recent Priceline Miami hotels?

[trish1c]

As promised, a hotel review.

We had a terrible time getting to Miami -- airline delays etc. I was in a horrible, grouchy mood when we arrived. We walked into a hotel filled with Iowa Hawkeye fans. It was the alumni association's base of operations for the Orange Bowl. Fortunately, I love college football so that didn't bother me.

Anyway, the poor desk clerk asked me a Q & was far too chipper for my snarling demeanor. I admit, I snapped at the poor guy. :o I immediately apologized & briefly told him about our horrible travels. I don't know if he did or not but he said he upgraded us to a better room. It was lovely & I was just so happy to be there almost anything would have been fine b/c all I wanted to do was sleep. We had a partial water view. The hotel itself is sort of behind the double tree & sandwiched between some other tall buildings. The king sized bed had a soft mattress & lots of fluffy pillows. Our heat didn't work so well & the fan was kind of noisy; we just shut the whole system off & it was fine. There is one thing I would change in the place -- the bathroom is huge but they hung the TP under the vanity which was far from the toilet. My arms just aren't that long. :o

The lobby is magnifacent. It's very open with high celings & decorated with lots of seating areas & fantastic foliage. It has a real tropical feel which was pretty impressive considering it was only about 50 degrees when we arrived.

The pool deck is actually above the parking deck & only about 3 stories up, not the full 21. It was too cold to enjoy but there were a few hearty Hawkeye fans out there Sunday morning. Hey it was still warmer than the midwest. You got a bit of a view of the Biscayne Bridge but the angle is off & there's a building in the way so I couldn't see the port or the ships.

We were sooo exhausted from our travels that we didn't have the energy or inclination to venture out of the hotel so we had dinner in the restaurant. The restaurant decor was kind of ugly, mismatched & disjointed but the staff was congenial. The food was tasty though. I just had a Cuban sandwhich but that raost pork was succulent. They were a bit overwhelemed. Apparently some AP / airline had worse problems than we did & gave people food vouchers for that hotel, plus all the football fans . . . they weren't really prepared for such a rush but you could see the teamwork. Even the poor host was running food as were managerial staffers. You gotta applaud the effort.

There was a Checkers (or a Sonic now I can't remember) & a Burger King across the street. I honestly didn't see another thing that a tourist could visit in that neighborhood.

Getting an elevator on Sunday morning takes patience! Half the hotel is trying to leave at the same time with all their cruise luggage. We went down early (before 10 am) but still waited about 20-30 minutes for an elevator. Hint: push the up button & take a ride.

We dropped our stuff at bag drop, walked around the corner & took a ride on the metro mover. It was kind of a fun "free" tour of the downtown. Yes, there were some homeless people on the free shuttle but they weren't intrusive. The downtown was a ghost town. We went over to Brickell. One restaurant was open & there were some other fast food places there. Had we had any enegery that would have been a lovely local for dinner the night before. We did find a Publix grocery store in the area & purchased a few things we forgot plus some soda & 2 bottles of wine. They were so cheap (2 for $10 for Berringer normally $10-$12 each at home) that even with the corkage we came out waaaay ahead.

Taxis were plentiful. The staff hails you one but they are literally lined up in the garage to take people to the port 5 minutes away. It was about $10.

Overall I would absolutely recommend this Hilton for a pre-cruise stay. Hope you enjoy it too.

[JOEZ]

Thank you Trish! We will be there this Friday night. Hopefully it won't be cold and we don't get any storms here in the DC area.

[montREALady]

Thanks to all of you for your postings. I rarely use Priceline, but because of what I ready here, I bid on a 4* downtown Miami for January 23 (1 night) for $75. I got Hyatt Regency. That saves me almost $100 from what I was prepared to spend for the night precruise. Woo-eee!!

 

Ditto, I got it for the same price for Feb. 19th. Same with me, I tried Priceline because of everyone here, I was booked at the Hilton and was prepared to pay $224 with taxes!! I saved about $132 for a hotel 1/2 star better, lol. How was the stay??

[Froufie]

Ditto, I got it for the same price for Feb. 19th. Same with me, I tried Priceline because of everyone here, I was booked at the Hilton and was prepared to pay $224 with taxes!! I saved about $132 for a hotel 1/2 star better, lol. How was the stay??

 

Just back from my cruise and pre-stay at the Hyatt Regency - see post 2483

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=412923&page=128

[funinthesun86]

Ditto, I got it for the same price for Feb. 19th. Same with me, I tried Priceline because of everyone here, I was booked at the Hilton and was prepared to pay $224 with taxes!! I saved about $132 for a hotel 1/2 star better, lol. How was the stay??

 

Sorry it took so long to respond--haven't been on the boards recently. Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, we cancelled our trip at the last minute. I am working with our trip insurance people to get the $ back.