Sandcastle Resort at Lido Beach

Sarasota, Gulf Coast Beaches

Restaurant
Standard Room
Gulf Front Double Room
Courtyard View Room
Restaurant
Standard Room
Gulf Front Double Room
Courtyard View Room

The hotel

The sand is beautifully bright and sugary soft on this 600ft stretch of private beach and you can hire watercraft to drift along on the waves. This really is a must-see paradise, and right on the doorstep it only makes this pleasant and inviting hotel even more appealing. There are lots of dry land activities too, including bicycle hire. Alongside the attractive pool area is the pool bar where it is customary to gather at sunset. Later you can enjoy a meal in the Candlelight restaurant or perhaps stroll over to St Armand's Circle and sample one of the bistros there. The hotel puts on seasonal live entertainment and the staff are friendly and helpful.

Amenities

  • Bar
  • Swimming Pool
  • Families
  • Free Parking
  • Room Service
  • Safety Deposit Box
  • Wheelchair access
  • Laundry Service
  • Internet Access
  • Car Included
  • Beachfront location
  • Volley Ball

Where is it

On Lido Beach in the charming resort community of Sarasota, which offers a wealth of cultural activities and attractions.

Hotel information

179 rooms on up to 4 floors in 7 buildings with 2 lifts. All with air-conditioning, TV, complimentary WiFi, coffee maker, fridge, safe, iron and board, and hairdryer. Standard Rooms with 1 king-size bed or 2 double beds, sleeping maximum 4 adults or 2 adults and 2 children.

Courtyard/Poolside Rooms sleep maximum 4 adults or 2 adults and 2 children.

Gulf Front Rooms sleep maximum 4 adults or 2 adults and 2 children.

Free self-parking. 3 minute drive or 20 minute walk to St Armand's Circle.

Candlelight Restaurant and Lounge (open for breakfast, lunch and dinner). Sandcastle Pool Bar (open for drinks and snacks). Lounge bar with seasonal live entertainment.

2 heated swimming pools, shuffleboard, sailboats*, kayaks* and water cycles*, table tennis, beach volleyball, giant chess and bicycle hire*, 600ft private beach, golf* and tennis* nearby.

Room service*. Coin laundry*. Gift shop. Complimentary WiFi throughout the hotel.

This hotel has a resort fee of $12.50 plus tax per room, per day (payable locally, subject to change).

Resort fee includes use of the following amenities - WiFi - Access to fitness centre - Use of beach chairs (two per room) - Beach towels - Beach games - Use of pool deck - Resort bicycle hire (max 3 hours per person, per day) - Bottled water in guest room (2 per day) - In-room coffee - Use of lobby business kiosk - Unlimited local and toll free phone calls - Daily newspaper - Use of coin operated laundry - Self-parking - Shuttle to St. Armands Circle daily (8:30am-10:00pm). Resort fee, tax and inclusions are subject to change - please see hotel check-in for current inclusions available to you upon arrival.

Wheelchair accessible rooms available on request. Please note that these rooms are subject to availability and may be restricted to specific room categories and bedding arrangements. Rooms and facilities vary between hotels so please check at the time of booking. For more information and contact details please check out our Special Assistance page

*Denotes local charge.

Rating summary

  • Location Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Sleep Quality Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Rooms Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Service Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Value Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Cleanliness Image of the Tripadvisor rating

Traveller rating

  • Excellent (437)
  • Very good (639)
  • Average (364)
  • Poor (166)
  • Terrible (144)
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Terrible experience

Jul 28, 2021 Vivian M North Miami Beach

The air conditioner was terrible, the four nights to expended in this place NOT sleep because hot The beach with dead fish and smell horrible The cost food and drinks is so expensive that five star hotels and the portions small At the beach isn’t enough umbrellas for all guest I think only for 30% and nothing to do with the pictures at the web
Image of the Tripadvisor rating This President and his board should be ashamed of themselves

Jul 15, 2021 Detrie Z Tinley Park, Illinois

Open letter to Mike Walsh. President Ocean Properties Hello Mike, My Family and two others are 40 year loyal guests to the Lido Sandcastle Resort which you acquired in 2014. At different times, we each brought several other families with us who ended coming back year after year. I understand your intent from the start was to demolish the… Read more
Open letter to Mike Walsh. President Ocean Properties Hello Mike, My Family and two others are 40 year loyal guests to the Lido Sandcastle Resort which you acquired in 2014. At different times, we each brought several other families with us who ended coming back year after year. I understand your intent from the start was to demolish the existing resort and build something new. I get that you are entitled to make a profit. This sir,  does not excuse you from offering my Family the very best experience you can as long as you are taking my hard earned money. You have an obligation to me and my Family . Since you acquired this hotel, you immediately raised your rates and added a made up "resort fee" which we both know is nothing more than a greedy money grab. No one has ever been able to justify this fee to me. Yet, we continue come back year after year and pay your rates and fees. As I said we are loyal guests.  You cut your staff 80% - 90% by my estimation. In doing so, you turned your property into a filthy, smelly, dilapidated health hazard. You have effectively become the hotel slumlord of Sarasota. Worst of all, you cut basic services like housekeeping forcing us to go to your lobby for essentials like bath towels and toilet paper while still raising rates. I havent had my room freshened or disinfected in the 5 days we've been here. What kind of person does this to their guests? Maybe, you just don't care if we ever come back. Maybe you just don't care if we visit your planned multimillion dollar resort or not. We paid you hard earned money to decompress. We are half way through our vacation and with everything you put us through, I have more stress now than when I arrived. You have a sign hanging outside of Ti office that says.."Our job is to give our gusts a reason to come back".. If this is true..YOU HAVE FAILED at your job and should be fired.  Walk a mile in your guest's shoes for a week. Perhaps you should bring your Family or your Parents here anonymously. Then reflect honestly about how your Family was treated and whether you came anywhere near getting the value you paid for and whether you are in the right business or not. Based on everything we have experienced this week, I do not expect a response or a good will effort to make things right monetarily. My expectation is, if you are even still reading this, that you will simply shrug this off and continue your unfortunate practice of corporate greed. Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating The smell of mildew will make you sick.

Jul 12, 2021 767melindac

This place is a total dump the only good thing about it is the location of the beach. Holes in the walls. The smell of mildew was absolutely terrible. The people below us had all of their carpeting ripped out all of their carpeting ripped out because of all the flooding. Your clothing will smell like mildew believe me. So I imagined that's where… Read more
This place is a total dump the only good thing about it is the location of the beach. Holes in the walls. The smell of mildew was absolutely terrible. The people below us had all of their carpeting ripped out all of their carpeting ripped out because of all the flooding. Your clothing will smell like mildew believe me. So I imagined that's where the smell came from. The beach chairs are put away by 3 o'clock every day. There was no housekeeping you had to put everything outside in the hallway for the maid's deep away for the maids to pick up they do not come in your room. Still trying to figure out why we paid a full resort fee? TIKI bar closes at 7.. Food was overpriced so if you wanted to relax at night if you wanted to relax at night there won't even cocktails available. The beach was very nice very private. I've never seen more than 10 or 12 people at 1 time on it time.Timewater was clear. That is where I spent most of my time. Definitely not if you're looking for a romantic get away and for a romantic get away even my tub a tub the paint was peeling off inside it was terrible inside it was terrible. I'm wondering how they are allowed to be up in operating with the way that it smells and with the way that it smells in there it cant be good for your health. Don't waste your time. The outdoor pools were decent. This is a picture of how bad the bathroom was in my room... Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Can’t even get a wash cloth???

Jul 1, 2021 hollym008 Minneapolis, Minnesota

This is definitely a no frills resort which is completely fine with me. All I was looking for was a hot shower and a clean place to rest my head at night. However I could not even get clean washcloths. I stopped at the front desk 3 times in our 5 day 4 night stay and they never had any. I stopped the cleaning people and asked for some, one person… Read more
This is definitely a no frills resort which is completely fine with me. All I was looking for was a hot shower and a clean place to rest my head at night. However I could not even get clean washcloths. I stopped at the front desk 3 times in our 5 day 4 night stay and they never had any. I stopped the cleaning people and asked for some, one person didn’t have any and another lady had a bunch but would only spare 2. I called the front desk and the lady promised housekeeping would drop some off to our room but they never did. One person i spoke to said the hotel has no say on what they get from their third party vendor who delivers the clean linens. Management should maybe look into discussing this issue with their vendor. Service at the restaurant and bar was typically pretty good though the staff always seemed overwhelmed and rushed. Definitely not MN nice like we are used to. The room smelled absolutely awful like mildew, nothing dried in the room luckily I was able to get clean towels after a couple days. A few times we smelled people smoking cigarettes and weed from neighboring rooms and it was almost a relief to not smell the mildew; though I can’t say I was happy my kids were getting second hand smoke while they sleep. I’m also super covered in no-see-um bites from the beach but my kids don’t have one single bite. Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Sub-standard property condition.

Jun 28, 2021 Sunshine201959

I would not recommend to anyone to stay here until the owners make needed maintenance & repairs to this property. I stayed at this resort a few years back and had a great stay, that was not the case with my recent stay from June 7th-10, 2021. The check-in was at 3 pm, we had to wait another hour before our room was available. There were several… Read more
I would not recommend to anyone to stay here until the owners make needed maintenance & repairs to this property. I stayed at this resort a few years back and had a great stay, that was not the case with my recent stay from June 7th-10, 2021. The check-in was at 3 pm, we had to wait another hour before our room was available. There were several guests placed in a similar situation. The lobby and restaurant area appeared to be the only part of the property that has been updated in years. The air conditioning was not working. We had to purchase a fan to make the room tolerable. The carpet was filthy, walking on it made the bottom of my socks black. The air-conditioning filter was extremely dirty. The bathroom sink wasn't draining. We spoke with the front desk about switching to another room but they insisted maintenance had to inspect the room. When maintenance arrived he just removed the sink plug and never returned. He said that there was a problem with the air conditioning for that entire wing. He could not say when it would be fixed. The exterior areas of the property were in very poor condition, from peeling paint, torn carpet on stairs, walkways, rotted wood, uneven pavement, and loose deck boards. I heard several other guests comment about the trip hazards these conditions presented. This lack of maintenance and improvements is unacceptable. Considering the prime location it is hard to understand why the owners would allow this property to get into such a state. I hope they start making improvements before it falls into further disrepair. Read less