Days Inn Bradenton – Near the Gulf

Drug dealers, hookers, and cockroaches all around. But worse, after a long drive we checked in late at night, hoping to get a good night’s sleep, we were woken up by the front desk early morning, an hour and a half before our scheduled checkout, so they could ask us if we were checking or wanted to stay another day. If they could have just let us sleep we may have been able to ignore the grossness of the environment itself.

Horrific! If I could issue no stars I would. If you have any other options, don’t stay here. Unfortunately for us, this was the only option.
We came to Sarasota for the First Watch Half Marathon. One thing that we found very discouraging about this race was the lack of accommodations as far back as 3 months prior to the race: apparently the city of Sarasota didn’t do and infrastructure survey to see if they had enough lodging to house 3,000+ runners. Long story short we got reservations at the Golden Host Hotel because, according to
, they allowed dogs… but when we checked in we were told they did not accommodate dogs and we needed to find another hotel. So we called around and the Days Inn was the only one that allowed dogs and had an availability, so we booked it.
The front desk staff was nice enough, they did at least shuffle around some other reservations so we could have a non-​smoking room.
The trouble started as soon as we walked into the room. Dirty, old, musty, smelling carpet. The mattresses were so old they had turned brown, and there were more mystery stains than I cared to count. The mattresses were also super lumpy and there was change on the floor… a testament to the sub-​par job the cleaning staff had done on the room. All the metal hinges and fixtures in the room had started to rust. It was painfully obvious that they hadn’t so much as rearranged the furniture in 2 decades. They did slather the walls with a coat of puke green paint in the last 5 years… The bathroom had been given a face lift in the last few years so that was on the positive, although the doors and walls were basically crumbling with age and abuse. An old tube tv with mostly spanish channels sat pitifully on top of a dresser. What a miserable hotel room!
I took benadryl hoping I could just go into a medicated slumber, but with my allergies acting up due to the dust mites and mold and my mind racing with thoughts of bedbugs and cockroaches, I couldn’t sleep, so around 11:30pm I retreated to my car where I spent the rest of the night. My fiancé and our 2 dogs somehow remained in the room.
It was a miserable experience and even though I got a fairly descent time on the half marathon, I won’t be returning to this hotel or Sarasota for that matter. No run is worth being that miserable.
My neighbor in the room beside of us also complained, her bathroom was even messed up, making her room completely unlivable. $ 120 a night just adds insult to injury… this hotel isn’t worth $ 40 a night. I would’ve been more comfortable camping in a tent. The only thing that would fix this hotel’s issues is a wrecking ball… where’s Miley Cyrus when you need her?

DO NOT stay here. Old, stinking smoky rooms with rusty refrigerators.
Lumpy holey mattresses, Nasty bathrooms, We didn’t even get washcloths.
The phone didn’t work either… UGH!