The Grand Resort and Spa in Fort Lauderdale

We were highly disappointed with our stay here in January of 2026 and I'll start with the pro's:

Location is great. Neighborhood has the beach and things to do within walking distance. We took a boat tour down the street and a beach day with brunch by the water.

There's a few pools to choose from as well at hot tubs on the grounds. The grounds themselves appear to be clean and maintained. There's a small bistro/cafe on site thats open during certain hours to make food, although curious during our time there they didn't have any diet coke.

Sadly the Con's completely overwhelm the rest of the experience:

The red flags started right at the beginning during check in. We purchased the most expensive room on the property in order to have a private outdoor shower and hot tub. Immediately at check-in we are being told that the hot tub wasn't working because someone (2 guests ago...) broke the control panel. No prior warning, no offer of reduced pricing as this suite "perk" was completely out of order just a "they're working on it". In the meantime our room wasn't ready so they offered to keep our bags and we could go across to the bistro for a bite to eat or beverage. I would have thought that being in the "resort" industry that "hospitality" comes part of it, but here it doesn't. They could have offered a bottle of water, or something but none was offered on the house. We had to pay for it. Come to find out later, other guests were given complimentary happy hour drink tickets and we were given nothing. We ended up getting tickets from other guests who didn't use theirs and was able to cash them in on a day that that the bartender called off--but only 2 drinks and not 4 that we should have gotten.

We asked for a tour of the grounds and there wasn't enough people to do that.

We were then given the keys to the room to complete the check in and told that our Penthouse Suite was on the 3rd floor. The gentlemen at the desk made it a point to mention that there was "No Elevator" and pointed to the direction that we had to go and that was it. And going back to my comment above about "hospitality" we had to haul all of our luggage up 3 flights of stairs to the room. Luckily we can move the stuff as other guests may not be so fortunate. WiFi? Didn't tell us.

Getting to the room itself:
The hot tub never did work right even though they did get it "going" (mind you couldn't tell the temperature or what the thing was doing at the control panel was still broken) it was leaking all over the patio and the maintenance guy said not to add water to it because he'd have to "mess with the chemicals" again. So couldn't safely use it. But good news for the first night, they put up caution tape and traffic cones around it while they messed with it!

The outdoor shower floor broke. Only 1 of us was in there and he's not heavy at all---I stepped on it for a brief second and got off of it because I felt the floor become sketchy under my feet.

The rest of the Penthouse Suite was unfortunately outdated (There's a badge on the wall stating there's a T1 data port!), there's blinds on windows missing and even worse the photos on the webpage don't even match what you're actually getting (ie: the hot tub is round in the photos, but in reality is square).

The shower in the master bathroom leaked and barely had any water pressure and the water never got hot. The "guest" bathroom had a slightly better shower, but wasn't enclosed. There's no exhaust fan so the bathrooms end up steaming up fast and you'll end up not being able to use the mirror. The shelf in the guest bathroom was rusted from all of the moisture over time and looks gross.

I really knew that they did not give much attention to this unit is when we closed the patio door and the "lock" was a stick of wood.

This was supposed to be a trip to recharge after losing both of Moms last year in 2025. Instead, it became regret and horror for spending the money on this and we were happy to get back to the freezing cold just to be able to get a proper shower with actual water pressure.