W Miami — Hotel in Miami

By all means DO NOT stay at this hotel. I travel constantly. This property is BY FAR the most disorganized, user unfriendly, nickel-and-dime establishment I have ever had the displeasure of staying in.

THE LOWDOWN: The W shares the footprint with a high rise condo complex. It appears that the W has no actual ownership of the building. This means that they are a tenant and have no say in any of the workings within the establishment. This makes the guest a total afterthought

Here are a few of the issues: VALET: the valet has nothing to do with the hotel. You can not put the expensive overnight fee on your room. When you pay, you are forced to go to a single credit card payment machine. The machine hardly works and the line is long. The driveway is in total chaos, it’s always backed up and there is constant honking (well into the night) People cut each other off trying to get in and out of the valet area. Finally, there is a rule that you can only leave your car in the driveway for 10 minutes before they take it away. This means that if you need to check in… then run back out for a meeting, valets insist that they park your car, then force you to wait 30 minutes for it to be fetched again. Not only did we experience this, but two other people did at the exact same time. People were literally screaming at the dismissive valets.

FOOD AND BEVERAGE Even though the restaraunt and bar are in the upper lobby, they have nothing to do with the hotel. This means NO room charges, a $7.00 cup of coffee paid with a separate credit card, ZERO room service. Oh and the hotel generously provides you with a $20 credit to use. But don’t try to use it at the pool, the bar, the restaurant, the valet, or anywhere other than your hotel mini bar. So, for my credit I grabbed a small $18 small bag of cashews. How benevolent of them.

POOL/SPA/GYM These are all shared spaces. NONE ARE PROPRIETARY TO THE HOTEL. Upon entering the pool, the guard asks for your room number and takes forever to “verify” you before putting a plastic wristband on you (think the lowest of a budget cruise ship),

The pool closes at 7pm. Guards make the rounds literally whistling at people shouting for them to leave the area. If you want access the gym and spa from the hotel, you must A) take the hotel elevator to the fifteenth floor B) get a wrist band at the pool C) walk close to five minutes to another building and through a hidden door. D) Take a separate elevator down a floor E) walk through a maze only to be interrogated by another guard insisting on your room number. For admittance. Finally, you can get your workout in. BUT Don’t make the mistake of working out past 7pm (even though the spa is open til 10) BECAUSE The hotel locks all the reentry doors back into the property. So you either have to hop a wall and cut through the bar (as I did) OR as my colleague experienced, you are forced to exit through an unmarked door, get locked in a stairwell and walk down fifteen flights of metal stairs. This lets you out at the garage and you must then navigate your way back to the main entrance of the hotel property.

ROOM QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY If you are traveling with family or colleagues and you are on different floors, you will NOT be able to meet them on their floor because the key cards ONLY work for the floor you are on. So to meet up, you must go to the top floor, then they have to let you into their floor.

My king room appears to have once been quite nice. Sadly, the shower door would not close properly, the water pressure was low and the toilet paper holder was loose, falling off the wall. My room was situated on the valet side of the building so I was perpetually bombarded by horns blowing eternally, as drivers were angry, and caught up in the bottle neck.

Bottom line, this property is shameful. The Marriott organization should be ashamed for allowing this location to operate. It is by far, one of the worst large city hotels I have ever stayed in. I leave tomorrow, and cannot wait to evacuate this property....

I have never received the awful treatment I received at W Miami. It upsetting on so many levels. Objectively, check-in was supposed to be at 4:00 PM EST. It occurred well after 5:30 PM EST. There was no sense of urgency from the staff at all whatsoever. There where some empty apologies however and a definite empty promise to provide a $100 credit for myself and my partner to enjoy due to the inconvenience. As we waited quite a long time (over 1.5 hours as I noted above), we were taken to the bar, told our drinks would be compensated. Instructed to enjoy the property, tour it and relax, until our room could be prepared. We tried - I promise. We were stopped by pool staff, told we needed a wristband (you need a room key to gain access, we had no room key, as we had no room), we went back to lobby to talk with the hotel concierge staff, we were told we did not need a wristband just a room key, which they could assign without a room. They did. We went back up to the bar and pool to try to enjoy and make the best of things. We were once again accosted and harassed this time by hotel security about this wristband. We explained to security that we had room keys and were told this was all we needed by the concierge staff (apparently no one talks to each other). He did not want to hear us, he insisted on escorting us off the pool grounds to get a wristband. The look on my partner's face haunted me the entire trip, he was so upset and I heard him whisper how embarrassed and humiliated he felt (we are Brown people), everyone was staring as we were policed again and again. It was so upsetting. Staff (Sanjit) was apologetic, let us know our room was ready, informed us we would be compensated $100 credit to the bar for our troubles and we should charge services to our room. He leaves us, we go to the room and await our things, which he says will be sent along shortly. We arrive to a room that is in complete disarray. There are half-consumed and empty water bottles on the desk, empty snack wrappers, the bedroom is worse, as the bed is in complete wreck, sheets and blanket bundled up all together, clearly used and visibly soiled, there are soiled sheets on the desk in the bedroom as well, the bathroom is a complete mess, towels on the floor, garbage in the bins, some type of suggestive (paraphrenalia) in the sink. It was so upsetting and overwhelming. We called about the issues and the manager (Michelle) came up, had our belongings and we asked her to come in to witness the state of the room. At this point, I am looking at my partner who I planned this romantic getaway for Valentine's Day, as it was his first trip to Miami, and he looks so upset. I will never forget it. I get overwhelmed and begin tearing up. It was bad. We were again led out of the room. Given another empty apology, led once more to the bar and told we would have compensated drinks or bar food, etc. My partner was so upset and frustrated he wanted nothing to do with anything - only to have our room prepared so we could get food and rest, we had been traveling since 6 AM. Another hotel staff (Sanjit) came to us, apologized as he had led us to the wrong room (not his fault), we were led to the correct room, he walked with us and came in to ensure all was well. Great right - the nightmare is over - right? No, very wrong. He notes the thing about the $100 credit to be used anytime on our room and gives us his cell should any further issues arise. All good. Nope! Whenever we'd take the rental car out it took over 30 minutes . Once it took about 40-45 minutes. It costs like $50+ tips per night to park at the property. Our last day, I reviewed the bill and noticed everything we charged to the room (~$60 worth of drinks + tips) was billed to us and not compensated. I texted Sanjit, he CONFIRMED that it would be fixed at checkout. Not! More poor treatment, no recognition of our humanity. We rented a suite, spent over 3K, we were treated like they housed us as a last...

I have stayed at this hotel at least 20 times in the last 2 years. Let me tell you this will be my last time. The reason is not the location nor the condition of the rooms but it is the staff. In particular a member named Kristina (Christina) who works at the pool area checking people in. It was perhaps 4 days ago when I went up to the pool around 5:00 p.m. to show one of my friends The view. The day was maybe 60° cold overcast. Really not a nice day. Nobody was at the pool and I mean nobody. She claimed that I did not have a second person registered on my room and that I needed to go to the front desk to register them. I said we're just taking a picture and leaving. She said absolutely not. You need to go to the front desk and register them. My friend wanted to leave at this point as she was giving us attitude but we went to the front desk, got him registered and came back up. Christina checked her system and we were still not registered after we had just taken an elevator down to the lobby and spoken to the front desk person. I said that's fine. We registered at the front desk. I'm sure he's on record now. She said you're still not allowed to go and actually swore at us. This type of behavior is not appreciated with someone that stays in a hotel 20 times in the last 2 years. I asked her. Could you please call the front desk and check? She said that's not my problem and you do it. This customer service was starting to bother me at this point but fine I said I will call them. She gave me the number we called them and it was the wrong phone number. At this point I said you know what we're just going to walk over there, take a picture and come back. She said if you do I will have security escort you out. Sure enough that's what she did. Security came over. I demanded to talk to the manager. The manager of icon came over named Francisco. I explained to him the entire situation and he told me to f off and I could arrest you for trespassing Are you kidding me ? I am paying $700 to stay at this hotel All we wanted to do was take one picture on a not nice day when nobody was there and I was staying in that hotel and I'm being treated like a criminal. My friend who is a CEO at a high up real estate firm was disgusted. It was an absolute embarrassment to have people working for a hotel chain like this. We were going to catch a drink at the Tulum restaurant and have dinner there but both of us decided we will never ever ever ever be spending money at a w Hotel chain again. I would suggest getting staff that have a better customer service level than the ones that you had swearing at us, treating us rudely and acting as though we are criminals when we are staying at a high-end hotel at over $700 per night. Is the epitome of bad management or HR whoever hired these type of people. I suggest that you get your staff in order as I will not ever be coming back to this hotel. My friend is going to explain to his entire company why not to go to this hotel chain again and I'm going to even go up the ranks and complain...