Zota Beach Resort - Longboat Key

Stayed in august with family of five in large suite room. Room was good size. Pool and beach were great. Food at beach bar was underwhelming and overpriced. Go elsewhere if you can. There’s a resort fee which includes 2 beds on beach. For family of five we had to pay for the extra beds and there’s a charge for umbrella hire. The latter should be inc with beds and resort fee. Seemed like price gouging to me.

VERY dissatisfied with how our car was handled in the valet over the July 4th weekend. You have no choice but to use the valet to park your car which is fine, if only our car had been well taken care of. On the day we left my husband noticed a rather large ding on the side. Ok, things happen but they have not accepted responsibility for it. We have left multiple phone calls, but none have been returned. We seek out Opal Collection hotels because it is usually a very good experience but this will be our last time at the Zota. If you value your car and expect to be a valued and respected customer, seek another hotel on Longboat Key.

Pros: we had a sea view room in the opal wing which was expensive but lovely. This was the newer block and had a large balcony. The beach is clean and the water very clear. Staff at the bar were all great and really welcoming. Food was good and reasonably priced at the bar. Cons: Outside Bar (food and drink seems to shut at 6pm forcing you to use the upstairs restaurant. Shame as would have been great to be able to have outside sunset drinks. Staff at front desk were pretty sour. It was quite difficult to get a smile out of them (I guess they aren’t working for tips . They don’t have a late check out room to store bags and shower. (Well they will let you have a small room for £150 for a couple of hours . This is odd as if we would have been able stay later we would have spent more time and money at the bar! They do have an outside shower by the beach but it’s more of a mist than an actual shower to cool down and didn’t get the sand off. It was VERY HOT when we were there. We had an odd email a couple of days before to say our credit card hadn’t worked and they would cancel the room if we didn’t update the card in 24 hours. I hadn’t actually been checking emails (as on holiday! so it was really lucky I had saw this. However, it was so similar to the hotel scams in the U.K. that I had to spend time and money trying to get through to the reservations department to check it wasn’t a scam. I’m still not sure if it was (or not as apparently the credit card was actually fine when it was checked. It was a really odd email as it sounded like a threat to cancel our room in 24 hours (like a scam email . No apology from hotel (if it wasn’t a scam and just served to stress us out before we even got to the hotel which wasn’t a great start! It was supposed to a be a relaxing weekend break to celebrate a birthday…

My wife and I have stayed at other Opal properties so our expectations were high as they have been an amazing experience.Upon our arrival at Zota Beach Resort, the trash cans were completely full in the lobby and by the pool bar. As we went to our room, the hallway was very hot and muggy.Our room was very nice and had a nice view of the ocean without being beachfront and had nice furnishings.We arrived late evening so we didn’t experience the staff till the next day. Breakfast was a little unorganized and the servers seemed over worked. Service was very slow the first day but our server the next two days was spot on. The breakfast buffet was a mad house and omelette station only had one person working the line and had up to 8 people waiting. You could hear complaints while waiting.The pool by service left room for development. A lot of customers complaining and the staff would talk about the customers as they walked away. The staff didn’t seem to have pride of were they worked and seemed unhappy. When dealing with the beach staff and valet attendants it was a different story. They were such a pleasure and really seemed to enjoy their job! Always greeted with a smile and assured we were getting the best we could get.Nearby activities: Right on the beach and had access to one of the greatest beaches in the country. Hotel had plenty of chairs and umbrellas to enjoy the view, along with kayaks and paddle boards to go out on an adventure on the ocean.

Ee stayed at Zota for four nights. The hotel is excellent. Rooms are comfortable and they have sea view. It’s great to sit in the evening at balcony to see the sunset. Beach service is good. They offer two chair at the beach by resort fee. Adicional chairs is USD 15 and umbrellas USD 25. Shower could be better.