This hotel was bad from the get go. Myself and my mother were driving down from Orlando to stay at the hotel for the weekend (I was a guest at a con being held at the resort). The first clue that this hotel was bad news was the directions the hotel gave on their website. They caused me to get turned around at least twice. Finally, I found the place and pulled in. My first impression (seeing that the place had construction going on outside) should have set off alarm bells in my head that this was NOT the place to stay, but after driving almost four hours, I was tired and just wanted to get settled into my room. I pulled up to the front of the hotel so I could go inside to check in. As I was checking in, I was told that I HAD to valet park my car. This was the ONLY option. As a hotel guest, paying over $100 per night, I HAD to pay $12 a day to park my car. Talk about crap. To say I was mad would be an understatement. No one tells you this when you are on the phone booking your reservation, oh no. So, after arguing that I was there for an event and that I was supposed to be able to park for $4 a day, I relented and decided to valet the car and deal with it in the morning with the con organizer. Then, I told the hotel bellman that I didn't have the money to pay anyone to take my and my mothers bags up to the room, so could I just use one of the carts? The bellman went on a ranting about how it's illegal to allow a guest to use the carts alone and that the hotel had only four of them (four carts for a hotel that has 8 floors?) and basically told me he would just help me out. Of course, once we got up to my room, he stood there hoovering, awaiting a tip for his help. Upon arriving at the room, we learned that one of the room keys didn't work which was lovely of course. Then, we checked out our quarters for the weekend. The place was filthy. The air vents were dirty, the chairs had white stains all over them, the microwave had food spots caked inside, and not only was the TV dirty, it was the poorest excuse for a hotel TV I've ever seen. It was just 19" which is much smaller than any of my tvs at home. As we were unpacking, we started to smell smoke and noted an ash tray on the table. I was promised when I reserved and checked in that the room was non-smoking. It was anything but. So, I called down to the front desk requesting a room change. I could not, nor could my mother with our allergies deal with this smell all weekend. I was told that I would be called back in a few minutes once she spoke to the manager. After not hearing from the desk 15 minutes later, I again called the desk. This time I was beginning to lose my patience. I wanted a room change and some sort of compensation for how bad this place was and I wasn't going to wait for much longer. Finally, on the third phone call, I was told that the manager agreed to move us to a non-smoking room and to take off the parking charges for our problems. The desk would send down the bellman to help us move up three floors to our new room. So....another 15 minutes later, we finally hear a knock at the door and it's the bellman. He basically tosses our luggage and belongings onto the cart and proceeds to run, yes RUN down the hallway to the elevator, all the while my mom and I are trying to follow him, as we have no clue which room we are going to (not to mention my laptop was on the cart, so I didn't want it to be out of my sight). We get into the elevator and once we hit the new floor, he again proceeds to run down the hallway with our stuff. What an idiot. I was pissed. Who did he think he was? Anyway, we get to the room and he puts our stuff inside, hands me the keys and takes off. This room IS better than the other. The place looks cleaner and the TV is actually larger. It's still a bit dumpy looking, but it's definitely better than the one we were in previously. Bottom line here, I heard NOTHING but complaints from my friends and other fellow convention guests and even con-goers about this hotel. It's old, and the people don't take any kind of good care of it, and futhermore, they don't care about the guests at all (don't even get me started on the garage employee, he was anything but friendly). Save yourself a lot of heartache and do NOT stay at the Ramada Hollywood Beach Resort.