Hotel Croydon Miami Beach — Hotel in Miami Beach

Appealing price and location brought us in for a stay but don't consider this place based on price or distance to the beach, as we had the worst hotel experience here and you may have a similar experience.

It started with small things, which isn't uncommon with hotels these days, such as a hot room with no AC running or being placed right next to an elevator during an off season with maybe half capacity on a Thursday/Friday. Then it was finding out the swimming pool filters don't work (hair clots and dirt floating all over the pool). Again, not the end of the world, as we came here for the close proximity to the beach.

During our first night around midnight, we had someone try to open our door thinking it was theirs and talking and yelling during the process, most likely drunk and careless of anyone else staying in the hotel. The next day, we wake up what sounds like a saw blade right outside our door. We look out our door towards the elevator and there's a repair crew working on the ceiling. Apparently they had a leak of some sort and so now they have to cut into the ceiling boards and do some sort of repair work. The noisy repair job lasts all morning, removing any possibility of sleeping in a little after noisy neighbors were talking and yelling outside our doors during the night.

We're thinking it can't get any worst than that, right? Wrong. Fast forward to later that night. We try to get into our room after a long day of exploring and the room cards don't work. Again, things happen but it just seems like this stay isn't up to par with previous stays at other hotels, especially the one we just stayed at (Pestana Miami South Beach).

As we fall asleep around midnight, we once again hear neighbors outside talking and yelling, with paper thin doors so that you can hear their conversations from your doorway from their room with their door closed. At one point, you could be standing in the hallway waiting for the elevator and eavesdrop and hear two people arguing over using condoms with their room door closed over 25 feet away. Note that this hotel has a lot of families with little ones running around.

As a noisy crowd leaves the hallway and we finally fall asleep, we're awaken by something new. This time it's an alarm. No joke, we wake up to an alarm system commanding us to drop everything and evacuate the building immediately and that danger was imminent. At this point, we're half awake and in shock to what all is taking place. We gather a few things, such as our purse and wallet (in our pajamas no less) and head down a random staircase with a fleeting family with a newborn. As we stumble out of the building and regroup in front of the hotel, we're surrounded by the rest of the hotel's visitors and are wondering what the heck is happening? A few fire trucks show up and around 10 minutes later, we're allowed back into the hotel by a front desk clerk named Carlos. He tells everyone that he has no idea what happened and to "storm the front desk" the following morning. We still to this day do not know what caused all that and were never given an apology.

At this point, we're exhausted and over this stay . We wake up early, pack our things and head to the front desk. The desk clerk asks us how our stay was and I inform him of all things that sucked about our stay. He was a little defensive and reverted into damage control mode for some reason but after I listed everything out for him, he said that they would refund a night and some of the service charges but that we first needed to reach out to Hotels.com and have them start the process since it was booked through them. Not a problem. I reach out to Hotels.com and get bounced around. I eventually get someone and they say that this hotel doesn't issue refunds and that they can't get ahold of the hotel. I explain what I was offered by the front desk at the time and they re-try. The best they can do is $25.

Do not give...

The lobby staff have been very unfriendly and unhelpful. This hotel is not suitable for children/toddlers as the rooms are very small/ tight to negotiate. The number of times I have had the pushchair rammed into my ankles because there is no space to put anything is a joke. In the tavern restaurant, we ordered breakfast which took over an hour to arrive and was cold. The wait staff were however, very apologetic and lovely every time we interacted with them. The bathroom looks nice but is not practical. The shower is so slippery that I fell over and slammed my arm into the wall. My son slipped over more times than I can remember and nothing dried unless you turn the room air conditioning up to heat the room which was unbearable in the already sweltering heat. The shower head puts out what I can only describe as a slight trickle even on the most forceful setting. Oh and the shower is not water tight and leaves a massive puddle outside the shower anytime we used it. The sink also blocked after washing hands every time and took hours to drain away leaving a disgusting smell. As we have a toddler in a pushchair, we had to walk around to the back of the hotel, past the pool (which was lovely and warm) and up the ramp at the back of the hotel every time we wanted to enter the hotel. This was very convoluted and annoying. The lift also did not open on the ground floor for most of our stay at the hotel which made things with a toddler and pushchair very inconvenient. Location wise it is very close to the beach which is amazing but most/all of the restaurants close to the hotel are all in other hotels and we found to be exclusive to those hotel users. We did walk down to south beach a few times which was about 30 minutes early in the morning but very hot by midday when we had to walk back. I would recommend the Miami free bus/trolleys but not if you have a pushchair as they took 2 adults to get onto and very tight to negotiate (personal experience with a toddler). We have not checked out but as of yet the whole experience has been very underwhelming and disappointing. Would not recommend staying in this hotel and probably will not be...

We are very sad that the end of our wonderful vacation was spoiled by staying at this hotel, the service on site was nice and we have nothing against them, however, everything else was an unpleasant surprise, the room was average, strangely furnished, more like a hallway with a bed in it, but it wasn't the worst compared to the noise that spreads there, you can hear practically everything as if there was no door, although the door was closed, there is a smell of damp in the room masked by some smell of air freshener or something like that, the worst experience was breakfast, or rather the lack of it - the dining room created in some corridor with only 4 tables was not able to accommodate guests, so there was no room for us, and even if there was, there was practically nothing to eat apart from the remains of scrambled eggs and a few slices of bread, the next and biggest disappointment was the pool in which the water reaches waist-deep in the deepest place and the water in it is simply disgusting as if it was not filtered which effectively took away the desire to use it, so we decided that ok let's use the beach which is accessible around the road because the crossing lanes are several dozen meters away and it turned out that the hotel is located at the height of one of the worst sections of Miami Beach where the entrance to the water is steep and the waves are very high, we are aware that this is not the hotel's fault but I would definitely choose a different location if I knew about it in advance which is why staying here loses any meaning for us and despite the fact that the hotel does not want to refund the money for the rest of the stay which we will spend in another hotel to save the last days of our vacation, we will run away from here anyway because it is sad to part with Miami in such an unpleasant place as the...