HotelChatter

Outside the guest rooms is a electronic Do Not Disturb gadget. The “INNtouch™” guest notification device works like this: Hit “privacy” and a little red light shows up outside your door to let housekeeping know you don’t want to be bothered. Hit “Make Up Room” and the corresponding light shows up outside your door.

Perhaps we pressed ours too late in the evening, though, as when we came back after a few midnight cocktails, the room was untouched. (So, darn it, we missed out on the free book that comes with turndown service.)

The rooms themselves are huge for Miami (the perks of staying downtown), and the décor is clean, neutral, and thoroughly inoffensive.

Also delighting our inner geek? The in-room computer. We know that hotels have finally gotten hip to offering WiFi in-rooms (some free, most not) but having in-room computers means we don't have to lug our laptops around. Memo to all hotels: Copy Kimpton, do this now.

The bathroom was also a good-size, with both a rain shower and soaking tub.

Then there are the bath products. Acqua di Parma! In generous sizes! An awesome surprise, and one that made us seriously contemplate swiping more samples off the maid’s cart. (We refrained.)

Up on the 29th floor is the Club Lounge where staffers let us goof around with the touch-screen “Surface Station” map—basically a giant smartphone-like device in the shape of an old Pac-Man arcade table. You can use it to check the weather, surf the net, listen to music, play the piano, and read the news (although the headlines wouldn’t load for us).

The business center and hotel gym are clean and welcoming—and, excellently, open 24 hours. (But, despite best intentions to do so, we failed to get up at 5 a.m. to work out or send a fax.)

The Area 31 restaurant was bustling on our weekday lunch visit (probably because of the Miami Spice promotion), making the service, uh, leisurely but attentive.

Staying in downtown Miami is a little odd (it feels like being in a deserted video-game version of a city), but if you want more space and more bang for your buck than you’d get down on South Beach, the EPIC is definitely worth checking out.

For more room and hotel photos, visit our Flickr pool.

Rates at the EPIC start at $200 a night.

The writer stayed here courtesy of the hotel while on assignment for another publication.