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The Vista Inn on Lake Tarpon in Palm Harbor is a beautiful, waterfront hotel that provides the perfect home base for the Florida vacation that you will never forget! Located in Palm Harbor just 20 miles from Tampa, we are located near all of Central Florida's attractions, including a short drive to some of the best Gulf Coast beaches. Our hotel is nestled quaintly around a boat basin that leads to Lake Tarpon, a 2,500-acre recreation area known for great bass fishing and boating. Every guest room is nonsmoking and features a private balcony with a waterfront view. Enjoy free continental breakfast and Wi-Fi, relax at the outdoor pool and hot tub, and take advantage of our exercise room, meeting facilities and onsite Italian restaurant, Giovanni's. Small pets under 25 pounds are welcome too. At the Vista Inn on Lake Tarpon in Palm Harbor, you'll enjoy exceptional service, comfort and quality at a great value.
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Giata.
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If you are looking for a 5 star luxury hotel, this is not your hotel! We, however, like low-key, friendly, home-away-from-home locations and this was perfect for us! Beds were comfy, the staff was friendly, nice pool & hot tub area, the shower was amazing especially after a day at the beach, has a great location surrounded by tons of things to do and also beaches. We also LOVED Nevin, our housekeeper. She came in every day and always made our room clean & smell so clean. They also have breakfast which came in handy when you're hungry :) Cannot say enough nice things about our stay. A+ Vista!
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Date of stay: March 2015
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Kelly H, General Manager at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 27 Apr 2015
Thank you so much for your feedback on our hotel! We certainly appreciate your kind words! We work hard everyday to statisfy our guests. Your feedback lets us know that we are on the right path. We look forward to seeing you on your return the next time! Again, thank you for your kind words
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The best thing about this "resort" was it's location. Rooms are pleasant, balcony was very nice although it is right next to a place that with a loud drunk party going on. We were laying bets as to who was going to fall into the water first, the drunk men roughing around, the woman standing next to the edge while this went on, or the child!
The bed is very much in need of replacement as it sags to the point of not being able to stay on one side. Beds were not made well at all during the weekend, sheets were just kind of thrown on the bed so they'd come totally apart during the night. The second night I remade the bed myself. When the regular person came back on Monday it was much better.
I went to use the hairdryer - after a few minutes I smelled something burning, stopped and checked it, nothing wrong and went back to using it. After another minute or so I saw something sticking out of the blower end of the hairdryer - bug burnt up and being blown out. The "continental" breakfast consisted of coffee, oj, and day old bagels. Nothing to put on the bagels. Staff say they had mentioned it to the manager quite a few times over the last few days but still did nothing.
Would I stay there again or suggest it to anyone else? NO!
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Date of stay: March 2014
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
My son & I stayed the night in this hotel bc of a broken water main at our apartment complex. We needed a place w/a low price, clean & local & this fit the bill. Situated at the end of a canal for Lake Tarpon, it’s very scenic. The rooms have a balcony on the lake side w/a couple plastic patio chairs. It was nothing fancy, but the employees were very courteous & friendly, it was clean & the price was right. The breakfast was a bit slim. I eat gluten free/low carb/sugar so there wasn’t much for me, & no fresh fruit. The coffee was good!
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Date of stay: July 2018Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from 360manager, Franchise Admin at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 17 Oct 2018
Thank you for staying with us! I apologize for the non-gluten foods and we always have fresh fruit oranges, apples & pears. I will try to get more non-gluten foods to accommodate our guests better.
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This property is somewhat difficult to review. I’m going to try to be as specific as I can in hopes that this review helps a would-be traveler make the best decision for them and their family. I see that overall, this property gets a four star rating. Perhaps I’m being too hard when rating this hotel, but here is my justification. For things that management have full control over they dropped the ball. That’s why I give it a two rather than three. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about. As soon as you enter the property off State Road 19 you notice trash and dumpster bins. The parking lot is not clean, and very difficult to navigate if you have a large vehicle. The garbage dumpster bins sit out in the front parking lot, where you have to drive around them to enter and exit the property. The carpet in our room was very grimy and weather worn. The flat screen TV in our room was only a 36 or 42 inch. Way small for the dimensions of the room, which is actually very spacious. The breakfast choices were seriously lacking. The only two selections for juice were Apple and orange and came from a machine. There were no fruit selections at all. You are in Florida, the capital for fruit! What they do give you is a waffle machine, coffee, some yogurt, and packaged bagels from some store. I expect more for the price I pay. Another example is the swimming pool and hot tub. Both I found to be very clean, however, the hot tub temperature was only around 75° and the swimming pool water was also pretty cold. I saw no one utilize the hot tub or swimming pool while we stayed here. I have attached several pictures, but I am not sure if they do this property justice. Bottom line, if you’re looking to save money and all you want is hot water and a bed this place is for you. If you want a very nice and comfortable brightly lit and modern place to call home while you are traveling, you probably should put your money at a more expensive hotel that is also closer to the beaches.
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Date of stay: March 2020Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Assistant Manager, Guest Services / Front Office at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 23 Mar 2020
Dear 636jeff Thank you for choosing the Vista Inn for your lodging needs. Your feedback is important to us. We are quite surprised in what you had meant about the dumpster bins and trash since the dumpster does sit in the rear end of our property away from the rooms and highway . We were unaware of your carpet being worn and would have gladly accommodated you to a different room but will look into the particular room you had stayed in and see where the concern is with our staff. We do serve a Free Full Continental breakfast for our guests that consists of coffee, cereal, bagels, waffles, danishes, and fruit ( apples and oranges) of course. We do apologize if you had expected more of a breakfast. The pool itself is not heated and usually cold in the winter time and summer is warm. We appreciate all your feedback that you had given to us. Thank you!
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1st of all I Secured my reservations approximately 3 weeks in advance. I reserved a king Room that allowed pets. On the day of our reservation as we are driving to Florida I get an email from them stating that the pet cost will be $100 per pet and we have two. So we get to the hotel and get the keys to our Room and then we get in our Room and it has 2 full size beds so I called the office and they said that they were sorry they made a mistake on our reservation and we didn't have any choice but to accept this room they had no more to offer. About an hour later I get a phone call from the desk clerk that states he found a king room for us. I told him we can be back in a hour to secure the king room. He called me again about 10 minutes later and said he made a mistake and cannot fulfill our King room need. There were several times I had to go get coffee, toilet paper, cups, garbage bags, ice bags, towels etc as I only got room service twice. On our 5th night we had no heat. I called the office and they just said sorry they could not get service for heat until the next day. Low temps for the night in low 50's. No offer of a new room, no offer of blankets or space heaters. Now, let's talk about a few other things. Very outdated, tiny coffee maker, sliding glass door to patio has air flowing through and the curtains do not completely close. Slow clog in sink. Someone needs to pick up garbage in parking lot and cut the grass in the yard for the small dogs. I'm griping probably too much but dang how about not being treated like garbage.
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Date of stay: December 2020Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
stayed here january 2022. while in my room with extra bolt on the door someone partially opened my door without any knock or anouncement. When going to the door to see who had just attempted unorthorized entry into my room, noone was there. 1. When confronting the front desk person, He stated "i haven't recently given out any keys. Only 3 people have keys on the property. I dont know".. (who tried to enter your room. 2. When confronting the maintenance person, he stated he tried to get into #(...) which was a completely different room than mine and located on a different wing of the buildings. He was seen walking around different floors on the property and never admitted trying to enter my room. 3. The housekeeping person was also on a completely different wing working in a room at the time. In conclusion this place is rated F by the Better Business Bureau and now i know why. I would highly suggest that noone stay here if u value your possessions and possibly your life especially if people are randomly trying to enter an occupied room and never owning up to it if it was in fact an error...
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Date of stay: January 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Pictures online are definitely outdated and were strategically taken. The building is situated on a busy highway, in need of repair, landscaping is filled with weeds/garbage and the entire place could use a thorough pressure washing. The room was a bit outdated/old, but clean. Breakfast is all prepackaged unhealthy items (we did stay here with COVID changes) so we just got coffee. Our main issue in staying here was this hotel is obviously used for "long term tenants". Many locals knew each other from room to room. Their balconies were stuffed with personal belongings, they were very loud and honestly a bit intimidating. I would never chose this hotel again.
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Date of stay: August 2020
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Assistant Manager, Guest Services / Front Office at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 2 Nov 2020
Dear Guest Thank you for choosing the Vista Inn for your lodging needs. Your feedback is important to us. We do serve a free continental breakfast that are pre-packaged items because of Covid-19 and our health department which is for the safety of all of our guests. We do have guests that are staying here either daily, weekly or monthly. We do apologize if this was a disturbance for you. We appreciate your feedback. Thank you!
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Very courteous staff. Clean, attractive room. Lovely view. Comfortable beds and pillows. The only negatives... Lighting in room at night was very dim. AC squealed every time it turned off. Bfast strictly continental so no eggs, etc.
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Date of stay: February 2020
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Room Tip:Â Has elevator to the three, upper floors.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Assistant Manager, Guest Services / Front Office at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 23 Apr 2020
Dear Lonestarkicker Thank you for choosing the Vista Inn on Lake Tarpon for your lodging needs. Your feedback is important to us. We are pleased to see that you enjoyed your stay with us and we hope to see you again soon in the future. Thank you!
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Mostly stayed here because of their acceptance of pets. On this stay, we were given a room on the 2nd floor on the south wing of the hotel. Upon arrival,it was discovered that the elevator was broken. This really was a problem as one of our party has difficulty walking up stairs. After struggling to make the trip via the stairs, we contacted the management and informed them of our difficulty. We were told that there were no rooms that accepted pets on a lower floor available.. Elevator was not fixed during the 2 days we stayed. The rooms and grounds were outdated and needed paint. carpeting needed cleaning. I don't see that we would ever come back to this location .
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Date of stay: September 2020
Rooms
Location
Service
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Assistant Manager, Guest Services / Front Office at The Vue Lake Tarpon
Responded 24 Jul 2021
Dear Guest Thank you for choosing the Vista Inn for your lodging needs. We do apologize for what you had experienced throughout your stay. The elevator did indeed give us an issue and we did did inform our guests of this concern. The elevator company was called and they came to fix it as soon as they could since they were busy with other jobs as well. We do have 2 elevators on property, so they main one in the lobby was working during your stay. We appreciate all your feedback from your stay. Thank you!
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Stayed one night October 23-24 2021. Couldn’t have picked a better place to spend the night. Room was great, very clean and especially liked the tile floor, as pet room carpeting can be pretty gross. Location was perfect as was the included continental breakfast.
Will definitely be our place to stay again when visiting Tarpon Springs
Dawn
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Date of stay: October 2021
Rooms
Location
Service
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Q-I'm interested in learning how far we would be from a beach for swimming, and how far into the village for Greek food?
A- About 4 miles from the Sponge Docks and depending on which direction you want to go there are several beach areas near by. My recommendation is Fred Howard Park which is closest (10 minutes). However, Honeymoon Island, Calidesi and Sunset beach are also close.
There are more places to choose from in the Palm Harbor area.
ALSO KNOWN AS
lake tarpon hotel palm harbor, palm harbor best western
FORMERLY KNOWN AS
Vista Inn Lake Tarpon
LOCATION
United StatesFloridaPalm Harbor
NUMBER OF ROOMS
95
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