Congress Hotel South Beach — Hotel in Miami Beach

I was extremely disappointed with the level of service provided at the Congress Hotel in Miami, FL. I had booked two rooms several months in advance to ensure the rooms were situated nearby one another, as I was with a large group for a bachelorette party. I was reassured multiple times the rooms would be (if not next to) close to one another. I called a week in advance to double check and again I was reassured they were close by. At the check-in date of the first room (one day prior to the check in of the second room as I and the bride-to-be arrived a day early for some R&R) was again told the second room was nearby the first. At the day of the second room’s check-in, I was told ‘Oh no we can’t tell you ahead of time if the rooms are nearby, and we can’t choose the room you have, your second room is in a SEPARATE BUILDING’ (not even CLOSE to the building much less the ROOM of the first booking). If I had been informed of this at booking, I would have canceled and booked with a hotel who was able to accommodate this mundane request. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of the ‘great’ experience with the Congress Hotel. The front desk had utterly no regard for customer service (or even an ounce of respect for another human for that matter) and could not have cared less to be assisting guests. The only staff members who showed any interest in helping us were the tipped employees (no surprise there). But the rest of the staff could have taken lessons in customer service from the bag-boys. Multiple times we called to the front desk for items such as ice, towels, etc. only to be rudely ignored and have to call back multiple times, or literally go down to the front desk and practically harass them until they responded. Furthermore, the ‘amenities’ as they refer to them, were a joke. Breakfast was cold, stale bread or cereal and Maxwell house coffee. And the included beach chairs and umbrellas (which we were told was a part of the PER-Person $12.50 charge per day) was not so ‘included’ we were told when we got down to the beach that if we wanted one chair per-person staying in the rooms, we would have to pay an additional charge of $10/chair and $20/umbrella. On top of the poor service and laughable amenities, the hotel itself seemed in disarray. The elevator worked 30% of the stay at best and if the stairs were locked (entrance is from the alley) we were told there was no key and we would have to wait in the lobby for them to fix the elevator. Twice we waited more than 20 minutes just to get up to our room! Thank God no one needed emergency services in the hotel at the time; the EMT’s would have no way of getting to them! The pool on the roof-top was also deplorable. The lining was lifting off the pool all around and the bottom was slimy. The TV’s in the room were also smaller than what I would put in my car, I felt as if I needed a magnifying glass to see the picture. To top off the absurd service, amenities, and property issues, they improperly charged my credit card at the end of the stay, which wasn’t shown on the statement (nor do they check ID’s by the way, so feel free to use a stolen credit card, they don’t check even for charges exceeding $1800!). I only noticed the issues in my credit card statement online the next day and called repeatedly to the hotel and management and left several voice mails only to be ignored. In fact, they have caller ID, so if you call asking to be connected to management more than once, they simply hang up on you. Looks like I’ll be disputing the charges through my credit card company since they are ‘unable’ (more like unwilling) to fix the issue. I was also told I would get a Florida resident discount when booking, and never received it. In short, I have never experienced any hotel who’s staff and management showed such blatant disregard for...

I have to write this review because I was very nervous after reading everyone else’s. I had my expectations very low and thought the place deserved a little more credit. Overall, it was a good place to stay in a convenient location - right on ocean drive directly across from the beach. But to go more in detail... everyone mentioned smoke smell in their reviews, our room had absolutely no smoke smell. The hallways didn’t smell like smoke either but did seem to have some odor eliminator or cover up which was fine - I was glad to see they’re trying. The stairwell had a slight smell, but just use the elevator if that bothers you.

We didn’t try valet parking due to the reviews, but we parked in the parking ramp by the police station for $20/day which was only a 6min walk to the hotel.

It would be nice if they answered the phone, seems like it always went to voicemail (this was mostly frustrating when we were trying to find the entrance, we walked around the building twice) They did respond to my emails though prior to our trip and were helpful. The check in desk is in the next door building and you enter between the buildings but from the Main Street which was better than having to walk thru the alley. Staff was friendly and helpful in person. A staff member was there to check us in at 6pm and there was a staff member there when we checked out at 6am.

The elevator requires your keycard to get to your floor which made us feel a lot safer being in such a busy area.

The room itself was mostly clean and looked very nice. The appliances were nice to have and the shower was pretty nice too (took us a while to realize there’s a separate handle to turn the shower head on). The tv remotes were iffy, probably just dead batteries but we never mentioned it to them so I guess you can’t fix it if no one says anything. The floor wasn’t swept which was annoying to have to wipe sand off your feet before getting into bed but we never complained so maybe they just happened to forget to sweep our room. I don’t think there’s room service as other people mentioned which is totally fine with me, I don’t need a maid to clean my mess daily. I did ask for extra towels which room service then had them up there within an hour. They do have European balconies which was nice to get some fresh air, our room didn’t have much of a view, but that’s okay as we booked late.

The pool looked clean and we thought the rooftop was pretty cool how it overlooked the ocean. The bar was open when we went up there too!

We paid the $10/ea cash deposit for beach towels which was fine with me. I’m sure people steal them all the time. We were able to get the deposit back when we brought back the towels.

Last but most important thing - BRING EAR PLUGS! As everyone else has said, the bar below is very noisy (as I’m sure any place is goin to be on Ocean Drive). I didn’t believe that it would be too bad But we brought ear plugs after reading the reviews just in case and we slept pretty well (bed was pretty comfy too - didn’t try the pull out). If it wasn’t for the ear plugs, I don’t think I would have slept well at all and i probably would have been very grumpy. Each night was loud until about 3am and then some other music would start at 9am. We also played some rain sounds on our phone for background noise which helped a little too. Again, ear plugs made a world of a difference. In the future, it’d be nice if they supplied some ear plugs in your room for you. I think that would eliminate half the bad reviews here.

Another thing that would be nice to see is to have dish soap in the rooms. They have nice dishwashers but no detergent.

Again, overall the place was pretty good but has plenty of room for...

This below should tell you all you need to know about this scam of a hotel;

Thank you for filing this report after making a call the Miami beach police services.

On January 15, 2017 booked a reservation through Expedia to stay at the Congress Hotel at South Miami Beach and paid $1,735.55. Enclosed is the copy of the receipt from Expedia for $1,7835.55 to state at the Congress hotel for the period of February 12-18, 2017. The hotel would not allow to change the reservation as was not comfortable at all staying at this hotel. The hotel staff never returned calls and the same pattern was shown while staying at this establishment.

On February 12, 2017 arrived at the Congress Hotel in South Beach and was asked for a credit card for a deposit which would be reversed immediately after checking out, the amount told to me was $300. Again, was not comfortable at all giving out my credit card to this establishment, but complied with the request.

On February 18, 2017 checked out from the hotel and was asked to pay a resort fee of $15.50 per night for six nights and was given a receipt after giving my credit card. The clerk said everything was fine and then ordered a taxi to the airport.

On February 21, 2017 reviewed by credit card statement and a charge of $1,510.05 was charged to my credit card on February 12, 2017 the date I checked in. Enclosed is a copy of my bank statement with the fraudulent charge. I was made aware of the charge from my friend who lives in North Vancouver who was charged with the same amount on February 12, 2017. I immediately phoned the hotel to reverse the charge, they told me to wait and there is a "process" that must be followed. The hotel failed to refund the monies and finally replied with an e-mail stating it was a "mistake" and had to wait up to 5-10 business days for a refund by e-mail. This is unacceptable and telephoned my VISA company to dispute the charges and block any further charges to my credit card.

I have no doubt this hotel continue to process unauthorized charges to unaware tourists who come from all over the world only to come back home to see false charges on their credit card statement which is nothing more than theft. I hope the Police at South Beach takes this seriously as this is not the only problem noticed at the Ocean Avenue Strip and the continual harassment of tourists by hotels and businesses was untenable and not much better than a third world country to be perfectly blunt.

Let me know if you require any additional...