I have paid the sea view premium many times and I now do it selectively, having worked out which of those rooms were worth it and which came with problems the listing did not mention.
What sea view actually means
The term is unregulated and covers an enormous range.
It can mean a full frontal view from a balcony. It can mean a sliver of water visible from one corner of a window if you lean. It can mean a view of the sea over a car park, a road and three buildings.
The way to check is guest photographs rather than the property's own, which are taken with wide lenses from the most favourable position in the room.
Partial sea view and side sea view are the phrases that most often disappoint, and where the premium is least justified.
The noise nobody warns you about
Two kinds, and both surprised me the first time.
The sea itself, which is not the gentle sound people imagine. On an exposed shore in any wind it is loud, continuous, and for some people impossible to sleep through. Waves on shingle in particular produce a dragging roar that carries a long way.
And the seafront, which is where the bars and the promenade and the traffic are. A room facing the sea is also a room facing everything that happens between it and the sea, which in a resort in summer goes on late.
Rooms at the back are frequently quieter, cheaper and better for sleeping, which is an argument that only lands after you have had a bad night at the front.
Salt, damp and the state of the building
Coastal buildings suffer, and a room facing the sea suffers most.
Salt corrodes fittings, windows, balcony rails and anything metal. Damp is a constant battle. Windows that have been repeatedly attacked by salt spray are frequently difficult to open or do not seal properly.
Which means the front rooms in an older property may be in worse condition than the back ones despite costing more.
Things to check in guest photographs: rust on balcony fittings, staining below windows, and any mention of damp or smell in reviews, which is the single most common complaint about seafront rooms in older buildings.
The wind
A balcony facing an exposed sea is frequently unusable, which defeats the purpose of paying for it.
On many coasts the wind gets up in the afternoon reliably. A balcony that is pleasant at nine in the morning is a wind tunnel by four.
Sheltered aspects and balconies with some sort of screen are considerably more usable, and this is rarely mentioned in listings because it sounds like a negative.
Orientation matters more than the view
Something I now check before anything else.
A room facing directly into the afternoon sun on a hot coast becomes an oven, and air conditioning fights it all evening.
An east-facing room gets the morning and stays cooler later, which most people prefer for sleeping, and gets sunrise over the water if that appeals.
A west-facing room gets sunset, which is the thing people are usually paying for, and the heat that comes with it.
Knowing which way a room faces is easy from a map and almost nobody checks.
Ground floor and the sand problem
Direct beach access sounds ideal and has a specific drawback.
Sand gets everywhere, in a way that is difficult to convey to somebody who has not experienced it. Into the room, into the bed, into bags, into everything, continuously, for the whole stay.
Rooms with direct access also tend to have the least privacy and the most passing noise.
An outdoor tap or shower near the entrance makes an enormous difference and is worth specifically checking for.
When the premium is worth paying
Having done both a lot, my rules now.
Worth it for a short stay where the view is the point, in a property where the guest photographs confirm it is a real view.
Worth it in a sheltered aspect where the balcony is usable.
Not worth it for a longer stay, where the novelty fades within two days and the noise does not.
Not worth it on an exposed shore in a windy season.
And not worth it if the alternative is a substantially better room at the back for less, which is frequently the choice on offer and which people rarely take.
The seasonal noise cycle
A final consideration. In many resort towns the seafront is quiet in the shoulder months and extremely loud at peak.
Reviews written in June describe a different building from reviews written in August, and reading them without noticing the date is how people end up surprised.
Filtering reviews to the month you are travelling is a two second action that is more informative than the overall score, and it applies to noise more than to anything else.