The Elser Hotel - Miami — Restaurant in Miami

The first thing I want you to do is take a look at the 5 star reviews and notice they are all written in the same format and use unusual words like “delightful”, “politeness”, and “impeccably clean” in every review and name the first (and even sometimes last name) of the employees. That’s because these are AI bot reviews, check nearby legit hotels the reviews aren’t like this. Filter by 3 star and below to see the reality.

Here is a story about an ACTUAL real review: Drove up to the hotel and the front was jam packed with cars completely obstructing the hotel and down the street. We pulled into the garage and were stopped by an employee standing Infront of our car, he looked very upset and yelled VALET at us several times. We rolled down the window to ask if there was self parking he just yelled VALET again and again when we mentioned the line was 8+ cars down the street. So we called the front desk they told us there is ONLY Valet and the cost is $55/day plus tax. I told her I we would prefer not to have someone else touch our car and asked if I could pay the $55 and park they said no and suggested I try street parking or a garage nearby. So we went and waited in the giant line that ran 8+ cars down the street for approximately 30 minutes inching toward the Valet. When we got to a spot to unload the attendants seemed irritated and frustrated as people were honking at the line backing up the street and yelled at us twice to move our car to a different spot after we’d begun unloading.

Upon checking into the hotel I was told I received a “free upgrade” to a city-view room. I paid for an Ocean View 2 bed, the front desk attendant told me it was a larger space and I could still see the ocean just the same. I politely declined because I knew you could not, this irritated the attendant and he told me they didn’t have another room available and suggested I take a look as it’s a nicer room. So he takes my suite case and travel bag and moves it behind the front desk then gives me the keys to look at the room. I go up there and confirm yep, no ocean view and the room isn’t as nice so I come back down and tell him it won’t work for us. I tell him to get a manager if we have trouble getting the room we paid for and he handed me the keys to an Ocean View so I guess there was one. Very important here when I returned to my suitcase downstairs each of the front zip pockets of my suitcase were opened and rifled through. There were no valuables inside and I don’t believe anything was missing but somebody 100% opened the pockets of my suitcase and travel bag while it was at the front desk BE AWARE other reviews have mentioned theft similarly.

We went to use the pool in the evening around 8pm, we had just gotten there and one of us stepped into the pool when a woman came yelling at us who was not dressed in any staff uniform and screeched “You were already warned to get out of the pool, we are gonna send you upstairs if you get back in!” We told her we had just gotten there and she said she knows she talked to us before. Apparently the pool rule is no pool after sunset, she called over two more security-looking people who also threatened to “take us upstairs” so we just left as we obviously were being confused with someone else and felt very threatened by these people.

Checkout was another nightmare the rate for our room was $360, however the additional amenity fee of $68 per night and Valet parking of $55 per night and tax brought the room total to $540. For reference our other friends stayed at the intercontinental next door and they charged $18/day for parking and $31 for the amenity fee per day. As expected the valet wait was over 45 minutes which made us late for a reservation and caused us a lot of hassle. The funny part was after the valet finally gave us the keys back he stood in front of the door so the driver couldn’t get in with his hand out, further delaying us!

Overall this stay didn’t feel like a hotel, it felt like an AirBnB experience run by an owner who was removed and didn’t really care about...

Our stay at the Elsner was all surface level luxury without any of the customer service to back it up. Got there early and arrived at the front desk to see if we could check-in. Room wasn’t ready yet and check-in technically isn’t until 4pm. Ok, understandable, that’s the policy I agreed to, understood that we would need to wait. They did accommodate a pre-check-in process, so that come 4 pm all you were waiting on was a text and room key. But come 4pm they had a LARGE influx of people ALL waiting/ needing to get a room key. It made for a really stressful experience, and I would encourage management to reevaluate this for the future. So we make it up to our room past the 4pm check in time. My guest and I are trying to relax, my friend is in the shower, I’m trying to take a nap. And suddenly, someone else is coming into our room! The poor people trying to come in just happened to be victims of the their crumby check in process and they politely left. And when I called their customer service line to notify them of this error there was no contrition on their end. And no follow-up from management.

Tried to order room-service and the ONLY system they have in place to order room service is a web based system that wasn’t working for me. Tried to call down to see if I could place an order via phone, their suggestion was to “go to the pool bar to order food.” No investigation of why the system wasn’t working or an offer to make a more reasonable accommodation.

There was a constant screeching sound either coming from the elevator or pipes that echoed through out our room.

On the day of our check out, check out was at 11am, I was tracking this. At 9am we had someone insistently knocking on our door. Open the door and turns out it was house keeping, reminding us that we were checking out that day??? Never ever in all my hotel stays at have a member of the staff come to my door to effectively come and try and hustle me out the room.

Finally, upon trying to retrieve our valet car after doing a front desk check out. We waited for almost 30 minutes (tried to be accommodating as I saw they were busy) before I finally asked the valet where our car was. That is when they finally told me “oh, management didn’t call you? There was an issue processing your payment so we can’t get your vehicle” No, no one mentioned this to me, no phone call, nothing mentioned when I checked-out with the front desk. So my party and I would have just been sitting there for an unforeseen amount of time waiting for a vehicle that was NEVER coming because at no point did anything get communicated to me.

When I went to the front desk to resolve this issue I was treated like some person inconveniencing THEM, when THEY were the ones who incorrectly processed attaching a payment to my stay.

If someone is having an off day I can dismiss poor customer service. But every interaction I had with the staff made me feel like an inconvenience rather than a guest. I wasn’t combative or hostile, but that was the energy I received back with most of my staff interactions.

The infrastructure was nice as well as the location. Maybe that is why this place has such high reviews but if you’re actually expecting some amount of customer service I would stay somewhere else because you won’t get that experience...

First of all, I just wanted to say that the hotel is absolutely beautiful. It is in a perfect location, the lobby and communal areas are clean and beautifully decorated, and the rooms with those fantastic views of the ocean and bay are the true cherry on top of the cake… however, unfortunately this where our positive experience ends. |We arrived very early on Saturday 21st June for 3 nights following a Caribbean cruise, so we paid for an early check in. The room I originally booked was a 1-bedroom suite, with one bed and one sofa bed (for 4 adults). The room was set up for 2 adults (understandably because we checked in early) so we were missing 2 sets of towels and needed the sofa bed making up. I requested this twice on the app, which must not be working because housekeeping never came, but when I rang guest services, they did turn up promptly. However, they only brought 1 more set of towels and one pillow for the sofa bed. We asked for another towel and pillow before leaving to go out for the evening, when we got back, neither had been brought to the room. |Fast forward to Sunday afternoon.. we started to have showers around 3:30pm as we had 5pm reservations. After the first shower, it stopped working and was just trickling out, so another call to guest services and 2 men arrived promptly again. At around 4:20pm they were still in our room, so we explained we had to leave and they had our permission to stay in the room to fix our shower. We then enjoyed a fantastic night in Miami and arrived back at the hotel after midnight. Imagine our shock when we arrived in our room to find the shower completely taken apart and NO WATER. We’d had no message to state this was the case, we were just left to find this out in the middle of the night when we just wanted to go to bed. Had we known, we’d have come back to the hotel earlier in the evening to move rooms and resolve the issue. Instead, we had to pack our cases and move at 2am (which it was by the time we had packed, waited for the bellman to come and move our cases, etc). We were moved to a 2-bedroom suite at no extra cost (and rightly so) but the absolute lack of communication left a very sour taste in our mouths. |Our last day, Monday, went by without a hitch until I accidentally dropped and smashed a little bottle of perfume over the bathroom floor. Again, I called guest services before we went out for the evening to request housekeeping clear it up, or at least bring something for me to do it myself, which I would have happily done, and we arrived back in the evening to, surprise surprise, the smashed bottle still on the floor. We used toilet tissue to clean it up ourselves, but would have preferred this to be done with a vacuum or brush to ensure all glass was safely removed. |We explained all our grievances and conveyed our disappointment to reception on check out yesterday (24th) and was told we would be contacted by the general manager when their shift started in the afternoon. Needless to say, I am still waiting for this contact, and I cannot say I am surprised.|Overall, based on the location and rooms I would consider staying here again, but I think their housekeeping and response to issues need...