W South Beach

This hotel is falling apart at the seams. 1) housekeeping - hotel manager and other staff admitted they are massively understaffed for housekeeping. Our room was left uncleaned for an entire day, even after calling down twice to request turn down service. When the rooms did eventually get turned down, they left us without a single towel on two separate occasions. We then called down to ask for towels… waited an hour… they never came. We went down to the front and had to get the towels ourselves! 2) room - we arrived to our room to find a maintenance person in our bathroom installing a light. We have 3 TVs in our room, including one in a dedicated media room, and none of them work. We had to call maintenance to work on one of the TVs (they didn’t for an hour)… told us it was fixed… when we tried it, still broken. The main bathroom toilet doesn’t flush correctly. Need to flush at least twice after each use. The adjacent room has a balcony that looks directly into our bedroom. Ew! Also, our 6 floor suite facing the parking lot was so noisy. Not sure how these windows manage to amplify sound rather than dampen it somehow. Speaks to the overall terrible construction job here. 3) beach/pool - likely another house keeping issue, but they ran out of covers for the beach chairs 4) charges - the hotel decided to run a second authorization hold on my credit card at 4am? Apparently, once we run up room charges above the $250 incidental originally authorized at check in , the hotel decides to run another $250 authorization without checking w the guests! Naturally, my bank flagged this 4am transaction without authorization as fraud and I had to freeze my card. I spoke w the hotel and they told me this is their policy, but they don’t communicate it to guests anywhere (I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to run my card for additional incidentals without my permission). The manager told me that in the instance the charge is declined (which mine was), the hotel is supposed to reach out to the guest to inform them so they don’t run into fraud issues. They did no such thing, and now I have a cancelled credit card. 5) room service - every single meal was delivered after the 40 minute maximum. Every single meal had something missing/wrong. Literally you did not get a single meal right. Then, the hotel often took 12+ hours to pick up food in the hallways when complete. The hallways smell like old in room dining food because it sits there so long. Just gross. 6) manager - we communicated some of these issues to a manager named Danielle who acknowledged we aren’t the only guests experiencing these issues and promised to get in touch with us by the end of the day with some credits. In line w the terrible service we received at the W, we never heard back from Danielle. We generally like the W brand and stay at W hotels around the world. This trio has really made us rethink our years of loyalty.

A great hotel in a great location, but disorganised service and unnecessarily complicated systems let it down. On check in, we had to wait 15 mins to be served, which is unacceptable. We ordered a tea with milk to the room in the evening but had to wait up for it to be delivered 40 mins later - the only tea bags offered being chamomile or mint; no decaf black tea. The phone on the bed-side table is a silly design and stops working if not placed on the receiver correctly. It has no instructions on the number to contact reception; we later found a document on the other side of the room with a series of QR codes for accessing different services. An automatic resort fee is charged for accessing some basic things even if you don’t use any of them. Using the hotel’s bikes involves a whole other technological minefield of downloading an app, entering credit card details, being charged a deposit and then refunded that amount once you enter a promo code obtained from the concierge. And the very average shower in our suite on the 10th floor also requires a PhD to use it, turning various levers and taps and waiting to see which is hot and which is cold. And of course the light switches operate lights diametrically opposite to the switches. Small irritations but added up they did not make for a relaxing stay. My big advice to the hotel would be to simplify things please!

When I first visited and reviewed the W South Beach ten years ago, it exceeded my expectations. However, this time, I was left disappointed. The manager on duty showed no interest in assisting me. I checked into my $1,497 room at 5:30 PM, despite many upgraded rooms being available online. I was denied a Bonvoy upgrade despite holding Gold Elite status. The next available room was $100 more, and I was told I’d need to pay for any upgrades. While I understand that upgrades and late checkouts depend on availability, I was refused both. Next time I will try the W Hotel in Brickell.

Had an amazing stay at the W South Beach! The service was top-notch, and Hezekiah went above and beyond to make sure we had everything we needed. Beautiful rooms, great vibe, and a beautiful beachfront—can’t wait to come back later this year!

I stayed by the hotel over the weekend, was amazing. When I went down to the beach, Hezekiah helped us out and handled everything for us l, including chairs, towels, and umbrella, and made sure we were comfortable and had a great time! 10/10 would come back!