Garden Inn Homestead — Hotel in Homestead

This place is fantastic for the price. The biggest appeal outside its $50 a night stay is the epic level breakfast bar. I've been depending on this free breakfast to survive as my house fell over, blew up, caught fire, then sank into a swamp.

I'm still at this hotel as I'm currently looking for a place to live. Take what I'm saying as you will. The short of it is that it's 100% worth it to stay here, but bring ear plugs if you have sensitive hearing. It's like $2 at Walmart, but it's a necessity.

Some of my experiences: Since this is in Florida, I'd expect to see like 10 bugs a day that are about the size of a velociraptor, even if I was at a home. I don't know how they do it, but I've seen very few with none in the rooms.

I don't speak any Spanish, and the staff have many people who don't speak any English. I know that this is the wang tip of Florida, but the staff gets frustrated when I don't speaka their language. It does not bother me at all though, so iit's no biggie for me.

While in line to re-maganatize my card....(which I had to do a dozen times at this point), I was reading their displayed rules. In capitalization, they have a rule against cannabis. I don't smoke anything, soo I just made a note of it.

Not but 30 seconds later, the person in front of me takes an EPIC level toke from one of those electronic cannabis dispenser and blows the smoke into his shirt. The staff and everyone saw this.... and it was ignored.

Take these experiences with a grain of salt. I'm just sharing.

The potentially bad.... The walls are PAPER THIN though...

Everyone is apparently having WAY more sex than I am. That includes several rough encounters that are obvious what I think that they are. That includes some that are SUPER young too. Disturbing, really. Thankfully, I am already in therapy.

Not only that, but I hear SO MUCH "chop chop chop chop" noises. I don't care about that, though. More power to folks if they can afford their bad habits.

All of that said, if you are visiting this location with younger folks or sensitive folks, I highly recommend keeping your TV on at a volume. Pretend that you're the only one here and you'll stay golden, Ponyboy.

...or come here specifically for this. If your hearing is halfway decent, this could be a feature and not a bug. IDK, I'm not going to judge.

All of these issues are, ironically, secondary for me, to the worst part about the hotel.

The thing that makes me want to leave and never come back...

I am currently under a lot of stress, and I'm not sleeping. My hotel room is right across from the pool.

THERE IS A NON STOP BEEPING NOISE OUTSIDE THE HOTEL ROOM AND IT IS LITERALLY DRIVING ME CRAZY

It's three beeps and does not stop for a moment. I hate it. :(

BEEP BEEP BEEP (stop) BEEP BEEP BEEP (stop)  BEEP BEEP BEEP (stop)

I can't sleep but a few hours a night, and it's affecting me during the day because it continuously wakes me up. Ear plugs are not working for me, sadly.

I mentioned it to the staff, and they did nothing about it for weeks! (AAARG!)

I'm not going to remove stars for this as I'm not in the right mental state right now due to lack of sleep, but it's killing me. I hope I find a place to live soon. Anyone have an RV in their backyard that they are looking to rent?

I'll end this here.

tl;dr: Great for the price. Many benefits, but several large problems that are insurmountable. Worth it for the price, however, as ear...

Really disappointed with the lack of customer service and consideration from the staff here...

So, a long story...I never made it to Florida from Texas because when I went to check in at the TSA checkpoint at the Airport, they informed me that my driver's license had very recently expired. I never saw the letter from the state I usually get reminding me to renew it this time, and I had no other ID acceptable form of ID, so I was out of luck. So I called Travelocity to try and cancel my car rental reservation as well as this motel in Homestead, and the car rental people were no problem; they canceled with no charge due to my circumstances. However Travelocity informed me that the agent at the motel could not cancel the reservation without charge, and that I would need to call back and speak with a manager. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to require under the circumstances, so I called back a couple hours later when they said the manager would be there.

I wound up dealing with a guy who answered the phone, and after I explained I was hoping to speak with a manager, he continued to help me, so I assume he was a manager. I explained the details of my situation, and he explained that since it was less than 24 hours before I was scheduled to arrive, I would have to be charged, and I would need to have cancelled prior to 24 hours before arrival to avoid the charge. Well, I had just explained to him what happened to me, and reminded him that I couldn't cancel 24 hours before because I only discovered the expired license when I tried to get through TSA check-in, so he said, "OK, just a moment...", and put me on hold. He came back again in a couple minutes with the same answer; no, I'd have to charged for the room since it was less than 24 hours before arrival.

Now, I fully understand that the 24-hour period is specified in the Travelocity agreement, and that the motel was fully within their rights to charge me. I guess I'm just disappointed that this 3.5 star, "Good" motel wouldn't try a little harder to understand my situation, consider the circumstances, and cancel the reservation without charge. I mean, I'm already out my airfare, and I don't get to make the trip...it just woulda been nice if they coulda been a little more caring than basically just saying, "That's the policy, tough luck buddy!".

So based on my experience, combined with some other recent reviews of this place, I'd say move along and find some other place to stay...

I got fooled by the previous reviews this motel has received and booked this motel for 3 nights during Dec end. I and my family had a horrible experience during our stay.

Day 1 Problems: TV Remote did not work; Hair Dryer did not work; Room Phone did not work; Exhaust Fan in the bath room did not work; Carpet was shabby; There was no DoNot Disturb sign/Maid Service Tag available in the room

Day 2 Problems: Morning - I went to the front desk and complained about all the above said problems and also requested them to change the blankets on the bed.

11PM in the night - I return from my day trip to motel at night and had a problem with the room access cards. Both the room access cards fail to work. I used the phone from the next room, where my friend was staying, and called the front desk to get the new keys. The front desk guy comes after 30 mins of my call and the he tries to open the room with the new cards. Still the cards do not work and after 10 attempts of swiping back and forth one of the card works. This was very comfortable experience as I and my family had to wait outside of the room for 30 min at night trying to get the access cards fixed. When I finally entered the room, I noticed that the TV remote, phone and hairdryer were fixed (not sure how the hotel management can issues the room with out checking whether the amenities in the room is working properly or not). However, in spite of me keeping the maid service tag to the door, the blankets are not changed and the bed was in the same state as it was in the morning. The restroom exhaust fan was not fixed and it was horrible to use the rest room without the exhaust fan.

Day 3 Problems: Morning - I have again put the maid service tag in the morning before I left out for sight seeing.

Night - The room keys fail to work again and the room was not cleaned for the consecutive day

Overall my stay at this motel was THE MOST WORST EXPERIENCE I ever had staying in a motel. There are other problems like, water all over the walk ways, the sanity in the breakfast area etc. I am sure the management will read my feedback and respond back with their standard response - " Sorry for the inconvenience. Give us one chance and we will make your stay happy during your next visit". Well, after the experience what I and my family had at this hotel we would never choose this motel or recommend...