Hi,
I'm a frequent traveler for both business and personal.I have stayed in the best and worst of hotels domestically and internationally. I am Gold with Marriott, which occassionally gets me an upgrade. I chose this hotel as it is relatively close to the TPA airport and the rate was $175-ish compared with +$260 at similar properties around the airport.
The hotel is 1.5 miles or so from the casino and the hotel offers a shuttle that runs on the hour. The shuttle service was great and the young lady driving was a pleasure to talk to as I was the only person on the bus both ways. I'm not a casino person, however I went for dinner as they have a very good Asian restaurant there. There wasn't much else around the hotel other than a Wendy's,
The lobby of this property has been recently updated and looks great. Check-in was easy and the front desk folks were very friendly. My room #324 was clean, however very tired looking. It was also +80 degrees in the room. When I attempted to turn the AC on, the wall switch didn't work. I picked up the house phone to call for maintenence and the phone didn't work either. I went downstairs to change rooms which I did very efficiently.
I was moved to room #322 (next door), which was a suite. Significantly larger and clean, however still very tired. All was well until I went to bed and turned on the TV. Unfortunately, the TV only picked up around 11 channels. What was strange was the TV in the other room worked perfectly. Any way, I got by. Checkout was easy and I made my way back to TPA.
To recap:
Employees were great, A+
Convenience to airport was okay ~ 20 minutes away
Rooms (both) were clean
Hotel overall is tired and needs a facelift in the rooms
Would I stay here again, maybe. Thanks for reading and safe travels!