Hotel Breakers Renovation

I think the next two years will be telling about their commitment to hotel maintenance. My brother-in-law is an architect who specializes in hotel renovation, and he says they replace the soft goods at least every 5 to 7 years (mattresses potentially more often), and hard goods at a minimum of every ten years, with full remodeling also happening around that time. When I asked about the seasonal nature of these properties, he said the constant abuse by families with kids probably causes as much wear as an entire year. At the very least, he believes that some furniture is replaced pretty often.

Having stayed at Breakers at least once a year between 2015-19, I can attest that the hotel was showing obvious wear and tear by 2018.

So we're coming up on what, the 8th season since the renovations? Even accounting for the covid years, that's still close to a decade of wear and tear with the force multiplies of kids-and-families plus the theme park/vacation setting as was mentioned... Soft goods notwithstanding I'm almost wondering if all the ride prints on the headboards are faded or worn by now, or if those were made in a way they could be easily replaced.

The pictures of Breakers before the Ouimet renovations look literally like a 1980s Best Western, so I'd be willing to bet the last major overhaul of the rooms had to be at some point in the eighties from the fixtures alone. I'd also be willing to bet that the Ouimet renovations were the first time the hotel was overhauled in its entirety versus piecemeal renovations here and there before. Feel like during the Kinzel era the strategy was more just to point excitedly at whatever the newest addition or wing was while hoping people wouldn't notice the older rooms.

When you consider the opening years both the east addition and the tower (1995 and 1999, I believe), and then the fact that the main section and rotunda were taken down to the studs and redone in 2015 - there is nothing in that hotel from the 1980's.

Yeah, but there were definitely tube TV's in the rooms in the mid-aughts.

I probably could've phrased that better... I know that as of the 2015 renovations, there shouldn't be any part of the hotel left from the 1980s at least in the guest room sense; I was just wondering out loud when the last major renovation -before- that would've been, or at least the last time the rotunda/main section rooms were redone.

I think the main/rotunda section reminded me of a run down NYC apartment - with the exposed pipes and paneling. It was kind of "charming" in a cheap, roadside attraction sort of way - you know, rooms you'd normally never pay $300 a night for.

I stayed in Bon Air several times before they tore it down, and there was just something to it - it wasn't "nice", but it felt very... Cedar Point? maybe? I can't describe it, but I enjoyed something about the old rooms in a strange way. They're definitely better now, but we've kind of migrated over to the cottages at Lighthouse Point for the space, quiet, and ability to relax a bit more in a little slice of lake life - the spiders that make their homes on the chairs on the decks after dark, though, I could definitely do without.

Also, let's not forget the "Twin" section - straight out of The Shining, with tiny, dark rooms with window AC units that only blocked even more light.

That hallway was very long orginally.It had public restrooms off of it and back in the 60"s it had a nursery and playroom for guests who wanted babysitting services.

I have been staying at Breakers since 1963.I have such great memories of the way it use to look.There use to be room attendants that sat at the front of every wing and you had to show your key to go down the hall or up the stairs to your room.The cafeteria off the main lobby that you grabbed a tray and would wind through dozens off food ofeerings.The stores in the rotunda beach store,fashions for women and the gift shop off the hallway.The lounge that was right off the rotunda The Surf Lounge , at night had candles on all the little round tables and had entertainment and the air conditioning was always cranked high.The Circus bar off the old covered walkway to the park.And of course going way back when some rooms didn't have their own bathrooms and you had to use the ones in the hallway that also had showers.Oh the memories

lauramayj, thank you for sharing those memories here. I find it interesting when former employees and/or guests share these types of things.

Not sure how I missed this thread the first time around but it is fun to read it now. I worked in Accommodations in the mid to late 90s and my office was off that main hall. Some interesting notes:

• The second floor rooms above the long hallway were predominantly guest rooms (Twin Section) ...but a couple of them were reconfigured to create an apartment for the Vice President of Accommodations. He "lived" in it during the season.
• There was no heat in the original wings of the building nor in the lobby area...and the doors/windows were so poor in the 90s that I could walk down the hallways in the winter through snow drifts.
• The Twin section was converted to dorm rooms in the early 2000s and the rotunda section had dorm rooms (with no bathrooms) on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors. My first room as a seasonal employee was on the 3rd floor, and I would have to walk down the hall to use a common bathroom/shower; often times walking right by paying guests in my towel or robe. That was always interesting.
• The old wings of the hotel had "laundry chutes"...and it wasn't uncommon in the off season for employees to go "chute diving"...stacking piles of linen and towels at the bottom and then hurling themselves down the chute.
• The resident "ghost" was named Mary, and presumably lived in one of the Twin Section rooms. I never had an encounter, but spoke to plenty of people who were certain they did.
• At various times that 1st floor hall contained a game room, luggage room, training room, offices (housekeeping, executive, reservations, and the PBX/Phone Operator).
• There was a small basement under that main hall that much of the dry goods were stored in (toilet paper, kleenex, soaps, etc). The internal stairs to the basement had signatures from employees going all the way back to the 30s and 40s. I hope they kept some of that when they did the demo work.

I know by 2001 they had turned the twin section into employee housing. I think a lot of the housekeeping staff lived there. Hard to imagine it was good enough to offer to guests just a few years before. I remember tiny rooms with tiny bathrooms and I believe three girls crammed in them. I believe there was a window AC and the windows were small so there wasn't much natural light. I remember showering in some sort of common bathroom in the rotunda section. Probably the same one you're talking about. I got dressed before I wandered the halls though. :)

Chief Wahoo:

...I would have to walk down to the hall to use a common bathroom/shower; often times walking right by paying guests in my towel or robe. That was always interesting.

Perhaps this isn't fair since I don't know how such a situation came about, but this sounds like the most Kinzel thing ever. Several marquee attractions costing tens of millions of dollars each during this era, with this happening simultaneously.

People gotta poop.

Kinzel did not see the true potential of the resort side of the business. Enter Ouimet...who exploited the hell out of it. To be fair, Kinzel's background was in operations and Ouimet had experience with a world class resort, of course. I was hired largely because I had worked at Disney and the Accommodation team was desperately trying to find a way to train the housekeeping staff to make the rooms more presentable. Frankly, no matter how well those rooms were cleaned...they were always going to look like rooms built decades prior.

Back to Twin, one of my funniest guest interactions had to do with those rooms. They were just as lousy as Matt said, with views of nothing, really. They were dark, musty, etc. I believe their room designation was R1Q...or room with 1 Queen Bed. I had a guest who screamed at my front desk staff because she didn't like the room and wanted an upgrade. We were sold out so there was nowhere to put her. Her "argument" was that she was certain the bed wasn't a queen bed and claimed we falsely advertised. She would not accept the answers from the front desk clerk or the front desk manager so she eventually worked her way up to me.

Again, she insisted, the bed wasn't a queen bed. So, I got out a hotel furniture supply book that had beds with sizes and we both agreed to what a queen bed measurement should be. Then, I grabbed a tape measure and walked up to the room with her and measured the bed. Surprise...it was queen sized. Her argument immediately changed and she started complaining about the air conditioner (a through-the-window model if memory serves). If she had not burned through my staff and treated everyone with such disrespect, I would have likely moved her to a nicer room in Sandscastle just to pacify her...but because she was so nasty I held my ground. I did offer her a full refund and told her I would make reservations for her at another area hotel...and even provide transportation. That only made her more angry.

Months later I got a note from Kinzel via my VP. He had been sent, directly, a hotel Comment Card from this guest who blasted me for incompetence, said I was the worst manager ever, and suggested that Cedar Point send me to Disney training. Of course, I believe I was the only person at Cedar Point at the time who HAD worked for Disney.

The Accommodations team knew what needed to be done to make Breakers (and Sandcastle and Camper Village) more appealing (and generate more revenue). But, back then the resort side of the business just wasn't a priority. We were "the other side of the phone card"...which was literal and figurative. There was a phone card that listed all of the phone numbers for all of the staff, by department. It was 8 1/2 x 11, double sided. We jokingly said that all of the things that mattered were on the Executive side of the card and everything else was "the other side of the card".

When I was hired I worked with a consultant from a prestigious hospitality school who was brought in to try and get the hotels up to an acceptable standard (while spending as little as possible). She did her best, but she would say to me..."honey, you can put lipstick on a pig but that doesn't mean anyone will kiss it". Paint, carpet, and towels were not enough for those old wings of Breakers.

This is a shot of the Hotel Breakers entrance hall from the side before renovations.

In 1989 I lived in one of the seasonal third floor rotunda rooms used for employee housing. My husband was planning to visit, and I warned him about having to walk down the hall to use the bathroom. He didn't understand, and wound up having to wear my fluffy pink robe to go take a shower. :)