Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites Miami Airport West/Doral — Hotel in Doral

Enjoyed a week's stay at the Fairfield Inn & Suite / Doral. This hotel is conveniently located close to MIA airport, just about 10 minutes away, with easy access to/from airport down the street via 36th street directly. If you don't have transportation arranged, the hotel offers free airport shuttle starting at 7am daily but it is "shared vehicle shuttle" with any/all other guests. Also, because the hotel is close to the MIA airport you may hear cargo and passenger aircraft departing or landing throughout the day and evening as one approach path is actually directly above the hotel but I didn't find this to be too disturbing, specially overnight when resting.

The rooms are clean and spacious, with black-out curtains as well as a decorative "fall season look" pull down shade, city/parking lot view, every other day housekeeping, and rooms have a small refrigerator and a coffee station however no free electronic safe which could have been useful. The shower has shampoo, conditioner, and body wash soap. By design, all Fairfield Inn & Suites seem to offer very small closet space and, because the ironing board is placed inside the closet it takes half of the available closet space. You may be able to hang maybe 2-3 garments without things getting already cramped in there! There is plenty of self parking on the lot but the hotel unfortunately charges $5 per day for parking, which is listed on their website. If you rather use a third party website to book your room (Travelocity, Hotels, Hotwire, Booking, etc.) you may not be adequately informed of this add-on charge.

There is a small gym on-site. Two fabulous elevators to quickly get you to/from your room without much delay. Complimentary breakfast served daily in the lobby downstairs, weekdays until 9am, weekends until 10am. The selection is very basic (and can get quickly boring specially if you are staying several days), the usual cereal, machine dispensed juices, waffle station, and bagel and muffins, nothing fancy but it does the job. The breakfast area can get quite hectic, specially as serving hours near end, the place can look more like the TSA line, with unfortunately, some guests grabbing more than they need which then causes issues for all other guest waiting in line. The serving staff however did their best to keep stations filled as quickly as possible. In general, I thought the staff at this hotel provided exceptional service all around.

This hotel is very close to many restaurants. Directly across the street there is a Raising Caines which you can literally run across the street to and up the street, many other options, a Japanese restaurant, Pizza Hut, Chick-fil-A, a BBQ place, McDonalds, a super market, and the lovely CITY PLACE (a must see!) but these destinations would require transportation to/from.

PRO TIP: There is some comments here about the A/C unit being noisy. The under the window, individual A/C units installed in all Fairfield Inn & Suites are by design noisy but, on the thermostat, there is a switch for fan speed. If you push and set fan speed to LOW you will find the unit will operate much more quitter, versus if fan speed is left on HIGH - which is the thermostat's default setting.

Thank you Fernando and Gio for your hospitality, assistance, and a pleasant first...

We were greeted by an inhospitable employee. I’m not sure if she just wasn’t having a great day or if that’s just her personality. Either way she seemed kind of annoyed. When we got to the room, it was nice and spacious and the double TVs were a plus. It would have been nice to have a remote for each tv but at least the one that we did have worked for both of the TVs. The rug felt dirty to walk on barefoot and one side of the bed had no outlets around to charge our devices. I’m not sure if it’s customary to have extra sheets for the sofa bed but we had to ask for some even though our reservation was for 4 adults and the room had only one bed. It wasn’t a big deal but would’ve been a nice touch. I’m not sure what happened throughout the booking process, because I reserved it for 3 adults and 2 kids (which is the correct number of people we had with us) and somehow it changed to 4 adults. There were only enough towels for 3 people. The towel shortage seemed to be a theme the entire stay. We tried to get a couple of extra towels and they said for us to try later that night because they were out of fresh towels. We made due with what we had and asked for more towels the next day and they were still out. Later that night we went to the pool and were able to get 3 towels. We still needed towels to shower with so we shared 1 towel between us after getting out of the pool that way we would have the others after we showered. The shower mostly seemed clean but there were a couple of areas that looked like they were missed. The design of the shower wasn’t great. A lot of the water from the shower would land on the floor and left us with a soaking wet floor. We used whatever towels we could spare to put on the floor so that no one would slip and fall. The toilet clogged the second day we were there. We called the front desk and they said that maintenance was on break but they would send a plunger up for us to plunge the toilet with. We left the plunger outside in the hallway and they didn’t come get it until late the next morning. Lastly, the pool was deceptively small compared to the picture online. Not a big deal, a small pool is better than no pool. But if there were a few people in there already, it made us shy away from going to the pool. Overall it wasn’t the best stay. I definitely didn’t feel like it was very clean which would be the biggest factor in us returning. We won’t be booking future...

A Once-Shining Star Now Showing Cracks in the Foundation

There was a time when staying at the Fairfield Marriott Doral Airport felt like checking into a hidden gem—clean, efficient, welcoming, and true to the Marriott standard. Like a modern-day Michael cast from the heights of a golden era, this hotel once soared with grace and hospitality.

But now, something's changed.

What was once intuitive and customer-friendly has taken a turn toward nickel-and-diming. A $5 parking charge has been added—not for valet, not for extra services—just a quiet fee for using the lot. For a brand built on simplicity and comfort, this feels tone-deaf. Why not just adjust the room rate modestly and keep the experience seamless?

More concerning, though, is the subtle decline in the details that once made this hotel feel dependable. The parking area, which used to be spotless, now bears the marks of neglect—trash, stains, and the unmistakable feel of “we’ll get to it later.” That’s not the Marriott way—or at least it didn’t used to be.

And then came the moment that truly gave me pause: a simple request for a toothbrush turned into a complex, uncomfortable encounter. As a guest of Hispanic descent, I couldn’t help but feel a tone of hesitation or coldness in the interaction. Perhaps it was just a bad day for that employee. Perhaps it was an unfortunate misreading. But it stood out in sharp contrast to the courteous service I’ve come to expect from this brand—and it left a shadow on my experience that’s hard to shake.

This review isn’t written out of anger, but out of concern. The Fairfield Doral still has so much potential. Its location is great, the rooms are functional, and the bones of quality are still there. But cracks are forming—and if left unchecked, they may grow into something that no loyalty program can fix.

I truly hope this feedback is taken as a nudge, not a condemnation. I’d like to return and find the Fairfield that once lived up to its name: fair, dependable, and welcoming to...