My husband and two younger children, ages 8 & 9, decided to book a two-day small getaway on Jekyll Island. We chose this hotel because of the affordable price and the fact that they had a hot tub. Upon check in, as soon as we arrived to our room we noticed a horrible odor. We checked in the refrigerator and there were two full boxes of leftover seafood. I brought them up to the front desk and the woman behind the counter, Jess, offered nothing but an apology. After quickly getting settled then leaving to explore the island for the day, hoping that the smell would dissipate, we returned that evening and it had disappeared, thankfully. My children were anxious to get into the pool and my husband was excited to get into their hot tub, as it is a little chilly in Georgia this time of year(February 2026). As soon as we entered the pool gates, there was a sign stating that the hot tub was out of order, to say that my husband was annoyed is an understatement. In the meantime, the front desk clerk, Jess, had text me asking how everything was going and if we were enjoying our stay thus far. Since this seemed like strike number two, I decided to respond and let her know how disappointed we were that the room smelled awful but thankfully cleared up and that one of the main reasons we booked the room was for the hot tub and that was now out of order. She did offer to upgrade us for no additional charge, however, we were already settled into the room and my children were already getting into bed. She apologized about the hot tub, as she has no control over that. The next day, their breakfast was pretty good, the rest of the room was really nice and after exploring the island for the day we came back and the hot tub was working! The front desk clerk made it a point to stop me and ask if I saw that. I happily said I did and how it was going to make our trip so much better, we planned on booking another night. All seemed well, my children were able to enjoy the pool, my husband and I were able to relax in the hot tub after exploring the island all day and I went down to book another night with the other front desk clerk. After dinner and coming back to our hotel, we allowed our children to swim again until about 9:00 p.m. We return to our rooms and my husband and I had a few drinks, our children fell asleep around 9:30 p.m. My husband decided to step out to the bar(our room was ground level, directly across from the gym and almost directly across from the bar), I told him I would wait until I made sure that the kids were safely asleep so I could step out for a minute and join him. I joined him around 10:00 p.m. and we returned to the room around 10:15. We realized that our key cards were not working so we approached Jess, who was the night time clerk and she immediately gave us attitude as if this problem was our fault. Mind you, my husband had only had two drinks, I did have more, but we were very level-headed with her. She explained to us that she would have to call a handyman from Brunswick and had no idea how long it would take and wasn't even sure if we were able to get into our room that night. No apology, no sounding concerned because our children were trapped in a room asleep, no offering to comp our room, just attitude. We did not blame her for this problem, as it was the hotels fault, but the way that Jess handled this was terrible and it only got worse from here. After about 40 minutes of waiting in the lobby, my husband asked Jess for an update and she turned around and walked away from him saying she wasn't going to speak with him. My husband asked "do I need to call the police because you are not communicating with us on when we will get into our room? You are basically holding my children hostage at this point." She looked at him and in a snarky tone said "call the cops, it's your fault for leaving them in the room". He asked her if she was sure, this was a bad look for the hotel to not be able to problem solve and for the way we were being treated. She did not seem to care about that. Once my husband calmly called the police, they sent out two State Police Officers and a fire rescue squad who were prepared to bust the door down. Immediately, Jess lied to the police and said that my husband was screaming at her, cursing and threatening. The police officer approached us and we calmly explained to her that that was never the case, yes we had a few drinks, and he should watch the video footage of the front desk to solidify that we were not acting that way at all. He agreed with us and agreed that we were being treated unfairly and wasn't sure why. But, as concerned parents with their children locked in a room with no expedient solution, that we were completely justified in calling them. As we were sitting there in the lobby and my husband is speaking to the police officer, I was sitting a few feet away from Jess. Another worker approached her and they began speaking poorly about me and my husband, saying that we were belligerent and it was our fault that our children were locked in there because we stepped out for a few drinks. The cop assured us that we had done nothing illegal and that the hotel was at fault. We waited around for the handyman because the police said if this doesn't get opened by the staff in a timely manner, then he would have the fire department bust the door open. At about 11:15, the handyman finally showed up. It took him 30 minutes to work on the door. At this point I am visibly upset, the hotel staff was incredibly rude and unhelpful during this unnerving time. The hotel had no protocol in place for something like this to happen, it turns out that the entire door system had failed and needed to be replaced. Finally, after an entire spectacle was made at the hands of their employee, Jess, refusing to do her job and communicating or assuring us that we would in fact be able to get into our room with our children safely, we were in our room with our children. The icing on the cake was after we were finally in our room around midnight, Jess insisted to the cops that we be trespassed from the grounds. The cop physically laughed at her and said there was no way he was going to trespass us after what their staff had just put us through. Obviously, we were not going to stay an additional night after what we experienced. In the morning upon check out, the entire staff seemed to know what had happened and were definitely whispering as I returned the key. I told her that we were are not staying another night because we were treated unfairly and almost trespassed because of an irresponsibility of the hotel. The manager came out and offered no apologies, she asked what happened and I told her she needed to read the police report. I sensed attitude from her as well, again, no apologies, no reassurance that their staff would be handled properly, no offering to comp our room or even a portion of it. I do believe that this hotel has potential to be great, however, the staff needs to get it together and be prepared for emergencies without becoming snarky and rude. Unfortunately, we will never be returning to this hotel and we feel like we were completely wronged during the situation without any rectification.
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