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Miami Hotel Reviews
Gasp! 'Extra Pounds' Seen at the Fontainbleau Suites in South Beach
March 26, 2007 at 9:30 AM | 0 Comments
How 'bout that: The New York Times must've cast an eye or two on our coverage of Miami Hotels. (Thanks for reading, Pinch!) This week, writer Mary Billard checked into The Fontainebleau Suites. So how did Mary enjoy staying in the Suites while the rest of the hotel is under renovation? Eh:
This is the anti-South Beach. Short on celebrities, hot bodies and buzz. Instead, people with a few extra pounds, as well as families. On the plus side, no pulsing bass from a sound system outside your window at night, a hazard at chic hotels with nighttime lounge areas by the pool.
The rest of the review lacks about as much pizzaz as the hotel does. (Though the Times does manage to sneak in a reference to Scarface, which is--yawn--de rigeur in any travel article about Miami Beach.) We're not ones to brag, but if you want the full scoop on the hotel, check out our Miami Beach Hotel Guide.
Related Stories:
· Check In, Check Out [NYT]
· Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Fontainebleau Review [HotelChatter]
Wedding Hotels
HotelChatter Question: "I Need A Hotel For My July Destination Wedding in Miami?"
February 15, 2007 at 12:27 PM | 1 Comment
Hi HotelChatter:
I am looking for a hotel for about 40 rooms in July for my destination wedding...The reception is at a restaurant on Lincoln Road.
What would he recommend within the 150-200 price range - best accommodations for the buck? No large chain hotels please. Also walking friendly.
Age group from 2 years to 65 years old...
Please share any insight - its like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Regent South Beach Review
January 16, 2007 at 10:04 AM | 0 Comments
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
From the corner of Collins and 15th Street the Regent South Beach looks remarkably like the world's biggest yacht, determined to make the two blocks to the Atlantic Ocean.
What a shame, then, that its prow reaches only one block, to Ocean Drive, where it's path has been indefinitely obstructed by the Disneyesque South Beach residential and commercial complex called Il Villagio. Had the Regent been able to sail just one more block east to the beach everyone would be talking about - and yearning to stay at -- the new Regent South Beach.
This Saturday I stayed at the new hotel, which opened in November. It's a five-story, uber-contemporary punctuation mark to the end of Ocean Drive's historic run of hotels.
Immediately to the north, Ocean Drive dead-ends and Collins takes over the torch, leading to the dense roll call of the world's coolest hotels. The Regent serves as appropriate segue in this regard, both restricted in its ambition due to space limitations, yet with an innate sense of style that lays bare its ambition to north Collins chic.
More on the Regent South Beach after the jump.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Biltmore Review
January 12, 2007 at 3:26 PM | 1 Comment
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
It's time for the Biltmore to be included in the same breath as Miami's upper echelon of luxury properties. For visual drama as a whole its pool, restaurants, and lobby are unmatched by any other hotel in the city. Miami's original luxury hotel may not be the most luxurious today, but I think it might be the most complete hotel today.
More on the Biltmore after the jump.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Fontainebleau Review
January 11, 2007 at 12:52 PM | 0 Comments
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
Miami Beach changed forever when the Fontainebleau opened in 1954. It may change as drastically when the hotel re-opens in 2008.
A part of the hotel - the 2005 Fontainebleau Tower -- is open for guests, and I stayed there last night to get a peek at what was going on.
And what I found was a $500 million renovation and construction project. The hotel was recently bought for $500 million, making the hotel, at $1 billion, quite likely the largest hotel project in South Florida history. When it opens it will be the city's largest hotel with over 1,500 rooms - two times the size of its nearest competitor, the Loews Miami Beach.
More on the Fontainebleau after the jump.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Four Seasons Miami Review
January 10, 2007 at 12:42 PM | 0 Comments
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
At a New Years Even party in New York I met a man who had just spent 100 days at the Four Seasons Miami. He was a lawyer who was tied up with a long case - which ended up, ironically, declared a mistrial.
One hundred days is enough to expose the flaws of any hotel. Not this one? Exactly right: he loved it. Its flaws? "Nonexistent," except for not too much to do around the neighborhood.
Seventy stories tall--the highest building south of Atlanta--my taxi seemed to have no problem locating it. Yesterday we zoomed to the middle of the hotel, pulling into the porte cochere cleverly hidden from the street. After signing over my bags I was greeted by an employee who welcomed me and escorted me past monumental bronze Botero sculptures (part of the Miami and Latin American art collection here) up elevators to the seventh floor lobby.
After check in, I was presented to a different employee who ferried me to the room elevators, pointing out Acqua, a bar, and the "two-acre pool terrace."
That's a lot of introduction. My guide book received a letter complaining about this double elevator system - a guest said it grew wearying after three days. I spent only one night, but I found it elegant and ceremonious. But I happen to equate ceremony with fun. I also liked being escorted, immediately initiated into the vaunted service experience of the famous Four Seasons mark.
More on the Four Seasons Miami after the jump.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: The Townhouse Review
January 9, 2007 at 11:21 AM | 0 Comments
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
Today I was lolligagging on the wide red porch swing in front of the Townhouse hotel when Ricky Martin waltzed by. I had just come out of the hotel's hip sushi restaurant Bond St. Lounge downstairs, and Ricky was heading in. That's when it hit me - Townhouse was some kind of cross between Loca Ricky and Fun Beach Boys pop - Living Life Lite.
Let me get this out of the way: I love Townhouse. I will highly recommend it in my guidebook. It's light and fun and memorable. It's not too expensive. And while it's not on the beach, it's right next to it (about 20 yards to the sand, closer even than the Ocean Drive hotels).
Swank spills over from its immediate neighbors the Shore Club and the Setai. Figure that these two are among the most remarkable hotels in all the world - daunting company - so it speaks volumes that Townhouse establishes a definitive niche, and creates a distinct voice, if necessarily less ariatic.
More on the Townhouse after the jump.
Miami Beach Hotel Reviews
Miami Guidebook Piggyback: Sanctuary South Beach Review
January 8, 2007 at 12:31 PM | 0 Comments
Travel writer Michael de Zayas is in Miami on an assignment--30 Miami hotels in 30 Miami nights. You will be able to find his detailed travel musings in Miami and Miami Beach books later this year. HotelChatter asked Michael to let us know his minute-by-minute thoughts on the Miami hotel scene during his guide book mission, which he will be doing over the next two weeks. During the fortnight, Michael will share with us every bed, maid, drink, pool, henhouse and outhouse that comprise the Grove, Gables, Sunny Isles, North Beach, South Beach and the Key Biscayne hotel scene in 2007. If you wish to ask him a question during his jaunt, shoot it our way.
Sanctuary rooms live a little like upscale NYC-size one-bedroom apartments. They compact a lot of chic per square foot, and offer a fun, trim base to be fabulous. On South Beach, the Sanctuary does it relatively cheaply, at $300 a night per suite.
Still think that's a lot of dough? Well, for this price you get to play at exclusive chic, and there aren't many cheaper ways to pay to play at that game here and feel authentic in the process. Perhaps it's because the hotel takes itself seriously. (Townhouse, where I'm staying tomorrow, for instance, likens itself to be more fun Lifeguard than the lording Buddha who presides over the premises here.)
Looking a bit like an underweight model, Sanctuary's narrow space folds around an open air inner courtyard of small fountains edged in bamboo, and the aforementioned Buddha. It might feel claustrophobic despite the intended tranquility of the svelte courtyard, were it not for the rooftop. The courtyard is split into two sections: to the south is the small bar open to a lively scene on weekends, and a few wide and comfy cabanas. To the north is the pool. Please don't dive in it - it's two feet deep and 10-feet long. But this attractive folly sets the stage for chaise longues where one or two or three beautiful people sun during the day.
More on the Sanctuary tour after the jump.
