The Colony Hotel - Miami Beach, USA     

Colony Hotel is a good place to stay if you come to Miami looking for convenience and inexpensive place to stay. I stayed at Colony Hotel on July 13 through July 17. My overall stay was mediocre. I arrived at the hotel at 10:30 a.m. and was told that I could not check in until 3:00 or so because they were cleaning the rooms. I was a bit annoyed with this since I had been up since 5:00 a.m. to catch an early flight, but I managed to keep my calm. I asked the lady at the front desk what am I supposed to do with my luggage? She did not seem to have an answer. I kindly asked her if I could leave it behind the front desk and she said o.k (I did notice there were quite a few luggages back there too). I chilled on the beach for a while then decided to get some food at the resturaunt in front of Colony (food was not that good ). By 4:00 p.m. I still did not have a room and I was loosing my patience. I went in and spoke to the gentlemen to see if a room was available and to my surprise he said yes. I guess my patience paid off because he put me in room 300 which was an ocean front view. It was fairly clean and nicely furnished with a big plasma screen t.v. The only other problem I encountered other than check in was it seemed as if the maids swept all the sand from each room out into the hallway and never vacuumed it up.This was not cool to me. There is nothing worse than coming from the beach wet and icky and to come in stepping on carpet that is filled with grit and grim from other people's room. Since I was right in front all the grit was right in front of my door. Another thing I disliked was the ice machine was outside of the hotel where you had to open this big metal door and scoop out your ice next to a huge ventilating fan which had tons of dust on it. To me it seemed a bit unsanitary but for the price I guess I can't complain. The elevator was not working the day I arrived but it was fixed that Monday morning. I recommend this hotel to people who are on a budget and want a cool place to stay. It's not top of the line but it was convenient and right in the middle of all that South Beach has to offer.

We were due to leave on a cruise from the Port of Miami on a Monday, so we decided to fly down on day early and check out the South Beach area. I found the Colony from an online search and booked directly with the Hotel. We both love Art-Deco design. so this area appealed to us right away. 1, The staff were very welcoming and helpful. We were traveling with five very heavy bags(we were going on a 10 day cruise). Our room was on the thrid floor, and the elevator was out of order. Rather than have us lug all this up to the thrid floor, she informed us she was going to switch us to a room on the first floor. She did this without being asked 2. The Hotel is located in the center of Ocean Drive scene. Even with all the people, loud music and the party atmosphere, we did not hear any of the outside noise in our room. 3. The room was clean and ready when we arrived. 4 A few hours after we checked in something in our room needed attention. The gentleman at the front desk in the afternoon had the problem corrected immediatly. 5 The next morning when we checked out, we left our bags in the luggage room next to the front desk so we could get breakfast and check out the beach. We were going to take our laptop with us, rather than leave it unattended in the luggage area. When the gentleman at the front desk on Monday morning saw us lugging the laptop case with us, he offered to keep it at the front desk, right next to him. 6 The bar in the lobby is great, and the bistro out in front of the hotel has excellent food. 7. The air conditioning in the room was terrific. 8. The cost of the room is certainly affordable even if you are traveling on a tight budget. On the downside The room was small It only vaguely resembled the photo in the web site, in that the bed is very low to the floor, and the color of the furniture is black. The bathroom was nothing like what was featured on the web site. While we heard no noise from the outside, the noise from the hall woke us up twice. There were a lot of young people staying there, drinking and stumbling in at all hours. I'm sure if we were still in our twenties this would not have bothered us, and is something that can not be blamed on the hotel. The "incidental" room charges for things such as cable TV, an ice bucket, etc... were high and very unreasonable. Bottom line is you get what you pay for.