The Miami Beach — Hotel in Miami Beach

I think the key to any successful trip is to do your own research and try to manage expectations before you arrive. From my research, and now experience, I can say that this is a great little hotel for young/solo couples (or any age couple with a youthful attitude!) in a fantastic location for a price inkeeping with the area. We loved the leafy and quiet “south of fifth” residential neighbourhood - you feel tucked away. I can understand how this hotel might not make sense for a family with young children (teens would probably be ok). Our overall experience was great - front desk was accommodating of our dog, we enjoyed the bikes and the beach chairs over on 5th street beach, and the coffee machine & big tv in our room was great for the mornings and a place to chill out in the late afternoon after a day in the sun.

We stayed for 5 nights over NYE as a couple in very early 30’s on holiday with our small dog. I was a little nervous about the noise having read other reviews - especially being over NYE - but we had no issues whatsoever. When we checked in, the front desk receptionist let us know they’d put us in a room away from the noise, which was reassuring, as I had requested previously in the booking note and followed up with on a call, so I really appreciated that they’d taken the time to accommodate my request.

Our room was ample size with nice views out onto the street with green trees and blue skies. We enjoyed the mini fridge for a few sundries and the coffee machine in the room. Bed was comfy with nice sheets, simple but modern touches and furniture in the room.

There wasn’t that much in the way of storage/cupboards but we made do - no big deal. Nice shower and en suite. Quiet and well sound proofed room. There could have been a few more power outlets in the room, but again not a big deal at all. The toiletries for the shower weren’t particularly wow, so maybe bring your own shampoo/conditioner if you’re staying for a while.

There’s a nice coffee bar in the entry lobby, plenty of cute seating areas in the shaded patio, a thoughtful pathway lined with palms and artwork, and a nice plunge pool area. Bikes too!

Just to address some of the things that other reviews have pointed out, with my thinking about “do your research”:

Parking - yes it’s bad around here but its south beach in Miami, and that’s not the hotel’s fault. Expect to valet or get lucky (as we did) with one of the 3 spots right outside the hotel.

The minibar - I will say that I’m glad the hotel was able to accommodate us in a nice room away from the bar. We couldn’t hear anything and our room was well insulated from outside sound. We had no problems with noise whatsoever, however I can understand if you are in a room next to the bar, it would be loud. That said, it’s a great little bar and I enjoyed a couple of tasty cocktails there! Cute spot to sit inside or outside in the courtyard. Reasonably priced drinks, nice bar men.

Pool - you can look at the pictures and see that it’s more of a plunge pool than a place to practise your strokes! The pool area was always quiet and calm with a nice chill out room - I enjoyed reading my book by the pool in the mornings. The cafe downstairs will even bring your morning coffee and pastry up to you poolside - lovely!

Cleaning - again, you need to pay attention to the details and at the front desk there’s a little sign that says that rooms are only cleaned on request. So we requested, and our room was cleaned. Easy!

Staff - friendly, helpful, efficient, were able to check us into our room a few hours early which was really appreciated after a morning flight!

Temperature - we had no problems and could keep it between 68-74.

Overall, we had a great stay. I’m giving it 4 stars as I think that’s fair. It’s a clean, modern hotel in a great spot with some nice touches on offer and a great gateway to the wider area - do your research, manage expectations and we had a brilliant stay at a potentially tricky time of...

This hotel is barely 3-stars and I’m currently in the process of trying to get refunded for my stay which they are refusing to do.

I waited 20 minutes during “check in” time for a woman to eventually show at the front desk with a Target bag so clearly she had errands to run.

The room I got looks NOTHING like the photos. They use a combination of Fabuloso and other cheap cleaning products throughout the space so it all smelled awful. On top of that it just wasn’t clean. Furniture in disrepair. Stains on the wall. Using their towels resulted in my skin having a red rash.

Basic 3&4 star hotels generally have: -functioning coffee makers in the room (mine didn’t work, was gnarly and dirty too) -Hairdryers (nope) -Iron/board (had to call and ask for a board, iron was in room, they delivered a tiny prop up one still with the plastic wrap on, which I then had to put on my bed and try to use because there was nowhere to actually place the dumb thing on and outlets were limited. Motel 6s even give you a full sized ironing board. -Semi-comfortable beds (the room was globally terrible, pillows were cheap and bed uncomfortable) -security: and this is my biggest issue. The door did not have any additional interior locks/deadbolts and anyone could access the interior hallways, because it’s more of a motel than a hotel. I travel alone (and often) so I don’t skimp on security-all this had was a basic lock that’s through a keypad. My room was just around the corner from the unlocked door that people from the street could walk into from the interior courtyard.

Unfortunately I was in town for Basel and chose to stay in this neighborhood to be more secluded but accessible to many things by foot. I had to choose to enjoy Basel and not spend what would (and has been) countless hours the first day getting the situation resolved. Early my first morning I called the third-party agency I booked through and they “would try” to get me a refund (they didn’t and it took them weeks to even get back to me) and refused to put me in another hotel. Stay far away from the booking site TravelEuro.

I then changed my flight to leave the next night so I could get my time in with the Art. I cut a day off my stay and vacation just to get out of the hotel as quickly as possible.

When I said these same things to the hotel they said they could only comp the resort fees (resort fees for what the hell, I don’t know) and the refund would need to go through the third party. They still charged the resort fees which I then had to spend time contacting them to get refunded.

Customer service is non-existent. They don’t care about people and just want $$. I don’t trust any of the other reviews placing this above 2 stars. So misleading. I hope this...

Unfortunately there were many issues throughout our 1 week stay at the Meridian. Firstly, when we arrived to our room, all of the towels, bed sheets, and pillows were dirty. For example, the towels had makeup all over them, the pillows had brown stains, and the bed sheets had brown stains as well (attached photos for evidence). As we had just arrived at the hotel, it was shocking that our room was this filthy. We let the front desk know immediately as we were tired from our flight and wanted to rest, but couldn’t on the dirty sheets. No one came to change our sheets. We contacted the front desk on three separate occasions over the span of 4 hours to request the sheets to be changed. Eventually at 9pm one of the front desk workers brought us sheets and we had to make the bed ourselves as they said by that point housekeeping had left the hotel.

The room was also very humid and sticky at all times, leaving all of the sheets wet and smelly. The room itself smelt so bad from the moment we arrived. We opened the cabinets and closet and had to close them right back as it smelt so incredibly bad inside there. Like wet socks and mold. Also want to note that the floor was beyond disgusting and turned our socks black. I don’t think that room floor has ever been mopped.

We found the hotel itself very dirty and unkept. The pool was filthy throughout our 6 night stay and we did not feel comfortable using it considering it looked completely unmaintained. The pool chairs by the pool are in bad shape and dirty as well.

On the third day of our stay, we noticed that our room door was broken and had not been locking since the beginning of our stay. This was concerning to notice as we realized that anyone could just simply walk into our room without a keycard. I don’t understand how a hotel can operate with broken guest room doors that don’t lock…

Since the first night of our stay with the bedsheet incident, we requested room service every day as we did not trust the cleanliness of our room and did not receive housekeeping services once until the very end of our trip. I’m not sure why the hotel asks its guests to request for room service, if the room service never actually even arrives to do their job.

There were several other little incidents here and there that were highly disappointing, but I will leave it at that. This hotel does not live up to a “4 star property” as it claims to be. As mentioned, the hotel is very dirty, the staff is not helpful or friendly, and the housekeeping team is non existent, I would never recommend this hotel and will chose to stay elsewhere during our next...