Penguin Hotel — Hotel in Miami Beach

The person who answers the phone sounds aggravated, talks fast and was difficult for me to understand. I tried twice to get concrete info. about parking, but was told public garages are one block from hotel. The President, sister hotel on Collins street behind the Penguin has $48/day valet parking. There are now NO cars allowed on the Penguin’s section of Ocean Drive, despite pictures on their website. We couldn’t see any place to drive into or at the President to park, kept driving and found the parking garage at the next left (going South). It was $20/day! We parked there, went out to the street with our luggage, bags, etc. It really wasn’t too bad, just have to get them up about 4 steps to get inside to check in. There’s an elevator to get to the rooms. Our king room and bathroom were clean, and small, but adequate. There was a safe in the closet. Included with the room were coupons for breakfast and 1 drink at the happy hour for the two of us. The breakfast was great for us, and had many things that most people would enjoy: scrambled eggs, bacon one day, sausage the next, pastries, mini waffles, whole fruit, cereal, milk, juices, water and regular coffee (wish they’d had decaf). They did have hot chocolate packets and teabags, but never saw hot water, and I didn’t ask since I didn’t need it. Also, one issue came up the second day, and a young man in the kitchen quickly responded to it and did a great job! We tried to do the happy hour to use our coupons, but we were 20 minutes early before it opened, so never used them. Our room air conditioner wouldn’t work when we checked in, called the front desk. The maintenance man came within 20 minutes and got it working. It stopped working again overnight,and we called again. Once again a different maintenance man came and explained that the air conditioner being set at 69 wouldn’t come on because the outside temperature was around 59. He set it lower and it came on. We just set it lower until it cooled off a bit, then put it back on 69. We would potentially stay there again after getting the low-down on certain things, and for the price. The location was pretty good for walking a lot. There’s a pool on the top of the President hotel, and tried to go see it our last day, but the elevator wouldn’t go up there. Just wish the weather had been a little warmer to hang out by the beach and water, but still enjoyed the nature, some good food and a walking Art Deco tour to hear some history of the area. This area was more of a party atmosphere than we care for, lots of scantily...

I don't take leaving a 1 star review lightly, so before doing so I called and left 3 messages with different associates to have the manager call me, over a week's time and she never did. They said they are busy.

My family only had 1 afternoon/evening in Miami and wanted to make the best of it by spending some time at the beach. We arrived at the hotel about 5pm and saw the sign "Will be back Shortly" on the front desk. There was another family with a bunch of luggage waiting as well. We waited with them for about 15 minutes and then began to call the hotel (Inluding the President), and it just rang. This went on for over an hour while we were all just sitting in the lobby with nowhere to go and all of our luggage. After close to an hour and a half I walked in the rain over to the president hotel to see, if by chance, someone was there and just not answering the phone which WAS the case. I (soaking wet) politely expressed my frustration and asked to be checked in, to which she didn't seem apoligetic in the slghtest. Said she would not walk to the Penguin to check us in due to the rain. While I was talking to her the phone was ringing the entire time and she didn't even attempt to answer it. I ran back in the rain to tell my family and the other family waiting that we were out of luck until it stopped raining. At this point my wife went over and after about 20 minutes the clerk entered the Penguin and checked us in begrudgingly. No apology, no compensation, no "mint on pillow", just rudeness. She even charged us a resort fee for each member of my family instead of a single resort fee. A 3rd customer was in the lobby complaining about the resort fee at the time as well. We lost our one night in Miami and chance to go to the beach due to extremely poor service. In addition we did not have any towels in our room, so I went to the same clerk and was still polite and asked for some so we could shower. She said she would send room service right up... surprisingly, nobody ever came. There were no beach towels either, but fortunetly a nice clerk was working at the President the next morinng who provided us towels and sincerely apoligized for our experience. He said he would have the manager call us, and as I said before I have still yet to hear from anyone. I would give this review 0 stars except that the bartender at the President and the...

I don’t even know where to begin with this … This has been by far one of the most horrible experience I have ever been a part of . I booked this as a Valentines Day weekend get away & after arriving at approximately 11:24 am , I was then told check in wasn’t until AFTER 3 pm , my partner and I was never let aware that there was a waiting list for the room…. After 3pm we returned to then be given breakfast & 1 drink vouchers for a restaurant that was located doors down. After finally getting to our room we encountered human body fluids in the closet of the room . After being upset we continued to check around and found that the Television did not work , the bathroom windows did not open & more disturbing…. THERE WAS NO HOT WATER to bathe or do our day to day routines. After nearly getting the run around for HOURS we were never able to meet or speak with a direct supervisor. We dealt with listening to other visitors yells and complaints about similar situations going on in there room . The front desk was left unsupervised & unattended for hours at a time and when I asked for a refund cause I refused to spend mii last 2 nights under these conditions, I was told no refunds were allowed and was offered 2 water bottles that are sold in dollar tree in a pack of 4 as there way of apologizing for all of the mess we went through on that 1st day . The hallways reeked of mold. I was Bitten multiple times and throughout my body and thought of it being mosquito bites to find out it was actual bedbug bites . Looking bak at some of these reviews , I’m convinced these are not actual people who have visited this hotel and gave 5 stars ! These people are all speaking & posting around all similar time frames ! I wouldn’t recommend this place even to a person who didn’t have a home . One word to best describe this experience would be “ Disgusting “ . Good luck to anyone going off of website pictures & with any expectations of a good experience. I also recommend that anyone booking PLEASE be cautious of any fees they tend to charge you for . I was charged $150.00 & an additional $86.00 non refundable mandatory charge to my account in which I was never aware of & when I asked to speak with a supervisor I was told “ she is in a meeting “ for hours . Over all just know what you are seeing online is Definitely not what you...