Viajero Hostels Miami — Attraction in Miami Beach

As a hotel with dorm rooms, centrally located in south beach, it's... fine.

The rooms/bathrooms are quite clean, which is nice. They do send maintenance staff eventually to fix things like toilet/sink. A towel is included (if you ask for one). The shower is hot. There is free coffee and green tea (when it's available) and a kettle (though where you refill it with water, I don't know).

They do technically have AC, but it comes on rarely, and the windows in the rooms do not open, so the rooms are hot, stuffy, and smelly most of the time. Many sleepless nights tossing and turning. The beds aren't uncomfortable, but are fairly squeaky and shake when anyone moves in them (premium dorm beds are solid and fixed to the floor/ceiling so they don't shake). The beds do have a little privacy curtain, and the rooms have some little cubbies, and lockers under the beds. The dorms do face the courtyard where loud music is played until about midnight or 1am, but they do provide earplugs in the lobby.

There is no common shower that I saw, and only one common bathroom downstairs; if one of your roommates is hogging the bathroom, you'll have to wait.

There is a little quasi-ping pong table inside, that sort of blocks the walkway, so most people don't use it. They do set up karaoke outside one night, beer pong outside another night, but that's the extent of the amenities/activities at the hostel, and only really goes on from 9pm-11pm. So bring a book to entertain yourself most of the time, most of the guests just lounge around and don't talk much.

Outside seating area is nice, as the inside is stuffy with uncomfortable awkward couches. The pool is tiny and dingy, nobody uses it. The furniture is all stained, faded and dingy. Tacky decoration like somebody tried to make it look like a backpacker's hostel without ever staying in one. As a chain hotel with lots of dorms, and with all the money they rake in from their bars, restaurant, and paid activities, it's surprising how poorly set up it is.

As it is not really a hostel, there is no kitchen or place to keep or eat food (outside?). They want you to either eat somewhere else, or eat at their restaurant, drink at their bar(s). The bartender at the "tiki bar" (one tiki head does not a tiki bar make) was surprisingly both genial and rude, like he had a personality disorder (several people complained). Didn't go into the speakeasy but peeked inside, looks like a Miami/New York socialite would love it.

All the "guests" have giant roller bags, and seem to only ever stay at "hostels" like this one. The "whatsapp group" is just a place for the hotel to promote their paid attractions, don't attempt to post anything of your own there or they'll block you without warning. Apparently you can ask if other people are taking a rideshare to a rave.

When they're taking your money, or running one of their drinking/partying events, the staff are friendly and cordial. The rest of the time they are curt and treat you with a kind of mild neglect, like an inconvenient house guest. I imagine it's because they're used to the kind of "guest" that treats the place like a hotel rather than a hostel. They have a couple staff that act as both bartender and wait staff, so the actual service in the bar and restaurant is scattered/inconsistent, but you can get up and get their attention if you recognize who works there.

Again, as a hotel with dorm beds, it's fairly nice and clean. But you do get the downsides of sleeping in a hot stuffy dorm, and none of the other upsides of a hostel. If you are a young person who just wants to sit around and do nothing until eventually getting drunk at night and coming home at 5am, this is the place for you. Otherwise I would recommend one of the other "hotel hostels" in the area that are nicer, though not as...

Hello.

I want to report Viajero Miami, located on 1120 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida, 33149 for refusing to refund me two nights that I paid for and they, for NO REASON, refused to do business with me, so I didn’t stay there for the last two nights and had to look for another place to stay.

What happened was: they offer in their rate towel for guests. I got back from the beach today, cover in sand. Wet and cold and they said they had “no” towels available. SHEILA that attended me was super rude since the beginning of the conversation, telling me in a very rude way that they didn’t have any towel and that they had to idea of when they were going to have towels. She was rude since her first word and obviously enough I stared being rude back. I told them I was going to wait for a towel at the reception and then funnily enough, a clean towel appeared out of no where in less than 5 minutes. When SHEILA was giving me the towel, I thanked her and was leaving and then she tried to lecture me which obviously I did not allow her to do that as I am not a kid and most importantly not her kid . So we ended up having a little argument. We were basically talking over each other. During this moment I NEVER threatened her, NEVER called her names, NEVER screamed, the only thing I kept on saying was: “you were rude first, you were rude first” and that was all!

I went to take my shower peacefully and once I was out, I was surrounded by 5 cops! FIVE!!! They treated like a criminal, they gave me 5 minutes to pack and thrown me literally on the street, with 3 suitcases and no where to go in the busiest week of the year in Miami.

I never felt so humiliated and mistreated in my whole 45 years of life.

I am a kind, friendly and respectful person, all the rest of the staff knows me and were really nice to me. They can testify what I am saying, talk to the cleaner of my room (208), they will confirm my character!

I want my REFUND for the two nights that I did NOT stay there because they refused to do business with me, with NO explanation so if they refused to do business for the last two nights, I want my refund for my two nights, it is just simple and that fair! I had to find a place in a Saturday when the town is packed and pay a much more higher price.

I am going after my rights here in the USA. They cannot do that to people. I filled a police report and share if requested.

You can and should definitely talk to any staff or any guest there right now and they will backup what I am writing here. I have many witnesses that will prove that whatever SHEILA said is not true and she lied!

I don’t want to fight and honestly I just want to move on from the most frightening situation of my life so please just refund my money!

I did NOT disrespect the staff, I had this misunderstanding with ONLY SHEILA, and I did NOT threat anyone, I did NOT threat SHEILA.

They refused to reimburse me by alleging that they couldn’t find another guest to fulfill these two nights but this is NOT true! I have my friend that was in the same room that can testify that right after I left, they came over, changed the bed sheets and there was a new guest in the same night.

Sheila is a lier, she lied and I can prove! Can she prove what she said??? I doubt it!

And to be fair, other than SHEILA, which cowardly enough, refused to give me her full name (I wonder why, if she was right…), the rest of the staff was amazing, nice, friendly and...

I can not say enough good things about this place!

Preface: I'm not a fan of Miami but booked it for a quick cheap trip.

Viajero completely made my trip! I will 100% be back and very soon just to stay here.

Lets start with the not great: If you're looking for a spotless clean upscale hotel this is not it (I heard/ read a few different reviews that mentioned this BUT for a hostel it was clean enough, the rooms were cleaned every day, the beds were clean, nothing was gross or a health issue. Promise... I run a cleaning business. In room 206 there was an issue with the light/charger in the bunk. 3 times during my stay, it was "fixed." It turns out it was connected to one of the switches coming into the room. I wish I would have been told this as I am very thankful I woke up on my own... but to a dead cellphone for a 4:30am flight. That switch could easily be taped, a note on it or something....at least let the person in that bunk know so phones can be plugged in somewhere else. I would have been extremely upset if I had missed my flight. Also it would be amazing if there was a "cleaning rag or towel" in the bathroom. I wasn't going to use my own obviously, it would have just been nice to wipe up water on the sinks floor, etc.

Now for the good stuff 😁 The staff was amazing! I'm so sorry I don't remember all the names Juan and Agusta (maybe) but seriously everyone was great! The lobby was so comfy, the upstairs hammock area was great, the pools are small but I loved lounging by them. There was always water, coffee, and tea available in the lobby. There are two small refrigerators and a microwave available in the library. There is shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner in the shower. You get one shower towel, beach towel, and blanket but you have to ask for them and return them. There is a Whatsapp group you can join when you check in. It's great to find people to hang out with. The activities put on by Viajerro are great! Both bars connected to the hotel were good. The resturant was ok.

The location is AMAZING. The 10th street beach access is a block 1/2 away. There are chairs and umbrellas to rent, and there are many liquor stores, markets, restaurants, etc on all sides. The bus stop is about 6 blocks away. If you can figure out the stops/map, you can go just about anywhere in Miami for a few bucks (but be prepared to waste a lot of time). As for the free shuttle that exists, I couldn't find it.

The moral of the story I will...