The Grayson Hotel Miami — Hotel in Miami

We chose Miami, FL for our leisure trip to relax since becoming new parents two months ago. The scenery of Miami is so pretty! I’m a Hilton Gold Member & I’ve also worked for Hilton since 2012 so I chose this location based off the amenities and the photos which happened to be very much misleading. I can say Brandon, Daliana and I think the Shuttle Driver’s name was Maria. They were all super amazing and accommodating. Our reservation was set for Thursday. My card was authorized on Wednesday for $1200+. However, we missed our flight & I reached out the hotel to ask if they could check-in our reservation prior to night audit so that we would still have access to a room if we arrived before check-in time. It was confirmed. Once we arrived to the hotel. Front Desk Agent Stuart is who assisted us. Apparently, EVERYTHING I said to Stuart went through one ear and out the other. I let him know that my reservation was checked in on Thursday & I needed to pick up keys. Instead he searches arrivals, doesn’t see my name. Goes to no show and saw my name and proceeds to tell me, “Your reservation was cancelled because your card declined.” Again, I’m explaining to him. The total amount was already authorized. I received a confirmation from Daliana confirming the authorization as well as confirmation for the check-in also. He still proceeds, no your card declined so your reservation was cancelled but I can book you for one night with the rate of $200+ . He was so focused on wanting to keep telling me that my credit card declined instead of listening when I asked him multiple times, would you like for me to give you my confirmation number? He finally put in my confirmation number and said oh my apologies, your reservation is in-house. My fiancé adds his credit card for incidentals and we proceed with the check-on process. He gave me keys to a room and stated it’s in dirty status in the computer so I don’t know if it’s clean or not but I’ll give you the keys. I know why it says dirty in the system again, I work in hospitality. However we get into the first room and we weren’t pleased at all with the presentation. It definitely doesn’t look the same as the photos online. The sheets on the bed were stained, the floor was wet and dirty and the bed skirt was torn and dirty. We asked to be moved to another room which we felt was even worse. I didn't want to be a pain in the butt to keep asking to move rooms so I settled which I shouldn’t have because we were spending $300-$400 a night to stay. In this room, the balcony wasn’t presentable and the lights didn’t work at night. None of the outlets fit anything that we brought that needed to be plugged in so we had to charge our phones and plug up everything else in the bathroom. The curtains on the door, didn’t close so Maintenance had to come up and fix those. We didn’t have a price list for the minibar so we just didn’t use anything. We asked for one but they couldn’t find them. We had no trash cans, Housekeeping had to bring them in. No face towels during the entire stay. Luckily I brought bath sponges and exfoliating gloves but my fiancé had to bath and wash his face with hand towels and floor mats. There was crumbs near the head board on the floor of where I slept and the glasses in the room were too dirty to drink out of. I looked at this hotel as luxury online and it definitely wasn’t worth the money we spent. Our trip was 4 days we checked out before our trip was over. We couldn’t stand it any longer. We couldn’t bring back leftover food because they didn’t have any microwaves in the entire hotel. Also, Stuart failed to let us know that using my Fiancés credit card for incidentals would take my credit card off and charge his for the same amount. While my account has the pending authorization for $1200+ , my fiancé now has a pending authorization for $1900. The stay was horrible but the trip and activities...

I paid an average of $225 a night for my room. For that price, it's a five star stay.

Rooms were fine. Getting a little old. But this hotel is in a real skyscraper. For people who are not accustomed to a skyscraper, they are usually: old, have rooms on the small side, have a central A/C system that only gets a room down to 70, and have old plumbing that will smell if the toilet doesn't flush right so water is still in it (this was a problem in my room; you need to flush again to get water back in the bowl to stop the sewer smell). These are all just problems that almost every skyscraper has and are not unique to this hotel. This isn't like a roadside Holiday Inn where they demolish and rebuild a new one every 20 years. Skyscrapers will have problems like this.

But the view and location are both great. These are the two key things you get with a skyscraper in return for below-average 'niceness.'

I wouldn't necessarily call this a resort. This is either a resort with bad amenities or a hotel with awesome amenities. The pool fills up with people fast. It's nice for a little pop-in but you're probably not going to have a very good time if you try to spend the whole day there. The gym is huge and almost as big as a commercial gym. The steam rooms in the gym are the best steam rooms I have ever been in - in terms of how hot and steamy you can get them. Both of these amenities are shared with the adjoining apartment complex, which is very upscale.

All that said, $25 a night is not very high for a resort fee, and the large gym alone probably makes it worth the money.

You're supposed to get a free beach chair at the beach side sister-property (although they no longer have a shuttle there). I haven't tried that yet, but I assume it's fine. Miami beach is a public beach, so whether or not you have a 'reserved' spot kinda seems like six of one, half dozen of the other to me.

They also do a free two-hour bike rental, which I would absolutely, 100% not recommend. Simply because this hotel is right downtown. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to be getting on a bike without a helmet and trying to ride around in traffic if you're not from here.

The balcony is pretty cool. The pictures on the Hilton website are heavily edited and make it seem cooler than it is and misrepresent them as having lounge chairs. Mine didn't have this, but it was still good.

I suspect this hotel is using the Hilton free-upgrade feature for Gold and Diamond members just to move people around for convenience. I kept getting "free upgraded" from a city view room to a bay view room even though city view is what I wanted. This was annoying, but I ended up being satisfied with my bay view room, so I'm letting this slide. It's got a full, direct view of the bay along with some city features still. This would be a very-very different overall rating if I didn't end-up being satisfied with this view.

Overall, I'd say this hotel meets but does not necessarily exceed Hilton's standards. This is a tad disappointing, because the Curio collection hotels often do exceed Hilton's baseline standards. But at least this hotel meets them, and for the price I paid, I think it was a great deal.

I trusted the Hilton brand more than I trusted the people leaving reviews, and it paid off. Because I've met bad people... but I've never stayed at a bad Hilton.

**It's also worth pointing out one thing. A lot of reviews mention receiving texts with "incorrect names." These people are simply not accustomed to Hilton's system. This is the name of the staff member sending you the text, not your name. You should ignore the reviews that claim this...

I cannot emphasize enough how AWFUL my experience was at this hotel. The hospitality was nonexistent, and the staff—from the front desk to the director of hospitality, Veronica mostly—were utterly incompetent. This place is a disaster and a complete waste of money. If you’re considering booking here, don’t. Save yourself the nightmare I endured.

From the moment I checked-in to the moment I checked-out, the entire experience was a complete trainwreck. They charged my card $300 for incidentals—double the price of the room—without any clear explanation. And then the disasters began.

Room 1: Upon entering, I was greeted by an open trap door exposing Wi-Fi routers—a sight that was both unprofessional and unsettling. The window was also open and couldn’t be properly closed. When I reported the issue to the front desk, they moved me to another room.

Room 2: Same issue—windows that were visibly open, letting in a breeze, and no way to close them. To make matters worse, I was gaslit by Veronica who claimed the windows weren’t actually open. It was clear they were, and no solution was offered.

Room 3: This was by far the worst. It was located near the pool, which meant loud, blasting music all day long chosen by the bartender from the poolside bar. The room itself was filthy: an unknown substance was smeared and running down the walls, sticky residue coated the table, someone’s dried contact lenses from a previous stay were left on the nightstand, and the blinds were broken and had to be fixed by maintenance. To top it all off, the room didn’t have an iron or steamer. After receiving no help from staff, I hunted down a housekeeper myself, who informed me that every room should have one—but mine didn’t.

As if the issues with the rooms weren’t bad enough, the restaurant and room service were equally appalling. At 3:30p, I went to the 3rd-floor restaurant, only to be told it didn’t open until 5p. When I returned at 6p, the same bartender treated me with confusion and indifference. When I asked for a table for one, he ignored me and repeatedly asked, “Do you want water?” After that bizarre encounter, I gave up and left. Thinking room service might be a better option was my next mistake. When I called to place an order, I was told to hang up and dial a different number—only for that number to call the same person back again. This ridiculous back-and-forth continued until someone decided to come to my room to take my order in person. Even then, he was confused, claiming the items I requested weren’t on the menu—even though I was using the QR code provided in my room. After repeating my order four times, the director of housekeeping, Dianna, finally got involved. However, even with Dianna's involvement, nothing improved. She confirmed that the phone lines in my room were incorrectly routed to the poolside bar instead of the restaurant. This baffling mismanagement summed up my entire experience. By the time I finally got my food, I had to walk into the kitchen myself to retrieve it. To make matters worse, although Dianna assured me the meal would be comped, the charge mysteriously appeared on my bill at checkout. It was as if the hotel staff had no record of the endless issues I had experienced—let alone any intention of resolving them.

Key takeaways from my stay: The hospitality is horrendous. The staff are rude, unprofessional, and incompetent at every level. Rooms are filthy, poorly maintained, and riddled with issues. The restaurant and room service are a complete joke.

This was, without question, the worst hotel experience I’ve ever had. Avoid this place...