 miles of the hotel. We didn’t try this out.
- Pool: The at-hotel pool area is very nice with cabanas widely available for free for guests. I didn’t swim in the pool, but I enjoyed spending time in the hot-tub next to the pool.
- Spa: They have one but we didn’t use it.
- Fitness Room: They have one but we didn’t use it.
- Beach Club: The hotel’s beach club is 0.7 miles from the hotel. The hotel offers free shuttles to and from the club, but we chose to walk each time. The beach club includes a saltwater pool, a full service restaurant, a walk-up pool-side restaurant, and a large beach area with attendants who set up chairs and umbrellas as guests arrive. While they offer beach-side service for ordering drinks, it’s necessary to walk back to the pool area to buy food which you can bring back to the beach if you want (we did). We enjoyed both the beach area and the full service restaurant during our stay.
- Golf Club: The hotel also offers a separate golf club which is about 4 miles from the hotel. We didn’t visit this club at all.
- iPrefer Benefits: All iPrefer members are supposed to be eligible to receive enhanced room upgrades, early check-in, and late check-out. Additionally, Gold members should receive a welcome amenity. And Titanium members should also receive a food & beverage offering. Despite the fact that I had top-tier Titanium status during this stay, I didn’t receive any of those benefits.
- Would I stay again? Yes. We had a great stay despite the fact that the hotel had service issues and didn’t honor iPrefer benefits. I hope that they’ll fix those issues in the future, but I’d happily stay again either way.
Pros
- Excellent physical spaces: The bedrooms, pool area, and beach club are all very nice. Physically, the place looks and feels like a luxury hotel.
- Excellent beach club.
- Very good location: The hotel is conveniently located near the beach on one side and near the town’s bars and restaurants on the other side.
Cons
- Service issues abound
- The hotel doesn’t offer any iPrefer benefits despite being a Preferred Hotels member hotel.
- Interior rooms don’t have views. It would be nice if they would landscape the interior courtyard so that there would be something to look at.
- Some of our room’s tech seemingly wasn’t working as intended. One light could only be turned on via the master switch. The master switch turned on all lights (as expected), but also turned on multiple bathroom fans (not expected). Our in-room phone didn’t work to call the desk or housekeeping.
Image Gallery
Hotel / General
Interior King Bedroom
Pool
Fitness Room
The Gate Cafe
The Venetian Street Hotel Bar
The Beach Club
Mr. Seas Restaurant at the Beach Club
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In these situations, where the hotel has multiple booking platforms (direct with the hotel, I prefer & Choice) & the staff is confused about how status works, I would make a quick call (in this case to I prefer) to let them know what’s up. It’s typically worth the 15 or 20 minutes* in the end because sometimes, the staff just has no clue & would honor the status if they did. This happened to me at a SLH & it ended up not being a big deal but definitely worth the breakfast credit on a multiple night stay.
It’s almost better not to have status, the feeling of being aggrieved by the hotel not recognizing status ruins the stay in and of itself.
Is it worth reaching out to iprefer to let them know the status wasn’t recognized? Their program is very interesting but if there status does nothing you can probably find another property/loyalty program to focus on.
looks like a good place to use up some choice points
Looks like a nice place, but what a cluster. Surprised you didn’t push back harder to get at least some of your promised benefits.