1 Hotel South Beach — Hotel in Miami Beach

Spectacular Hotel!(Part 1/2, plz see pic for part 2/2) 20 out of 10! I stayed at this property end of June to celebrate my birthday and it absolutely went above and beyond my expectations. The 1 Hotel South Beach is a VIBE, immersing you in a world of earthy tranquility and luxury. Firstly, the 1 Hotel South Beach stands out due to its incredible staff, who are fundamental to the overall unique experience. Every single employee you come across is kind hearted and caring, which makes me wonder what their hiring process is to be able to find such talent! I appreciate everyone I came across with and I will mention them by name (as many as I can and remember!) as I continue this review. Additionally, the 1 Hotel South Beach’s attention to detail is worth mentioning, as they have thought of everything one could possibly require available as soon as it comes to mind. Upon check-in we were greeted by the lovely Malika (I really hope I am spelling your name correctly! I’m sorry if I am not). With a smile, she ensured to inform us of all the amenities we can take advantage of throughout our stay, such as the car service, workout classes, location and themes of the restaurants, …etc, something that I noticed many other hotels fail to do and you end up leaving without getting the full experience of the property, and she was kind enough to make my stay special for my birthday. By the beach, Natalia, enthusiastically greeted us and directed us to someone to set up towels by their desired lounge chair location. She always had a smile on her face and kindly answered any questions. Alfredo checked on us throughout our beach day to take orders and answer questions about the menu. I appreciate the fact that he took the initiative to apologize in advance if it would take some time for the food and drinks to arrive so we were aware, but everything always came out at a reasonable time! A thoughtful gesture throughout the beach and pool areas are the iced water dispensers with fruits and Coola sunscreen to fill in little bowls. The adults-only rooftop pool was an amazing feature to have as guests visiting without children. The consistency of the friendly staff flowed throughout the hotel as the Watr hostesses always greeted us with a smile as we passed through to the rooftop pool area. I want to give a shout out to Kevin at the entrance of the rooftop pool to check keys! He was super cool and kind with small talk as I went in and out throughout the day. Also, Nesley was another friendly staff member who brought a smile on our faces and ensured we were having a great time. Zen kindly set up our lounge chairs exactly where we liked them, even opened and closed the umbrella’s as the sun shifted any time we asked with a smile on his face. Unfortunately, I do not have his name, but a charming gentleman made refreshing non-alcoholic smoothie shots to pass around once in a while and I love his creativity with the delicious flavour combinations! Another great and thoughtful touch. I would just suggest they change the amenity throughout the day to maybe other small things to nibble on and/or drink. I am saving the best for last: Geanina was the most lovely server I have ever come across and I feel fortunate to have made her acquaintance on my actual birthday. Not only was she incredibly kind to us, checking in, making sure we have fresh iced water pitchers as soon as we were about to run out, and gave great food suggestions, but she also made me feel super special on my birthday. Thank you so much Geanina!!! The food throughout the property was of excellent quality and taste, and it was refreshing that every area of the property had a different menu options to get some variety throughout the stay. Another gracious person I had the pleasure of meeting was Ilana at the concierge desk. She gave helpful recommendations, and she even made us a reservation at Carbone in a heartbeat! I was trying for weeks to get one and wasn’t able! Thank you for that Ilana!! Thanks to you my family and I added another core memory from an already...

The best way to summarize the service is reactive indifference - if I had a problem I needed to bring it up, but also, it's still my problem.

Reception Desk Check in was fine, but lacked depth. We did not get a tour of the facilities, a map, or even just a verbal walkthrough of what exists. We started this trip basically on our own, and fumbled around the property trying to figure out what exists and where it was. I approached reception about a spa service that was advertised on the "Guiding your Stay" and they had no idea what I was talking about. They did call the spa, who didn't pick up so I was told "The spa is open until 8PM. You can go there and ask them." I had to ask for directions to the spa, and when I got there, it turns out they close at 6PM.

Spa False advertising. On the "Guiding your Stay" posted at every elevator, there was A Treatment of the Month advertised. This was a Swedish Massage & Organic Facial, that COMBINES a facial WITH a massage to rejuvenate your skin AND relax your body. Since I was sent to a closed spa by reception, I decided to email instead of wasting my time walking back down. The spa responded by asking me to call for a booking. When I called the spa to ask how to book this, they also didn't know anything about it, and let me know that the special was for either a massage OR facial. Looking at the words that were used, there are at least four instances (that I highlighted) that refer to this as a single treatment. The girl on the phone put me on hold, and came back to let me know that this has been escalated to the spa manager but unfortunately they can not honor it. It is not worth my time to argue this, there really is no winning because multiple employees also agreed with me that it is worded as a single treatment. The next day, I see that the word "&" has been crossed out on the guides by the elevator.

House Car I'm starting to believe that this doesn't actually exist. I want to highlight that the first time I inquired about it, reception advised me to go to valet. When we got to the valet stand and explained what we wanted to do, the man told us that it's not available right now. So we asked when it would be, and he said probably 30 minutes and walked away. He didn't ask us for our names, room number, or give any direction to how anything works or where we should wait. We stuck around for a bit but when it's clear he wasn't coming back, we booked a Lyft.

Pool Service We were at the pool every day, but received service exactly 0 times. We tried waiting by the towel/sunscreen area. We tried going to the loungers. No one even acknowledged our existence. I think this may be in part due to reduced staff/hours (we tend to go in the mornings or late afternoons), but I mean we were basically invisible. We saw signs that a hotel wristband was required but no one asked us or gave us one. We walked up to grab our own towels whenever we were done as well.

Overall, I did not enjoy my stay and while the property is beautiful, there are a lot of personnel issues that need to be addressed. Typically, if there's a small thing here or there I'd be more than happy to address it as it's happening but in this case, it felt completely pointless because the issues existed in every facet. I did reach out to the manager as well as through 1 Hotels after my stay, but it's been a month and I have not gotten a response from anyone. Honestly, kind of on trend with the my stay but still overall extremely disappointing.

Update 10/10: Had to remove some stuff due to length to provide update - Mauricio posted to contact him about my stay, which I already did a month ago on 9/7/23. It continues to disappoint me that public perception is all that matters, because if they truly cared about these issues they would have responded to me privately at some point in...

I stayed at the 1 Hotel South Beach as part of a four-day girls' trip this past weekend. Suffice to say, our experience was disappointing and at times unsafe due to negligence on the part of the hotel, which led to me cutting both of my feet on broken glass in our hotel room.

As someone who appreciates thorough hotel reviews, and factors other guests' experiences in when deciding where to stay on vacation, I thought I'd expand on our experience below.

Allergy hazards My friend who booked the stay had communicated with the hotel ahead of time that there was an allergy in our group, and she asked to confirm that none of the toiletries contained lavender oil, which the hotel confirmed. We arrived to see that every single toiletry contained lavender oil--it was clearly labeled on the front of each product. We went back and forth with the hotel to ask for replacements--the hotel's initial solution was to tell us that they did not carry lavender-free toiletries (they did in the giftshop, by the same brand) and to remove all toiletries from the room. They eventually brought us toiletries from Walgreens at 2am.

Broken glass on the floor of our room After we returned from dinner the first night of our stay, I cut my foot in three places from stepping in broken shards of glass. It's not clear to me whether the glass was tracked in by cleaning staff, turndown service, or someone else, but the glass had not been in the room prior to us leaving for dinner. The shards were in a highly trafficked area inside the entrance to our room, and we would have noticed it/stepped in it prior to heading out had it been on the floor. Upon closer examination, we noticed multiple pieces of glass on the floor, ranging from tiny shards to larger, jagged pieces. As we came back to a room without soap, there was no way for us to clean the blood smeared across my foot and the floor until security came.

Poor service The prior-mentioned issues aside, there were numerous issues with service across the weekend: blankets the turndown service stripped from the bed and left balled and thrown in the closet, harried and curt waitstaff in the lobby cafe, being reprimanded for using an empty section of the gym by staff, and our room service items missing components of the meal, just to name a few.

The only thing the hotel was attentive about was having their Loss Prevention team (basically the team in place to prevent us from suing for the broken glass/cut foot) call us repeatedly throughout the day, including early enough to wake us up one morning. Clearly, they were more concerned about protecting themselves from any damages than they were about making up for not only a poor--but an incredibly hazardous--stay.

Cleanliness of the room While the beds were clean and the counter surfaces were clean, when we looked closely at the floor, it was dirty, sticky, and covered in glass in the corners of the room: beyond the glass I'd stepped in, we found glass beneath the curtains by the closet in the entryway, as well as on the opposite side of the floor, under the minibar area.

While the hotel did end up comping part of our stay, in our opinion, given the seriousness and volume of the issues we confronted, the gesture was far from sufficient.

There are a number of quality hotels nearby in South Beach, and I'd recommend staying in any one of the other hotels (i.e., the W, the Setai, etc) if one expects to experience even a modicum of service that should be a given when staying at a premium hotel--just don't...