Carousel Hotel

If you're seeking ultra deluxe, modern, spa-like, high-tech, luxurious accommodations with room service, this is NOT the place for you!

IF, however, a family-friendly, kid-friendly, super clean, safe, quiet location offering an indoor and outdoor pool, bar, dining, indoor ice-skating, daily kids activities, close to everything (supermarkets, shopping, restaurants galore, movie theater, etc..etc.. you name it!) comfortable beds, in-room refrig/microwave, a great staff ( special kudos to Isabella 😉 and security), on the beach with amazing oceanfront views, THIS is the place for you! We had a ball!

I was celebrating a b-day and Nigel at the outdoor bar was phenomenal entertainment; he rocked the music; had everybody up line dancing, singing and having a great time! Thank you for a truly memorable time! We'll be back.

My family and I were extremely disappointed by the Carousel Hotel. The oceanfront hotel is huge, offering 326 hotel rooms and in addition, 17 floors of two- and three-bedroom condominiums, all of which are poorly maintained. The pool is not adequate to serve the population of people the hotel occupies. The pool is not maintained at all. The pool water is cloudy, the paint is peeling across the pool deck, and there is lack of drainage on the pool deck causing many puddles and hazardous conditions. The pool is minuscule compared to the size of the hotel. There are no showers available to wash off sand after the beach, however they offer hoses which spray everywhere and cause pooling of water in the area, again due to lack of appropriate drainage systems.
There was a large hose on the right hand corner of the parking lot, spewing water across the parking lot and onto the coastal highway, causing puddles.
The security does not properly check the status of vehicles in the loading zone of the parking lot. There were cars parked in the loading zone for days, and when it was my turn to check out there were no spots available to load my car and I had no where to park. The hallways of the hotel were dark, poorly lit, and claustrophobic due to the short ceiling height. Housekeeping offered below average service. They came into the room and took out the garbage, tossed towels onto the bathroom counter, and they did not make the beds. I had to call the front desk and find out that the beds are made every 3 days and I have to request for beds to be made everyday. I should have been notified of this upon check in. The circuit breakers blew numerous times in our hotel room, leaving us with no power for a short period of time. I have never lost power at a hotel, and for a hotel of this caliber it is an absolute embarrassment. The pull out bed was impossible to sleep on. It was nothing but a bunch of springs, with no mattress padding to sleep on. The only positive of the hotel is that the staff members were accommodating. Isabella at the front desk was welcoming, kind, helpful and informative. With a hotel of this size, I hope that management can take all of this into consideration and make the necessary changes to turn the hotel around.

This was not our first stay at the Carousel, but it may be our last. While the resort certainly offers a lot of family-friendly options, there are noticeable gaps when it comes to the “client experience”. We arrived with two separate groups of friends, and only one of our group was allowed to check in even though we all had similar reservations. The WiFi was not working, and despite escalating to a manager I was told it was my fault (note: other parties were complaining about the same issue). While our initial room was fine, one person in our party found that their room smelled of urine after check in, and they needed to transfer rooms. On Day 2 of our stay we came back to our room to discover it reeked of some sort of dead animal in the vent—initially the staff tried to claim it was the garbage from the restaurant, but nevertheless we we switched rooms.
The dining experience was similarly fraught with unnecessary stress. One meal, which was supposed to be a split check, wound up being charged completely to one party, and another inexplicably was also charged (pro-rated) to the other parties. When confronted with this fact, the hotel then re-charged all of us again instead of crediting back the over-charge. Another meal ended with a surprise double-gratuity being added to the bill—we were a large party, and anticipated a 20% automatic tip added to the bill—which the hotel did—but they also then added an additional 20% “service fee”. Very shady, and if not for looking at the bill it probably would have gone unnoticed.
If you made it this far you probably think this place is awful. It is not. There are many positive things about this place. The staff is basically all foreigners with summer work visas, and their lack of insight certainly makes getting real solutions more difficult. However, the hotel has a lot of fun activities for younger kids; offers great pool options (even though there is no supervision to keep rowdy kids from disturbing the peace) provides easy access to the beach; and is generally a good deal (price wise). Unfortunately the latest experience has led us to likely look elsewhere next time we come to Ocean City.