Grand Beach Hotel Surfside — Hotel in Surfside

I was really disappointed with my 5-day stay at the Grand Beach Hotel Surfside. Although the location of the hotel and facilitates are great and our room was very nice, it was the staff that caused me to rate this resort so poorly. It just seemed that most employees did not want to work at the resort and they were taking out their frustration on the guests. I felt that every request that I made, even one as simple as asking for a towel, was met with quiet hostility. Also, there are some mistakes that one would not expect an upscale resort. It was the combination of these mistakes and our experience with the staff that made me regret staying at the Grand Beach Hotel Surfside. I will highlight three such events below:

On our second day, the cleaning staff never cleaned our room. I did leave the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door for less than an hour during the day (when I was showering and changing), but no notice was given to me that an attempt had been made to clean the room. Instead, my wife and I returned late in the evening to find it was never cleaned. When I complained at the front desk, the staff member started defending the cleaning staff and I felt that I was being blamed, even though the staff member agreed that a second attempt to clean the room should have been made. The worst part of the experience was speaking with the hotel manager, who made me feel more frustrated about the situation. He explained that the room could be cleaned, but this would require me to leave my room, which was something I did not feel like doing in the evening hours. I recommended that we be given a different, but similar room, but he insisted that no other ocean front room was available because they “book first”. What was frustrating is that he did not even check the computer to see if this was true. Also, I had been granted an ocean front room upgrade the day before because there were rooms available. Therefore, the claim that they ”book first” and are never available last-minute does not appear to be true.

Another problem I had involved one of the hot tubs next to the pool. When I went into the hot tub for 20 minutes on my last day, I came out to find that my bathing suit was completed faded and ruined, presumably because there was too much chlorine or other chemicals in the water. My wife’s bathing suit was also faded, but not to the same degree as mine. I complained to a male staff member at the front desk, who was shocked when he saw the condition of my Brooks Brothers bathing suit. To his credit, he took immediate action to have someone check the chlorine levels. But, when I asked to speak to the manager about my bathing suit being ruined, the manager never showed. After waiting in the lobby for 15 minutes, I finally gave up and went back to my room without having the matter resolved.

The final incident worth highlighting involves the beach staff. My wife complained to the beach staff about another guest who was smoking on the public beach, which is against Miami Beach law. The three staff members refused to ask the man to stop smoking and claimed it was up to the police to intervene. I felt that this best summarized the attitude of the staff and the atmosphere of the resort. No one wants to be bothered and no one wants to do anything to help.

I will end this review by noting that I overheard an employee admit to another guest that there is a problem with employees at the resort and that new management (including a new restaurant manager) has been brought in to try to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the problem still exists. Before booking the trip, I ignored complaints that I read online about the staff because I felt that the 5-star location and facility would make it worthwhile. I was wrong and regret not staying at a...

Here is a copy of the email complaint and follow up emails I have sent to management, in addition to speaking to them in person. There are pictures of how dirty our feet got from being inside our hotel room only. The hotel, including the amenities, were dirty. On top of this many hotel guests discriminated towards us and made us feel very uncomfortable. It is truly a nasty environment. Amenities do not even look like the pictures and the hotel is low quality overall. Hotel staff is also very rude. No one has followed up with me or resolved this situation and it's been a week. This situation in general was horrific but is not made 10x worse with managements handling of the issue. EMAILS SENT TO MANAGEMENT Good afternoon, I spoke with Carlo’s on Sunday in person in regards to our stay. He wanted me to send a follow up email with the photos attached, which was done, so he could escalate this to the general manager. I have not heard anything from anyone after that day. I have even sent a follow up email and survey through the reservations department. I have now called two days in a row about ten times and no one has answered the operator option at your site location. The phone just continues to ring and ring. Also, the reservations department has been unable to help me and transfer me to a manager. The described situation below is unacceptable and in addition to this, the follow up and resolution of this situation is a problem now as well. Under no circumstances should a hotel be able to operate where you can not reach anyone on the phone when you call. Please see the FWD email below that I have now sent twice, in addition to speaking with Carlos in person that day. I am requesting a manager call me to resolve this. FWD: Good afternoon Carlos, This is Melissa from room 1051. Today when I checked out we spoke about some issues with our stay and our room. Per your request here is a follow up email with the summary of that conversation. Please see the attached photos of my feet and my guests socks from the inside flooring of the room. We did not go outside and the dirt residue was caused from the hotel room floor. I would expect more, especially during this time of Covid-19, where cleanliness is priority. In addition, I’d like to point out a few instances from our stay. I ordered Uber eats last evening and called the front desk to bring plastic silverware so I that was able to eat my dinner, spaghetti. They never brought the utensils, I did not get to eat my dinner, and it had to be thrown out the next morning. This morning we went downstairs to get coffee and had an encounter with three staff members, one of them was named Andre. They were incredibly rude to us and had a bad attitude when we asked if the bar was open. When we went to the rooftop pool, there was no pool attendant to be found and we had to get our own towels and place them on the chairs. This morning I ordered Uber eats and per the deliver person it was left in the lobby hotel staff but when we went downstairs we asked many staff members and it was no where to be found. The prices at this hotel are not cheap and overall I was disappointed in our stay and expected more from this experience. This was actually my birthday, We are Miami locals and could have chosen any of the hotels in area. Some positives- it was a beautiful room other than the floor being dirty. Sandra at the front desk was very helpful and went above and beyond to make our check in memorable for the birthday. The server, Fredric, was very helpful and made sure we were able to get something to eat quickly and provided us with...

My son surprised us and booked this hotel for us to come to Miami to celebrate our one year anniversary. The first king Oceanside room we were booked into the bed had hair in it, the sink in the master bathroom had hair on it, the second bathroom had what appeared to be blood droplet stains on the toilet seat and something black smeared on the floor. We were moved to another room and the bed also had hair in it and when you turned on one of the bathroom lights, water was coming out of the exhaust fan vent. We were moved a third time and in this room water was leaking through the exhaust fan in one of the bathrooms and there was hair in this bed as well. At this point the night manager was contacted. He told us that those rooms were all he had in Oceanside kings, so he showed us a FULL oceanfront. Though the room was finally clean, no leaks and no hair, the full size bed with two well bodied adults wasn’t very comfortable and the room was a handicap accessible room. We ended up missing our dinner reservations dealing with these issues and our anniversary night was pretty much ruined. If you do decide to stay at this hotel, I advise that you do a thorough search of the room before settling in. I will come back and update this review if management makes things right! I don’t have much faith of that happening though. I did post pics.

UPDATE AS PROMISED! I really hoped management would have us moved as soon as a king size room was available, however after being cramped in the small full size bed for 3 nights, I called the front desk and requested to be moved to the room with the bed type we originally booked. Eduardo, was kind, attentive, & within minutes had us moved next door to a king size oceanfront room. He even followed up with a call on Tuesday to check to make sure we were ok. Having room to sleep really helped my back and it was nice to only have to move our things right next door. I requested a print out of our bill on Wednesday night, because we were told by the night manager on October 12th, the night of all of the issues, that there would be some sort of compensation reflected on our bill, he just wasn’t authorized to do it himself. He asked for my phone number and promised us that we would know something by Sat. Oct. 13th. I did periodically check on this because I never received that call from him. The bill we were given on Wednesday, Oct. 17th had no compensation credits on the bill. I asked to speak to the night manager, however he was not available, so we spoke to the supervisor on duty that night. After reading the notes, she came out and without question credited us back the three nights of resort fees for the nights we were inconvenienced in the full size bed. Why only 3 nights, because that was all I requested. Sorry for the lengthy review, but I believe all of this is important. Finally, we tried the breakfast buffet, it was really good! A little pricey, but you should expect that. Our waitress name was Hana and man did she make us feel special. Amazing service from her and the young lady making the omelettes. The rooftop pool is also a nice adults only area. Maxwell and Leandra were amazing wait staff. Very much appreciated. Updated from one star to 3 as a result of wonderful encounters with amazing customer oriented wait staff, but management in my opinion still deserve a 1. With all the issues we encountered, we should of never had to ASK for anything.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE! About to check out and was RECHARGED for the supposed 3 day resort fee credit given last night. This is straight BS! Absolutely Unbelievable! Back to one star...