Review of Marina Inn at Grande Dunes 3*

My experience at the Marina was quite surprising. My first impressions upon arrival was pure excitement. The resort is beautiful, and the lobby is breathtaking. I arrived at 10AM. Check-in was not until 4PM, so we changed clothes, grabbed the shuttle, and headed to the beach. The private beach is unlike any other in Myrtle Beach. The beach service provides clean towels for use at the beach. Additionally, they offer chairs and umbrellas. They also provide a snack and concession area that has drinks and light foods for purchase. There is a portable restroom facility that is air conditioned as well. The shuttle service was fantastic. The driver was professional, friendly, and accommodating. At 1:30PM, I received the text message informing me that my room was ready. We stayed at the beach until 3PM, checked in, and headed to Barefoot Landing for the evening. At 5:30PM I received a call from the resort letting me know they made a mistake and checked me in to the wrong room. They apologized for the inconvenience and even offered to move all our luggage for us. This was minimal to no inconvenience because we hadn’t really unpacked yet, so we went ahead and just moved it ourselves. The next day at the beach was great. The shuttle driver informed us on the way back that afternoon that this was the last day for the seasonal staff at the resort, however the bellhop would take us to the beach on the shuttle for the remainder of the trip. So the next morning, we headed down to the front of the resort and asked the bellhop to take us to the beach. With a look of confusion, he responded that the last day for beach service was yesterday. He informed us that he would not be taking anyone to the beach today. He informed us that we could drive ourselves to their beach access, however we could not park in the parking lot as it was reserved for the ocean club. When we arrived at the beach, there were no chairs or umbrellas set up. This is the point at which it became a major inconvenience, because we did not travel with chairs or umbrellas. We drove back to the resort and went to the front desk to talk with the staff. The staff explained the dates for the chairs and umbrellas were posted on their website and that we should have checked that before staying with them. I informed the front desk that I did check their website, and I wanted to verify the availability, so I sent an email to the resort and received a written response from the resort advising that the shuttle, chairs, and umbrellas would be available for the specific dates that we were staying with them (email attached to this review). They responded saying they were not sure who sent me the email, but re assured that the chairs and umbrellas would not be available to us, regardless of what the email said. So at this point, we were overwhelmed with a sense of surprise and disappointment. At this time, it became very apparent to me that I was not going to be able to relax on the beach while staying at the Marina Inn, so informed them that I wanted to check out now (2 days early). The Marina Inn did not ruin my trip to Myrtle Beach, however, I had my trip very organized and planned. After reviewing my master schedule, the issue of changing rooms cost us around 1 hour of shopping time. This really was not a big deal, so I consider it to have no bearing on the rating I’ve chosen. However the beach chair issue, resulting in us switching resorts, cost us 4 hours of beach time. Of my planned 22 hours of beach time, I spent 18 hours on the beach. I would normally consider a misunderstanding like this to be minor, however this misunderstanding cost us 18% of our beach time. If I had known up front that the beach service would not be available for the last two days of my trip, I wouldn’t have made the reservation. However, based on their email response, I trusted that the information they delivered was true and accurate.