If you’re looking for a quiet and mellow place where everyone keeps to themselves, for sure do not book a room at the coolest hotel in St. Pete: Hotel Mari Jean. If you’re looking for frolicking fun that makes you feel like you’re really on vacation, however, this boutique hotel with a pool and two bars is ready to show you the progressive side of Florida.
At this adults-only St. Pete hotel, everyone is welcome, but they’re not shy about the ideal guest type they are targeting. The pool is “The Wet Spot,” the main bar is COCKtail, and the dance club is just Ball, but “at the base of Cock.” They were having Yoga(y) by the pool in the morning and a participant on RuPaul’s Drag Race was the MC there at night.
I’m in a different demographic, but hey, “Respect is always in style” here and I felt right at home, warmly welcomed by all the staffers. While the core appeal is obvious, the bar and club are popular with people who aren’t staying here, including couples of all sorts. This is usually the most hopping place at night on this side of downtown St. Petersburg, FL.
The hotel is located on Central Avenue near Tropicana Field, where the Rays play baseball, plus it is close to dozens of breweries, coffee shops, bakeries, and restaurants. It wasn’t always this wild, but this is actually one of the oldest hotels in the region. It opened its doors in 1927 and operated under the same owner, welcoming some of the earliest northerners trying to escape the cold winter.
Pool and Bars at Mari Jean Hotel
The social center during the daytime and sometimes into the night is the hotel’s swimming pool, surrounded by lounge chairs and some group cabanas for rent, a great place to take a dip and cool off in the Florida heat. It has a stage and a catwalk for different shows and events.
Opposite the stage is a large shaded bar area that stays hopping from 11 a.m. onward on weekends and noon the rest of the week. It stays busy even when the hotel isn’t full, thanks in part to the most generous happy hour in town: 2-for-1 from noon until 9:00 p.m. Many happy hours!
You will find an array of items available from the on-site kitchen if you want to eat here. I ordered a flatbread one evening, and it was quite good. Then there are bar snacks, sandwiches, salads, and desserts on the menu too. They also run a full Sunday brunch two weekends a month.
The draft beer selection is quite retro here, just a few macro choices, probably because this crowd is mostly drinking cocktails. Stick with those here, then indulge your craft beer fix by just crossing the street to Grand Central Brewing or going a few blocks to 3 Daughters, Cage Brewing, or Pinellas Ale Works.
The building also houses a restaurant on the first floor, separately owned with its own entrance, but I didn’t have time to check it out. If you’re up for Italian food that only requires a few steps from the front door, visit La Dolce Vita Trattoria. There’s also a retail shop on site that has “everything from swimwear to lube” and there are plenty of stores nearby for more mundane needs or wants.
Colorful Rooms in Downtown St. Pete
If you do go buy anything cold nearby, you’ve got a good-sized fridge in your room at Mari Jean Hotel. That’s in addition to more fanciful amenities like a lava lamp and LED mood lighting strips with their own remote control.
The split A/C units work well, and there’s a ceiling fan too. My room had a full closet and a cabinet with shelves for storing clothing. The 42-inch smart TV supports streaming and has YouTube preinstalled, and I was able to tune in to regular TV to watch a sporting event. The high-speed Wi-Fi worked fine (though you’re probably not coming here to work).
The 54 rooms are not large since this hotel was built 100 years ago, but they are colorful and well laid out, with a closed-off toilet and shower, and refillable Beekman toiletries in bottles with large enough fonts to read. The small sink with a lighted mirror is in the room itself.
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The rooms are not all that different from one to the other, with the room layouts posted on their website, but note the bed sizes and what they say about noise. Some are better than others for proximity to nightclubs if you’re a light sleeper or an early-to-bed type. A white noise machine or earplugs would be handy, since the music can go as late as 3:00 a.m. on weekends, though I slept well in my third-floor room facing the back of the building.
A continental breakfast is included in the rates and is like what you’d expect at a 3-star chain hotel, but a little elevated. Bagels, English muffins, and breakfast protein bars join fresh fruit and Chobani yogurt. Plus coffee and tea, of course. There’s an ice machine on the second floor.
I was a little disappointed in the lack of sustainability efforts, especially here in Florida’s most progressive city. Coffee comes in a Styrofoam cup, and there’s no place to fill your own bottle with filtered water — just $2 tiny plastic throwaway bottles in the rooms. There’s a lot of single-use garbage generated at the food and beverage places.
Booking a Stay in St. Petersburg
Rates start at just $109 plus tax on weekdays and usually top out under $200 if it’s not a peak-event weekend, making this a great value for vacation-magnet Florida. That includes a continental breakfast, pool towels, and in-room amenities, but on-site parking is $15 per day.
You can see more about the property and check your preferred dates on the official hotel website. Feel free to shop around, but the prices you find here usually aren’t undercut elsewhere.
Check rates for Mari Jean Hotel online at Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda.com, or Hotels.com.
You can walk to a lot of places from here, but it’s also a good city for biking, and there’s a bus stop a block away for the one that runs out to St. Pete Beach from downtown.
While the adults-only Mari Jean Hotel is clearly not geared to families or uptight social conservatives, gay travelers and those who want a more fun-centered hotel than usual will be thrilled with this adults-only house of joy in a prime part of St. Pete, FL.
Review and all photos by Hotel Scoop founder Tim Leffel. He was hosted at the property for purposes of review. As always, all opinions are his own.
