We almost thought we had completely messed up our hotel booking because this place was giving full “Motel 6” energy when we pulled in.
And it’s $350 a night.
But what we found out back completely changed everything.
You’ve heard the saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover” before, right?
Well, if I were to sum up the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach in Florida with 7 words – those would be the 7.
And for good reason.
See, we had been at Busch Gardens Tampa finishing up a week-long vacation across Florida and wanted to end our trip with some time at the beach. Upon pulling up to this hotel, it was seriously giving off a little bit iffy “Motel 6” vibes, and I was definitely a bit worried that we had finally done it – we had finally booked a hotel that wasn’t going to be anything like what the website advertised.
But boy, was I wrong.
This is a full, in-depth review of the Hilton Garden Inn St. Pete Beach located at 6100 Gulf Boulevard in St. Pete Beach, Florida. We stayed there for three days and two nights in May 2025 and this was our experience.
OVERVIEW
As I already said: the Hilton Garden Inn St. Pete Beach doesn’t have the most glamorous curbside appeal from the road. In fact, if you look at the hotel’s website, there are NO photos of the hotel taken from the road – and for good reason. It’s just not really much to look at from the front.
St. Pete Beach is located on a barrier island just west of St. Petersburg and it’s famous for its beautiful beaches. Since it is an island, you have to drive over a few bridges in order to arrive on St. Pete and once you arrive, you very quickly realize just how small the island is. It’s long, but it definitely isn’t very wide – with a total of just 2.2 square miles of land.
Taking the compact space and location of St. Pete Beach into consideration, it makes sense that the buildings, restaurants, and hotels on this island are sandwiched in like sardines.
There are quite a few very large resorts on the island – The Don CeSar is this huge iconic pink resort and was the first thing that we saw (since we drove in off of 682). As we drove down Gulf Boulevard, it was this strange mix of massive luxury resorts and then very dated-looking buildings right next door. Rinse and repeat the entire way down. So, let’s just say: when we saw the sign for the Hilton Garden Inn and it lacked a certain level of curb appeal – we were definitely holding our breath as we pulled in.
Further: as you drive down Gulf Boulevard – you can see that the ocean is RIGHT THERE. You can catch glimpses of it between the buildings (both the grand ones and the not-so-grand) and it looked absolutely lovely. But upon pulling into the Hilton Garden Inn, we couldn’t see the ocean at all.
If you’ve ever pulled into a hotel and immediately questioned your life choices – you know what I was feeling.
For further context: this isn’t a cheap hotel. Average rates for when we visited in May landed around $350 a night, with more premium rooms (the ones with the “Full” Gulf Views – I’ll explain this in a minute) almost doubling that price. And as the peak vacation season picks up and you move into the summer months, the price increases.
Okay, but repeat after me: don’t judge a book by its cover – pull in, check in, head up to your room, and then walk out the back – things get much, much better, I promise.
THE ROOM
Since we’re talking about “underwhelming” things, let’s get the room out of the way first. Since we stayed at this hotel at the end of a trip in which we’d stayed at some really nice Florida resorts, we were QUITE underwhelmed (to say the least) upon pulling onto the hotel property and then walking up to our room.
We stayed in a 2 Queen Bed Balcony room with a “Partial” Gulf View. I’ll show you what a “partial” gulf view is in just a moment.
All things considered – the room was truly very average. The room was clean and an average hotel size. We had a mini fridge, coffee maker, microwave – things that come in a standard hotel room. The bathroom was a comfortable, average size with a nice, clean walk-in shower.
As I said, we had a balcony and it was TINY – there was barely enough room for the two small chairs and a small table that were out there – let alone any human bodies. But, we had a balcony! From our room, it did have a large step out and down onto the balcony (which means there was a large step up and back into the room) – we had to be careful because we definitely tripped over this step more than once.
But overall, the name of the game is “average”. There is absolutely nothing special to write home about with these rooms. The “Partial” Gulf View simply means that you can see a sliver of the ocean if you lean out of your balcony and look toward the ocean (but it’s definitely a very small “partial”). When we first arrived, we honestly weren’t even sure if we could see the ocean from our balcony.
I really want to set a clear picture here: this hotel is built on a long and narrow slice of property, meaning the hotel itself is long and skinny. Most of the rooms overlook the parking lot and the resorts sitting next door (which is why the rooms are labeled as “Partial” View rooms.)
There are a FEW (and I do mean, just barely a handful) of rooms that are built into the end of the hotel that have a “Full” Gulf View of the ocean. Since there are so few of them, these rooms do come with a fairly hefty price-tag.
Additionally, if you book a room on the first floor, a lot of those rooms had a patio that you could walk out to – but since that patio bumps right up to the parking lot – I’d say save your money and pick a room with a balcony instead.
Back upstairs to the room – but not so fast, the elevators were definitely on the slow side.
We found the beds to be comfortable and again – very average. We spent two nights here and even though there was live music playing out at the Beach Bar both nights, we couldn’t hear it up in our room. We could hear slight sounds coming from people walking up and down the halls, but just normal, basic hotel sounds, nothing super loud or disruptive.
The finishes don’t feel ultra-modern or recently updated, but everything did feel very clean and well maintained.
There were pool towels up in our room that were clearly labeled as for the pool. Additionally, there was a card that said you could request additional pool towels from the poolside attendant or front desk, but you needed to be sure to leave those extra towels in your room during checkout, or potentially be charged a $25 per towel charge. This initially made us a bit nervous (how were they keeping track of how many towels we had anyways?) but after talking to the front desk and pool attendant, this seems to be a policy they held pretty lightly (maybe that’s just because we seemed like a responsible family and not a bunch of partying college kids – but regardless, we didn’t have any problem with the pool towels!)
But, speaking of the pool – let’s move out of the room (you won’t be spending much time there anyways) and talk about the whole reason this hotel quickly went from being a mildly scary “Motel 6” to just an “average” hotel – to one of our favorite locations EVER.
THE RESORT
The resort aspect of this hotel comes in at a solid “second place” (you’ll see and understand why the beach wins the award for first place in a few minutes).
As soon as you walk around the corner of the hotel and the grassy open areas of the resort with the cornhole and hammocks and seating areas and pool and beach-side bar opens up before you, you can just feel people sighing an audible sigh of relief (or, maybe that was just me): “Okay, maybe this wasn’t a bad choice after all.”
Let me walk you through it:
As soon as you round the corner of the hotel, a decent sized “grassy” area opens up in front of you (I do put “grassy” in quotes because it’s not actual grass, but turf). Everything is beautifully kept and landscaped together – the concrete pathways, the bushes and flowers, the palm trees – it all leads into this beautiful, relaxing area. Covered in string lights, there are so many different areas to sit and relax, there are hammocks to lay in, and cornhole boards out, inviting you in to play a game – it truly feels like this lovely oasis that doesn’t quite jive with what you can see from the road.
If you keep walking from there, you run directly into the pool area. It is gated off and does require a hotel room key to enter. If you want to get to the Beach Bar and restaurant, which is on the other side of the pool, or simply skip the pool area in order to continue walking down to the beach, you can easily swing all the way to the left or right of the pool and detour the gated pool area.
But of course, why would you want to do that? The pool area is absolutely delightful – there were SO many lounge chairs with umbrellas and small tables set up in different layers around the pool – so many options to relax! When we were at the pool, we sat right up next to the pool (because our kids were swimming), but there was plenty of space where, if you simply wanted to relax at the pool, you could without being in a splash zone.
The pool is listed on the website as “heated”, but you could have fooled me! It was quite cold – and not the “chilly, but still refreshing” kind of cold, but the type that you get in and instantly get right back out because it’s just too cold to relax in. Spoiler alert: much to our surprise, the ocean was a much more comfortable temperature!
There were bathrooms located right off of the pool – so if you were down at the beach or relaxing around the resort-aspect of the hotel, these were conveniently located and saved you from having to walk all the way back up to your room.
We found bottled water available at the pool (and the pool attendant folks encouraged us to help ourselves to it). There was also water available for free inside of the Beach Bar and restaurant. (I promise, I’m going to dive deep into the food options at the Hilton Garden Inn shortly, so stick with me!)
The pool had a basketball game floating in the water and a few pool noodles floating around that someone had left. But otherwise, that was it as far as “provided” toys (I mention that simply because we’ve been to some hotels and resorts that have a plethora of pool toys and beach toys, but that just wasn’t the case here).
We’re going to skip talking about the Beach Bar and restaurant, walk right on past it, and continue heading down toward the beach. Again, there were so many hammocks and places to sit and relax! Even if this hotel was absolutely bursting-at-the-seams-busy, I still think there would be plenty of seating for everyone – which is a huge plus!
THE BEACH
The beach is the shining star of the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach and for us – as soon as we walked down and not only realized how close, convenient, clean, and beautiful the beach was – it 100% sold us on the location.
The section of beach right in front of the Hilton Garden Inn is considered a “private beach” for hotel guests only. Obviously, the hotel staff doesn’t monitor who is on the beach and the beach isn’t “roped off”, so take the term “private beach” with a grain of salt, but because of how it’s laid out (with the chairs and cabanas), there is no feeling like you need to RUSH down to the beach first thing in the morning in order to “stake out your claim” on a spot at the water (maybe it’s just me, but that’s how I always feel whenever we visit a more publicly accessible beach!)
You may not have caught what I just insinuated, but let me be very clear: the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach provides lounge chairs AND cabanas for their guests at no extra fee! This actively blew our minds and let’s just say, kind of ruined us for every other beach-front hotel experience. We’ve stayed at resorts that have given free chairs for the beach, but you have to pay a small fee for the umbrella. And we’ve stayed at plenty of resorts that simply say: you’re on your own down at the beach! But the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach truly takes their service to a whole new level.
The lounge chairs simply stay on the beach all day and all night (and you are free to use them any time). We weren’t exactly sure how the cabanas would work, but the front desk had told us that the company who manages the chairs and cabanas would arrive and set everything up, and then tear everything down, every day.
And sure enough, right around 9am, a few people arrived on site loaded down with cabanas, chairs, and umbrellas. You could tell, they do this day in and day out – they have a great efficient and effective system down. First, they set up the cabanas over all the lounge chairs that simply live there on the beach.
Then, they add another line of chairs and umbrellas down closer to the water line – again, these are just for the guests of the Hilton Garden Inn.
As the sun got higher in the sky, they walked around and gave everyone an extra pole so you could lift your cabana up in the back to provide better shade from the sun (which was now directly overhead) and add some airflow.
And then, as the afternoon wore on and stretched toward dinner, they began tearing things down – they pulled down that extra line of chairs and umbrellas, then disassembled the cabanas and by 5pm, they were done for the day and gone.
Having the chairs as a homebase and the cabana providing the ability to get out of the sun and relax made our day at the beach AMAZING. We had scheduled our vacation so that we could spend the entire day at the beach, and we actually did! We came down as the sun was coming up and didn’t go back up to our room until after the sun had set. Without the chairs and cabana, I’m not sure if we would have lasted the entire day like that – so when I say that the chairs and cabana option at the beach has ruined us for all other beach-front hotels – I mean it.
The beach itself is beautiful. The sand was soft and clean. The entry into the water is gradual – no sudden drop-offs. The water was blue and clear and VERY warm. There were seashells galore (and not just a bunch of broken ones, but we found some of the best shells we’ve EVER found at a beach there!) We saw fish swimming around us, dolphins just a little bit beyond us, and even some sea urchins (which we’re REALLY glad we didn’t step on – yikes!)
After lunch, the low tide delivered this STUNNING sandbar that we just couldn’t get enough of. We were amazed at how beautiful it was! And on top of all of that, we found so many FULL sand dollars – which was the highlight of our collection. We found so many that my daughter was able to take one home for each of her friends.
Needless to say, we spent so much time enjoying the beach, and not just finding seashells and building sandcastles. We did a ton of walking and exploring too and once you break out of the “resort bubble” (the private beaches in front of the row of hotels we were staying in), the beach was truly alive. There were jetskis you could rent, boat tours being advertised, people offering massages right there on the beach – there was even someone walking up and down selling “fresh coconut water” straight from a coconut.
I literally cannot sing the praises of the beach at St. Pete enough. We had never been there before, so we really weren’t sure what to expect. Then, after pulling in and seeing how “average” the inside of the hotel was, we really worried that we had booked something we might regret – but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. We were blown away and still to this day talk about what a hidden jewel we feel like we found.
THE FOOD
The Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach is the home of two restaurants: Coconut Charlies Grill (which sits off of the main lobby and has both indoor and outdoor seating available). And then there’s Coconut Charlie’s Beach Bar, which sits down next to the pool, at the top of the beach.
I thought Coconut Charlies was a chain restaurant, but apparently it’s only associated with Hilton hotels and there are only a handful out there (they have locations in Myrtle Beach in South Carolina and Panama City Beach in Florida). They’ve been named the Best Seafood Restaurant by Tampa Magazine and it was truly delicious!
The first night when we arrived and checked in at the hotel, we decided to have dinner at Coconut Charlies Grill (the sit-down restaurant inside the hotel). We got a variety of food and while it was a little bit on the pricey side (it’s a beach-front hotel’s restaurant – duh), the food was super fresh, cooked to order, and absolutely delicious.
Since this is a Hilton Garden Inn, there is no complimentary breakfast option (although, you can add a breakfast option while booking your room if you know you are going to take advantage of Coconut Charlies for breakfast).
I’ll note: there is a Dunkin’ Donuts directly across the street from the Hilton Garden Inn, so that’s what we ended up doing for breakfast! Derrick ran across and grabbed coffees and donuts and we ate breakfast down on the beach, because: why not?
And when I say: “Derrick ran across” I mean that he actually drove our car. Even though it was literally right across the street, driving definitely felt like the safer option. We did see people walking up and down Gulf Boulevard, but it’s a busy, narrow road and walking just didn’t seem like the safest option.
If Dunkin’ isn’t your favorite, we saw plenty of other food options up and down the Gulf Boulevard, including a Chick-Fil-A and there was also a Publix less than a mile away.
For lunch we decided to eat at Coconut Charlie’s Beach Bar and it was SO good. Derrick and I split a buffalo chicken pizza and the kids got coconut shrimp kids meals. All things considered, the prices at the Beach Bar were totally fair – they didn’t seem overly elevated and the food was delicious. Even the drinks weren’t super expensive, which really surprised us.
It surprised and pleased us enough that we ended up eating dinner at Coconut Charlie’s Beach Bar as well! But this time, instead of going up into the bar area, we just sat down by the pool and a waitress came around and took our order. This option, of ordering food and drinks straight to the pool, really elevates the Hilton Garden Inn and makes it feel more like a resort than just a hotel, and that was just another small thing that really impressed us.
While the Beach Bar wasn’t that busy for lunch, as the evening wore on, it became almost impossible to find a seat. The place was absolutely hopping – and at dinner, a live band came out and played music – again, really elevating that beach/resort vibe. Combine the great food at decent prices, the live music, and the beautiful setting – it was very obvious why this was THE place to be! It was so fun and easy to simply grab a drink, relax around the pool, listen to the live band play, with the waves of the ocean crashing in the background – chef’s kiss.
As you might expect: the seagulls are aggressive. But since we didn’t see very many around the pool, we were quite caught off guard when a seagull swooped in and stole our son’s hamburger right off of his plate during dinner. Needless to say, we were totally surprised, and our poor son was so upset! The waitress was so sweet though – she came right over and Derrick told her that we’d order another burger and she waved us off: “No worries!” she said, “We have allowances to let us replace seagull stolen food! I’ll have another burger out for him in just a minute.”
Well, if we weren’t impressed yet – we sure were now.
EXTRAS OF NOTE
A few other things to note: parking is listed on the Hilton Garden Inn’s website as $25 a day, but it’s included in your room rate – it’s NOT an additional fee.
Speaking of additional fees, you’d expect there to be a resort fee added to your nightly stay at the Hilton Garden Inn St. Pete Beach because of the beach chairs, cabanas, hammocks, etc. but again, NO. There are no additional resort fees charged at all – everything is simply included in your room rate.
This is definitely NOT the case everywhere and really surprised us (in the best way possible)! We’re so used to paying additional parking fees and resort fees, that I couldn’t believe there weren’t any additional fees with this hotel! It just seems like such a normal thing, so this just adds another check in the “amazing” category with this hotel!
St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport is the closest airport (it’s 21 miles away) and Tampa International Airport is just 29 miles away. And no, there are no airport shuttles offered by the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach.
Busch Gardens Tampa is less than an hour away from St. Pete Beach – this is actually where we were the day before and what drew us to this specific area. We knew we would be at the park and were looking for a beach we could spend the day at close by. (Needless to say: I’m so glad we found this one!)
St. Pete Beach is less than 2 hours from Orlando and all the amazing theme parks it has to offer. So, it’s not exactly close enough to trek back and forth on a daily basis, but if you only planned to spend one day at, say: Sea World Orlando, but really wanted a great beach location to spend a few days – this would be a great option.
The lobby of the hotel is really nice and open, it has a small shop with a decent amount of drink and snack options, plus a small selection of frequently forgotten items, as well as some St. Pete souvenirs. There were two separate seating areas for people to relax in and there was even an area with a water bowl and pup cups for pets! This was SO cute – we’ve never seen anything like it in a hotel lobby before!
CONCLUSION
So, here’s the quick summary:
The rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach are basic and clean – nothing fancy. The pool and surrounding grassy areas of the resort were beautifully landscaped and well-kept – perfect for relaxing and hanging out. The food was surprisingly good and not as expensive as we were expecting from a beach-front hotel. And the way the private beach is set up and maintained not only surprised us, but blew us away.
Sure, this hotel isn’t going to be for EVERYONE – if you care about big, oceanfront balconies, luxury, five-star rooms, or a large resort pool and lazy river – you’d be disappointed with the Hilton Garden Inn at St. Pete Beach.
But, this hotel is an incredible option for families (like ours) who value a beautiful, clean, calm beach more than a balcony or modern finishes. The beach is truly the crown jewel of the property – just a short walk from the hotel, and the ocean is so chill (at least, it was when we were there in May!) The waves were mostly gentle, bobbing waves, the water was shallow for a long way out, and the sand was so soft.
The private beach means that you don’t have to go down to the beach before the sun comes up or fight for a good spot on the beach. It’s not wall-to-wall people because the space is only for the guests of the Hilton Garden Inn. Plus, the provided chairs and cabana means that you don’t have to bring your own shade or even think about it – it’s already there! And it gives you a great “home base” on the beach.
If you’re planning to spend time at Busch Gardens Tampa and want to add a beach day without driving all the way back to the Atlantic Ocean, this is absolutely worth looking at.
We LOVED our time at St. Pete Beach and will definitely be heading back the next time we’re in Florida and visiting Busch Gardens Tampa.
