Open Waters Resort

UPDATE - The entire hotel has been rented out to treatment facility for an indefinite period of time. They are upgrading rooms and installing a new seawall, patio deck on the water and boat dock. We've been helping to add some touches like rinse tank, gear drying rack and storage. So I was only going only four stars because they are still doing renovations and are not fully staffed yet. BUT ---Location, location, location. --- This is a SCUBA diving dream location. We have dove the bridge hundreds of times, but Phil Foster park gets really crowded and sometimes all 300 parking spots are full. Last night, or this morning we dove the Blue Heron Bridge from our beach next to the East bridge at 3:30 AM. We did a 90 minute dive and all we covered was the North and South side of the East bridge. There were half a dozen polkadot batfish, at least 10 barbfish, several Spotted Scorpio fish, a Plumed Scorpionfish, two juvenile scorpionfish, octopus, bobbit worm, lots of shrimp, lobsters, and several different types of hermits crabs, huge schools of silversides occasionally bumping us. Wow! Being able to dive in the sanctuary of the #1 dive site in the USA, but outside of the crowds and time limits of Phil Foster park is Awesome!!!!! We started posting pictures on Facebook under specialized scuba and will keep posting, just a little slow. Can't wait to see this place when all the renovations are done. It's like Bonaire at half price and it's right here in Florida.
Jan 23rd, 2023

This place is a jewel in the rough. Staff/Amenities/Location/Price beats any bougie place on Singer Island. I cant say enough good things about it!
May 27th, 2022

Very shady hotel. The room was very dirty and there were holes in the ceiling. The worst part of this place was the manager who was very rude to my wife and I. He literally yelled at me that he was gonna force me to leave and called me selfish after I called Booking.com to try to fix the price discrepancy that was discovered when we checked in. The manager wanted to charge us more than what we booked the room for. I immediately left after being yelled at and then the manager lied about us leaving the room dirty (even though it had only been about 2 hours there and we had only set our luggage bags down). They refused to give us any kind of a refund. Booking.com had terrible service in all this as well and wouldn't help us. I've never been treated so poorly.
Sep 3rd, 2022

Booked 2 nights here for a weekend getaway from tampa. We arrive to a motel that seems closed down, no employees to be found, we finally found a maintenance worker napping in a back room to check us in. Rooms were under construction with various appliances and furniture sitting out in the hallways of the motel and the dock area was torn apart and under construction as well, which could have been over looked if the room we were assigned was more comfortable. TV was not accessible, even basic cable or antenna. The bed was the worst I have ever stayed in and I am used to roughing it in hostels overseas, a small double, hard as rocks mattress and 1 stained limp pillow per person. The ac in the unit beeped every couple of minutes thru the night. I was finally able to get a hold of an employee via telephone, after our 1st night, who was not willing to offer any sort of solution therefore we had to cut our vacation short and drive the 4 hours home.
Aug 27th, 2022

Booked 2 nights here for a weekend getaway from tampa.  We arrive to a motel that seems closed down, no employees to be found, we finally found a maintenance worker napping in a back room to check us in.  Rooms were under construction with various appliances and furniture sitting out in the hallways of the motel and the dock area was torn apart and under construction as well, which could have been over looked if the room we were assigned was more comfortable.  TV was not accessible, even basic cable or antenna.  The bed was the worst I have ever stayed in and I am used to roughing it in hostels overseas, a small double, hard as rocks mattress and 1 stained limp pillow per person. The ac in the unit beeped every couple of minutes thru the night. I was finally able to get a hold of an employee via telephone, after our 1st night, who was not willing to offer any sort of solution therefore we had to cut our vacation short and drive the 4 hours home.
Jul 22nd, 2022