The Astor Hotel

i was visiting a customer. The internet never worked after repeated repair and changing rooms. No parking. My car was towed away when I parked close to the hotel in the mid-night. Poor value for a high price. Totally different from its web page.

As a seasoned and recognized South Florida CEO, I brought my clients to The Astor Hotel to thank them for their business. [...] the hotel looked, and was verbally represented to be a fully functioning and fully renovated hotel with a spectacular restaurant and bar, and totally renovated rooms. Simply put, the whole thing is a LIE. The Astor's own website has a "live feed" for internet viewing of the restaurant and bar, but in reality, both "Are Not" open and the hotel is waiting on it's proper licensing from the City Government. There was construction equipment all around and the restaurant/patio/bar had not been renovated at all. Total Misrepresentation. I complained in the beginning, but the hotel said [...]that they could not refund my money so that we could check out. We reluctantly decided to stay because we did not have reservations anywhere else, and when we got to the "newly" renovated rooms, they were filthy, with broken A/C's, the furniture in the rooms (including the junior suite) were stained and visibly dirty all around. In my room, the carpet was wet in certain places. The drywall in my clients suite has holes in it and the lighting in the ceiling, along with the fire system was partially falling out of the ceiling (or at least not placed there correctly). IT WAS A DISGRACE AND SEVERELY DISAPPOINTING.I will admit that staff was generally pleasant, and the actual bed was comfortable, but that is all they had going for them. As a matter of fact, the second day I was there, another couple was at the front desk and the guy was so made about what was represented, that he stormed out and said he was going to deny his Credit Card Charges because the accomodations were substandard and misrepresented.It is a shame, because the hotel has potential if it was really what they claim, but right now, it is a total FRAUD.

This place was a disaster. We booked and paid for 'junior suites' but got tiny rooms without even a chair in them. We had to move from the first two rooms we had because the doors wouldn't lock from the outside. The air conditioner was either on or off, the temperature control didn't work at all. When we checked out it took them fully a half hour to find our car that they had valet parked. It wasn't till we threatened to call the police and report a stolen car that they managed to find ours. The free continental breakfast consisted of a loaf of white bread and a loaf of wheat bread and a toaster. A complete joke!! Do not stay here, you will regret it!!

I had stayed at this hotel several years ago and it was superb, shame it has gone downhill. The staff was not helpful at all and they didn't care about anything except yapping on the phone. There was no bellman on site to help with the bags and we had to carry them around on our own. Every service in the Hotel required payment on the spot including the valet, restaurant and the staff charged a resort fee for things we weren't made aware were available. The rooms and bathrooms had peeling paint, noisy because of the staff slamming doors, the bath tiles were broken and fell off the shower. No Minibar as stated, no wifi (was broken) and staff didn't care about the stay. I would not stay there again if my life depended on it and if they paid me.

This was our first time in Miami and having read all the online reviews about where to stay (South Beach) and hotel type (Art-deco boutique); I picked this hotel out of 100 or so similar sounding ones for our reservation. I think having seen way too movies about Miami, my expectations were way too high and unfortunately, Miami and its people didn't waste a single opportunity to disappoint, underwhelm and outright p$!# me off from the first moment at the airport to the last. I will however try to limit my review to our adventures at this particular hotel. The first few moments I had pulled over in front of the hotel also set the tone for the rest of our stay. There was no valet at the front and after 10 minutes of waiting double-parked on a major street, a guy came up and after asking how long we would stay (3 days), immediately demanded $84 in cash for the valet service. The way he came up and rushed us would make you think it was a mugging and after almost 10 hours of flight, I somehow had the presence of mind to pay him for a single day and get done with it. On to the front desk, we were greeted by the great news that check-ins were after 4pm. Yes, 4pm but the guy said he'd try to find us something. He did find us a room at the back of the hotel, near the fire-escape stairs. That might actually have turned out to be the best thing that happened because later on we'd find that it was the only room with neighbors on one side. As for the rooms; the room could be considered OK in size but it has extremely cheap looking wood floors (no carpets or anything like that), a bare minimum queen bed, a small armchair we couldn't dare sit because of the variety and color of the spots on it, a very small table and a bathroom with a shower that would flood the rest of the bathroom because there was no real shower door or curtain. Our room also came with bonus 6-to-10-inch holes in the walls that looked like furniture had tried to go thru them. The furniture really didn't have a hard time because the walls are literally paper thin and we got to experience that during our stay. Now talking about walls, some real genius also came up with the idea that a hotel room in South Beach really needed a stereo/CD system because there wasn't enough ambient music coming from the 100s of clubs and discos and nothing would be better than a combination of non-existent walls, banging stereos and 24-hour drunken guests. With this, we got to listen to the never ending wrestling match upstairs, the Latin music coming from the next room and the very competitive hip-hop from somewhere else in the hotel. We could also hear anyone talking in any room or corridor. After the first day, I didn't even bother calling the front desk because they didn't, couldn't or wouldn't do anything and really didn't care anyhow. This brings us to the hotel staff. I'd already talked about the great valet parking, which apparently is not a part of the hotel although they are right in front and use jackets and logos of the hotel but the hotel actually doesn't take any responsibility for their actions. The way they work would look like street mugging followed by grand theft auto in many parts of the world. They only accept cash, take your car somewhere else and have a habit of taking up to 40 minutes to bring your car back, which again begs the question about where they take your car. On top of it, they are completely unnecessary because there is a public parking lot right next to the hotel (and many other locations within 2 blocks) that most of the time has parking available. In short, do not use the valet for any reason at all. The front desk is mostly clueless about most of the stuff going on in the hotel. The floor we were on had at one point 5 rooms playing music at maximum volume and 2 fights in the middle of the night and nobody bothered to show up. They also charge you $15 for giving you a maximum of 2 towels per day and collapsible chairs that you can take to the beach. ...

The hotel doesn't have parking area. You have to find a parking place by your own. When I checked in, there was a sales person at reception desk trying to sell an excursion to me. I told him that I need to board on a cruise latest by 2:30pm on the next day. He promised me that I have plenty of time to join his trip and can board on the cruise on time. I didn't want to risk my cruise trip so I didn't join his trip. But afterwards when I got more location idea about Miami, I knew that he was purely cheating me. The hotel room is very small. I found a hair on the basin. I can hear the TV noise from other rooms. The reception says that there is free internet access in the room. But the wireless signal in the room is so low that I can't connect to the rounte at all.

The room did not even resemble the pictures on it's website. It had a musty oder to it and the door did not even lock.A women in the hall told us the room was better than the one she was in. We told the management that we were not going to stay there and they finally put us in the managers suite, which was the room that was on the website. Would not book with them again, they only put us in the room because we were only there for the one night. Very disappointing

My friend and I drove in from Ft. Myers beach for a day/night in Miami. We arrived at 11am and were told there was another room we could check into but the gentleman at the front desk wanted us to have a particular one. He told us we were 2 blocks from the beach and to come back at 4p. We were able to valet our car for $28 a day. We had to wait at least 10 minutes in our car for the valet employee to take our car. We came back at 350p and we were able to preregister but we were not given our room key until 4p. Check in is at 4pm so don't expect to get into your room a minute sooner than that. We needed to get our car from valet so we could get our luggage. Our car was on the side street so I followed the valet employee to our car. He grabbed one bag and started rolling it away while I was left with 2 smaller carry-on bags, a duffle bag, and a few dresses on hangers. Despite the short distance I had to go I had trouble maneuvering all of our luggage (we don't travel light and we didn't unpack our bags from home-Pittsburgh PA.) Another valet employee saw me struggling and came to my rescue. Once inside the hotel lobby, he left the bags with my friend and myself and left. My friend and I were on our own to get our luggage to our room. The employees at the first desk didn't offer help and didnt appear busy. Another kind international gentleman offered us assistance and rolled our bags to our room. Given the fact that we got a deal and only paid $66 for the night our room was okay. It we would have paid the hotel Astor's price on their website for that night it was at least 400 dollars. Not worth that price. The shower wasn't completely covered by the 'door' so the floor and the sink counter were soaked after our showers. We also saw a bug crawling on the bathroom floor. The blinds in our room did not go down all the way so anyone outside in the parking lot were able to see us change. Lighting was also poor in the room. It took us 5 minutes to figure out the 3 lamps on the walls. I have stayed at much nicer hotels and I don't mind spending the money as long as I get my money's worth. I guess I got what I paid for. Overall my friend and I had a fun time in Miami and we were glad we made the 2.5 hr drive from our week vacation in ft myers beach. We needed to have a night on the town with people our own age away from the quiet nights on the gulf coast.

Its a good location, but not much else was good. The walls are paper thin and they put down wood flooring everywhere with no carpeting so noise travels extremely well. I stayed on the first floor in the hallway off the lobby and the noise made it feel like I was sleeping in the lobby. There was also quite a bit of noise from people walking in the upstairs rooms. Fortunately, the restaurant/bar was closed for rennovations. The a/c was also broken...wouldn't shut off and cooled the room to 58 degrees. The staff fix for that was to turn it off completely. Happily, the weather was nice enough, but sadly housekeeping turned it back on. The desk person upgraded someone "just to be nice" while I was waiting, but no such offer was made to me despite the room issues. The shower dripped constantly (more annoying noise) and the wall had a big spot that was either painted a different color or didn't get painted (cosmetic, I know, but just added to the overall "ick" of the place). I am very glad my stay was relatively short.

When I walked in the door, I was told I had to pay-cash for Vallet Parking, that it was a seperate company and after asking for a reciept I was told it was to complicated of an issue for the parking manager. So I insisted on having the parking billed to my room, I was told that it was up to the boss, so the gentlemen behind the counter who asked for cash called his boss for permission. In addition to this I was asked to have my credit card photo-copied on the Hotel contract, I refused for privacy reasons, and I was told that Management would be stopping me during the week to make sure I followed their policy. The next morning, I had asked the front desk about paying cash for parking, and I was told that it's standard policy to add that charge to the room, and that she didn't understand why I was told that it had to be paid seperate. I feel from the first moment I walked in the door I was missled, and in closing for $28 dollars a day for parking it was not worth it. The parking service was below standard, and it took 10 to 15 minutes to get the car opon request. Since I returned to AZ I received a call from CITI fruad department saying my credit card had been copied and a charge was made for $129 to Wallgreens. I wonder if the photo copying of credit cards could have led to this problem.