Hotel Breakwater South Beach — Hotel in Miami Beach

Horrific, badly managed and an absolutely disgusting experience.

We chose to stay at The Breakwater Hotel South Beach for 4mid week nights.

Firstly, this is not as advertised, it is not a boutique hotel and the images of the pool area are misleading. To say that it’s shabby, run down would be an understatement.

Let’s cover the pool first. I have seen cleaner and deeper public fountains in and around Miami. This pool looked and smelt as if no care or cleaning had been done. And forget about relaxing there… it is impossible as they have the loudest generators I have ever heard running 24/7… in fact my wife thought at first that an emergency helicopter was about to land. It is impossible to relax there. The images are so mis-leading.

See video.

At 1.30am one morning we heard the loudest banging, the about 5 minutes of sawing… When we called down to security, they investigated and the noise stopped. 20 minutes later security very kindly called us to wake us up again to tell us the noise had stopped. Idiot.

The reason for the noise issue was verified by the reception team twice. Before being retracted by the GM

The next day the hotel upgraded us to a non-existent room….

When we came back down the receptionist was looking a little worried as our old room AND the new room my wife was previously shown and agreed on had been sold. So we now didn’t have a room with two more nights to stay, for which we paid for.

A few angry moments and some frantic calling and the reception team had managed to find a room and bought a small bed for our daughter to sleep on.

Our room had a pull out sofa so rather than sleep on the dodgy old looking wooden bed we started to make the pull out bed… and that’s when we discovered the state of the disgusting mattress that the hotel expected our daughter to sleep on. See images.

They made that bed for us, they would have seen the state of the mattress..,and yet they expected someone to sleep on it?

So I dragged the mattress back to reception where I left it on display there. I’ve seen matrasses like this before, but usually on the side of streets, or in murder scenes.

To be fair the reception team were as shocked as we were.. and apologetic and assured us we would be comped so nights for the inconvenience. So we were ‘comped’,a breakfast at The News Cafe as a way of an apology. When we got there we were told it was on their restrictive menu and our menus were immediately removed…. Not much of an apology.

We complained to every one, but no one was getting back to us.

In desperation I spoke with the GM at their sister hostel, The Victor… who looked so shocked and we felt was truly sorry for the incompetence. And organised a meeting with the GM at the Breakwater. I have to say that encounter was a complete waste of time, and it soon became apparent why this once iconic hotel was now a disgusting, run down shadow of what it had been. TheBreakwater GM was so blasé, so unhelpful, and his lack of understanding a would suggest that complaints like this are not uncommon. His team really did feel for us though and continued to be apologetic. Shame the GM couldn’t man up and take responsibility for his disgusting, shameful hotel.

We were told this would be sorted out by Monday at 12pm… and in true character of this hotel, we have not received any form of communication or offer of compensation (except for a lunch at the Versace restaurant, which they knew full well we could do as we were leaving) from the incompetent team at The Breakwater.

This in it’s self is not unusual as we would have to chase several times to get a response whilst booking..

Please, if you are considering this hotel, DO NOT BOOK. There are other hotels, that are cleaner, quieter and where the management team respect the fact that they are working in the hospitality business and welcome their guests and perhaps have pride in their hotel. Some hotel pros even use mattresses that haven’t had a hard life in the adult film industry.

The Breakwater is not...

DO NOT STAY HERE

During our 4-day girls’ trip we stayed at Breakwater Hotel. After complaints of plumbing and a strong mildew smell, they transferred us to another room that also had plumbing issues. We were unable to request yet another room because were told for 2 days “only a manager can help you”. Kia, the manager, was present on our final day. I was given a business card and told to email my complaints and I was given a refund of $82 service fee. I explained to Kia that the $82 was offensive, given the plumbing issues in both rooms, one room with strong mildew odor, inconvenience of having to switch room, and given the run around with attempting to have matters resolved with the 2nd room. We would have been transferred to a 3rd room if we were able to speak with a manager. Only front desk staff were available on the last days of our stay.

My friend’s written complaint (also posted on Yelp), the inconvenience of transferring to another room caused us to miss an important dinner. I will also post reviews on several sites including the Breakwater site in case upper management cares enough about guest’s experiences and rectify their plumbing issues.

The day after the trip I emailed Breakwater, I had to make several calls to get them to address my very detailed email of all what occurred during our stay. As I disputed the charge, Breakwater staff sent a statement “that I never made any complaints during our entire stay and that I was trying to beat the system”. Another Breakwater response was that we stayed the 4 days and didn’t go to another hotel – wow, we had already moved to another room and they did not care about or consideration that cost we would have encountered.

Pros: delicious food, readily available fruit (oranges & apples) and bottled water, reception staff was great, and the hotel was directly across from the beach.

Cons: (1) you will get the run around when seeking a resolution, (2) management may make a false statement against you, (3) dead cockroach seen in hallway, (4) plumping issues – there were work crews on the 3rd floor working on 3 units as we were transitioning up to the 4th floor, (5) the lobby has a strong but good smelling air freshener scent. We checked in saying, it smells good in here! But later guessed that the strong lobby smell was probably to cover up mildew or other odors, (6) the wall art throughout the hotel did not reflect the multicultural patrons, the artwork should reflect all races of the people that make reservations there, (7) loud street noise, neighboring restaurant had live music late night, and (8) remodeled bathrooms but dated furniture.

If I knew Breakwater was unprofessional and dishonest, I would have taken pictures of all towels laid down to soak up water in our rooms on both the 3rd & 4th floor and called the state department over the severe mildew smell and plumbing issues – the room on 3rd floor. If we called the state department, Breakwater staff would not have been able to be dishonest and deny our unpleasant 4 days experience, and there would have been a record of the plumbing issues in the building. We do have a picture from the 4th floor of water not draining from the bathroom sink. The lessons learned - take pictures of everything wrong and never book at Breakwater Hotel South Beach!

My friends and I did not think that we had to cover ourselves and defend ourselves while we were on vacation. What a huge inconvenience and disappointing experience. I thought I was going to have a great time, for that was my first...

This Motel they choose to call a "resort" is very lack there of. Apon arriving I initially left a rating of a 1 wish I could have gone less. Needless to say the mgr reached out the same day, made me aware he seen my one star and wanted to know what they could do to fix anything. Walking in my first thought it looked promising but friends were already there but had warned me a bit about the place. Having to walk through the club and a gelato shop to get to the smallest "service" elevator (thats what it seemed like it was) when typically staying at a place that charges the rate of the room as well as a resort fee apon check in, you would think paid a bit more attention to detail when it came the the cleanliness of the rooms. Ended up changing rooms after the only call with the Mgr, even after I changed rooms never heard from him again to make sure things were alright, after moving to the new room. In the new room there was this bench with scuff marks, droppings that looked as if they tried to clean it but it didn't come out but left it in the room anyway (disgusting). Light in the shower flickering constantly. The sink water never got hot the only two temps were freezing cold or cold. My thermastat didnt want to go lower than 75℉ initially until i had to take out ans put the batteries back in. My towels had a bunch of stains on them called to get more which they did send up immediately. I was in town for a girls trip and we wanted to stay out as long as possible so we wouldn't have to be in the room, so we were out and wouldn't come back in and lay down until at 5 or 6 am and Fri morning around 945am the fire alarm goes off in the building I jump up out my sleep, called down to the front desk no answer and no one from the staff came around to check on anyone in the building to even state if we had to evacuate or if it was a false alarm. If you are looking to sleep before 4am I wouldn't suggest this motel as the live band and music are playing until about then but of course I didn't mind as that was the time I was getting back to my room anyway. The complete lack there of a pool which is 3ft deep and probably about 40ft long isn't worth it as there is a sign "adults should not swim alone" sign (which is the dumbest thing ever) since the pool is a general area for use with guest using your key card on the service elevator you should be to go to the 2nd floor but no instead if you are staying on the top floor and want to go to the pool then you have to walk down instead. At some point someone poured cleaning products in the elevator with no caution cone, didn't bother to clean it up so using the elevator myself and I'm sure other guests having to stand in a wet elevator that someone put pinesol in is not the image we are thinking when someone is suppose to clean it. I did not encounter and rude staff, other than them not answering the phone or the housekeeping line always being busy DON'T stay here it isn't worth it, I should of went with my initial gut of just...