Hotel Chelsea — Hotel in Miami Beach

This review is so overdue, I think it should be titled, ‘Yikes; I’m sorry it took so long - please forgive me - it wasn’t intentional’. Or how about I make it up to them by writing a review so stellar it will resonate in the SoBe discotheques for years to come.

In all seriousness, my stay (sadly only one night) was memorable. With so many art deco hotels in Miami Beach especially on ‘beach row’*, they can start to blur — but Hotel Chelsea was a standout. I would not only describe it as solely art deco, since displays characteristics of the 70s, especially with respect to room decor. Speaking of stellar, their location is one of the best for the ‘south’ SoBe area.

The patio and restaurant (at that time Latin themed) was welcoming, appeared reasonably authentic and had a nice vibe, and what appeared to be hummingly attentive service. Inside was a bar area — quite dark, but not too dark — and if I had had more time I would have loved to have chilled there for a while. Note to self, one day in SoBe is never enough.

There is a reception nook just inside the entrance to the right. The desk person was patient and helpful with registration and set me up with a room up a few stairs - but surprisingly not too loud despite being close to the lobby bar.

I loved the layout of the room and how spacious it was. It had three distinct parts: bathroom, bedroom and living area. First was a very modern washroom covered wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with slate stone and the shower was like none I’d ever seen. It felt like being at a Japanese onsen (bath house). There was no door; only two partial walls topped with glass of which you walked through the middle and there were shower heads at both ends (Jack and Jill style). The only problem; with no shower door, it got drafty. I guess that’s the sacrifice you have to make for such an amazing design.

The lighting was both positive and negative. By far the most interesting part of the decor was the sphere shaped hanging fixture in the far corner (I’d never seen a fixture quite like it before). Basically, it’s globelike with a cord to expand it into a piece of art which by design also serves as a light source. The unfortunate part — it was broken, not hooked up correctly or had a bulb issue. A staff member took a look at it, but were not able to solve the problem. The second lighting issue — one of the two bedside lamps did not work, so needless to say the lighting was mood style. There was another lamp on a thin table in the suite side of the room which included a retro stereo, a set of drawers, a white couch, a mini fridge, other period pieces of furniture and accent pieces, plus a large mirror. Overall, it was one of the coolest rooms I’ve stayed in and hope to again — and yes, for a longer stay.

Even though there was no official concierge it was notables in the advice department. The night I arrived, I got hungry somewhat late in the evening. The recommendation was for Safron Mediterranean Grill only a few blocks away. It had sidewalk seating and some darn delicious Middle Eastern-style food. I wrote them a great review and remember their comprehensive meze platter.

This glowing (apart form the bulbs) review doesn’t stop there, it continued being above average and without the pretentious air or vibe you feel at some highfalutin establishments in the area - I won’t name names, but surely you can imagine which might fit the category: club, hotel or otherwise.

Oh right, back to the final touches of my review; not only was I granted a late checkout - which really helped with my logistics - but the manager Maria took time to sit and chat with me. Not only did she give two excellent breakfast suggestions, but she shared tips and thoughts from her years in SoBe.

She definitely knew her stuff and you can’t even imagine how much those ‘little’ things meant to me. Thanks for standing out in a crowd of hotel competition - not for the faint of heart.

*Did I invent ‘beach row’...

Rude, disagreeable and aggressive manager. Here's the full story:

Three days before our arrival the hotel wrote us that they could not store luggage on arrival day before check-in time. I wrote the hotel asking whether an exception could be made (we arrived at 5am and check-in time was 3pm: way too many hours to walk around with suitcases...). I received this answer: “We just spoke with our GM and as a one-time exception, she agreed to hold your luggage before check-in.”

At our arrival at 5.30am, the employee at the front desk was aware of this exception, and told us to leave our suitcases in front of the front desk, just behind a sofa. We left them there with our jackets hanging, and at our arrival for check-in, at 3pm, one of the jackets was gone. The employee now at the front desk refused to offer any form of help, stating that it was under our own responsibility that we had lefts our suitcases there (we had never been told this). We tried to explain that the hotel had agreed by email to store them, and that we had left them exactly where we had been told to. Because of the jacket’s value, we asked him whether he could call the police for us. He refused, and thus we called the police ourselves.

From the very first minute the hotel’s general manager, Maria Meaux, adopted aggressive, unpolite and rude manners towards us. She started by saying that she had nothing to speak with us at all, that the issue would be dealt with once the police arrived and that it was all our fault because the hotel did not store luggage. We tried to show her the email by which the hotel had engaged to store our luggage, and her answer was that it must have been a mistake made by the Reservations Department at South Beach Group and that the email in question had no value because it was not signed by her.

Because she was so aggressive and disagreeable to us from minute one, we made it clear that we had no intention to claim any form of liability, or to sue the hotel, or to deem the hotel responsible for anything -even if we definitely had a case to do so. We were only asking for a little sympathy and cooperation from her about the CCTV cameras, not deeming them responsible or threatening to sue, or anything of the kind. She literally replied that she would not speak to us anymore. I said to her that she was the first person not to be nice to us since we arrived in the US, to which she replied: “maybe I’m not nice because I’m not American”.

Once the police arrived, we explained the officer what had happened, and filed a report. The police officer told the manager that someone at the hotel had taken responsibility for our luggage, as per the email shown to him earlier. Concerning the CCTV cameras, Maria Meaux claimed that the cameras would not show anything for the bags had been place at a blind spot. We argued that this was not the case and the officer was able to see by himself on the screen that the particular spot where the black leather had been left was perfectly visible from the camera’s viewpoint.

At our check-out, we pointed out to Maria Meaux that she needn’t have been so aggressive and disagreeable to us, since we never had any intention of suing the hotel or otherwise holding them responsible for what had happened, and that she could have just tried to be nice to us and simply say that she was sorry for that had happened. To which Maria Meaux replied:...

DO NOT STAY HERE!

The photos online are not the reality of Hotel Chelsea. While the rooms themselves are curated nicely, there were concerns that were addressed by my travel partner in email after our stay, and the response from management was quite frankly appalling. Let’s break it down…

1. We arrived early to the hotel and they checked us, in which was fine. However, when we wrote to them to address our various issues during our stay, in the response back to us, management said that they did an early check in and didn’t charge us the early check-in fee as a courtesy, even though the hotel was fully booked. No one asked them to do that, but sure…

2. The cleaning products they used are very strong/the smell permeated through everything. They did not address that/concerns for others who might have smell sensitivities…

3. There were various rooms across the floor where other patrons had their dogs, and while we’re totally fine with hotels that cater to dogs, these dogs were barking nonstop for hours. When we addressed this to management via email, their response was anything but helpful. They didn’t want to stress out the dog owners due to the hurricane. Again, totally reasonable to have folks from all across the state come to the hotel to escape from the hurricane, but it would have been better to address the owners to help keep the dogs calm/not barking constantly, rather than just say “it is what it is”

4. ROACHES!! We saw one roach from behind the mini fridge in the room crawling on top of it. It went away and we didn’t say anything but once we saw another one, we addressed it with the front desk. They came and sprayed the room/corner where we saw the bugs (making the already strong smelling room even more strong with odors) and couldn’t accommodate us with another room due to being at capacity. That’s understandable that we couldn’t be accommodated, but when we brought this up in our email to management, their response: “we communicated with the contracted exterminator and they found nothing but cleaned it anyway” which was AFTER WE LEFT/checked out.

The gaslighting from management and making it seem like they did everything they could, but implying that we (as in my travel partner and I) could’ve done things differently/could have tried to understand their poor management is outrageous.

Spend the extra few bucks and go somewhere else. The hotel is not worth the location in South Beach and the management is not with the energy. We were excited to check out the next day and clean our clothes/be done with The...