Whitelaw Hotel, Miami Beach

The location couldn't be better but from there everything else goes downhill unless you are in the 18-25 year old crazy drink to you drop crowd. This is not for the older more mature adult crowd who does like blaring music in the Lobby Bar and primative rooms with plenty of deferred maintenance, no hot water for showers past 8am, doors not secure, no parking except valet $30 day, $15 a day resort fee and stange customers coming and going. It takes a lot to disappoint and surprise me anymore but I would rate this Hotel as nothing better than a one (1) star and for the younger wilder crowd maybe a two (2) star. Don't bring children to this danger zone. Very loud music 24/7. A true disappointment. Shame on Hotwire for even including this on their Miami Beach list.

We were disappointed- arrived at 8pm, room was not ready for at least 30 minutes, when we did see it, it smelled horribly of bleach and mildew, finally the manager moved us to a sister hotel around the corner, where we found that our bathroom had not been cleaned since the last guest (gross! hairs in the sink, toothpaste goo on the ledge, dirty glasses, etc.) and we had no clean towels. Front desk obliged with one towel after two requests, and the room was STILL not cleaned while we went out to dinner. When we returned and asked for towels and a bathroom clean later, the front desk clerk shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing he could do. We asked to see the manager at 9AM, she turned up around noon, and was kind enough to knock 20% off the bill- a paltry sum. Group manager did not respond to repeated telephone calls. I have never even changed from one hotel room to another before- this was pathetic. Its too bad because on the surface these hotels look really cute!

We found a great price and when we go there, our room had 2 full size beds instead of a king, not that big of a deal. The room was on the first floor about 40' from the bar/ lobby and as we tried to sleep, we were able to here the music very clear until 2:00am and then there were loud drunk people walking through the hall until about 5:00am. There were no towels in the room, we mentioned it to the desk person and they said they ran out of face rags and gave us a couple of towels. There is only street parking. The bartender was nice, the rooms were clean, they have a happy hour with free drinks and they do offer valet. The hotel is only about 1 1/2 blocks from the beach.

I will never step foot in this property of any of the others owned by this company! It is dirty and unfriendly! THe maid came barreling into the room without knocking and there is no security latch on the door to prevent them from coming in at any time they please. We had the front desk "check" our luggage only to come back to every bag unzipped and rummaged through. The bellman just looked at us and walked away. Do yourself a favor and stay at the Beacon Hotel on Ocean Dr. which is where we moved to.

A sign needs to be displayed at the entrance of this hotel stating: WARNING: This establishment is operated by arrogant, rude, and incompetent personnel. Any attempt at customer service, public relations, or positive public image are strictly forbidden. Fleecing guests is an acceptable policy. You will be required to pay the resort fee despite abstinence. Company policy demands all guests pay for alcoholic beverages of those who drink. Five nights there equals five nightmares there. NEVER AGAIN!

This hotel is absolutely horrible and the staff does not seem to care. Within the first two days of our stay....there were no wash cloths or towels provided (the staff explained that their were no towels available because customers were using too many!!!!) , the electricity went out and took 30 minutes for them to fix it!, a HUGE waterbug came from under the door into our room, the a/c didn't work, our sheet were dirty and when they came to replace them the new sheets were dirty as well, all of your room keys stopped working (when we asked the front desk for keys, they told us to come back because the key machine wasn't working), and the shower drain was clogged (yuck!). What makes all of this even worse, is the fact that the staff did not seem surprised with anything we told them. There general response was, "Ok, what is your room number?". So as you can tell this was not the best experience. The only thing good about the hotel, is that it is located in a good place...Please save yourself and do not stay in this dump! I will never, EVER stay here again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hotel shares its lobby with a bar which is opened until 05:00 am! This is not a real hotel i guess. There was no amenities detected anymore. Staff at the reception (i presume it was reception) was horrible! My wife had our daughter sleeping on her shoulder, but that guy was set us a most noisy room beside the bar. We did not realize because it was an early hour for a bar. We think that was intentional. Because we had an argument during our check-in about their 100 USD room deposit policy and taking copies of our ids. We had to change our room at 02:00 am with a sleeping child and 4 of heavy luggages through a gauche bar. DO NOT GO TO THIS SO-CALLED HOTEL IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY.

The Whitelaw hotel is crooked and the hotel staff burglarized us. We booked reservations at the Whitelaw for three days prior to our wedding cruise. When we checked in we noticed right away that the air-conditioning was not working. The room was so hot we had to wait in lobby. After hours of waiting for the maintenance person to arrive and bogus assurances that he was on the way we asked for another room. Apparently the Whitelaw Hotel has only one maintenance person for four hotels. We were told that there weren’t any rooms available and we continued to wait. My wife left the lobby to retrieve something from the room but her key didn’t work. After a moment of fidgeting with the lock the maintenance man opened the door from inside our room. He said that he was repairing the AC. He demonstrated that his key worked and that hers did not work because when a hotel employee uses the hotel key it disables the guest’s key. At that time we didn’t think about why the maintenance person would enter our room without someone being present and close/lock the door to repair the AC. My wife had her key recoded and we wanted to ensure the AC was repaired so we waited. My wife returned to the room and our suspicion was confirmed the AC was still broken. After waiting approximately another hour my guest and I were hungry and we ask the guy at the front desk to recommend a good Cuban restaurant. He recommended a restaurant about a block and a half away. Approximately two hours later we returned from the restaurant and my wife attempted to enter our room and her key didn’t work again. She inquired about her key to the front desk and the same person who recommended the restaurant informed her that the maintenance person repaired the AC while we were at dinner. He then explained; because the maintenance person entered the room the system decoded her key for the second time, therefore; he recoded the key again. When my wife entered the room she immediately noticed that our laptop computer was missing. We informed the front desk and called the police. We returned to the room and discovered that not only had the laptop been stolen all of our jewelry, watches and cash had been stolen to include our wedding rings. I’m sure the hotel staff was behind the burglary. When we returned from dinner my Wife’s key had to be recoded again because someone from the hotel entered our room. The hotel staff knew we were at dinner because they recommended the restaurant. The maintenance person entered the room while we were at dinner and still did not repair the AC, but this time he had plenty of time to search the room because he knew we were at dinner. The thief didn’t ransack our room; instead the thief meticulously went through each of our suitcases and removed all the rings, diamond earrings, diamond bracelets and watches from their individual jewelry boxes. The cash was removed from the checkbook holder. All of the boxes were then placed back into the suitcases and returned neatly to the closet as they were before he arrived. Finally; the maintenance person lied and told the hotel management (who we were not allowed to speak to) that my wife was in the room with him the entire time he repaired the AC. This was completely false and why would he lie if he were innocent. We pleaded with the front desk personnel to contact the manager but to no avail. The manager didn’t answer the phone (at least that is what we were told). We were told we had to wait until the following day. All of a sudden another room with a working AC became available. The following day we spent hours trying to speak with the manager. In the end, we still were not able to speak with a manger. Our wedding was ruined because of the Whitelaw Hotel.

NEVER stay here. We booked our reservations for two rooms FOUR months in advance. When the first girl in our party arrived she was told they had our rooms but she could not check in until the person whose name the reservation was under had arrived. Within three hours we all were there, and they then told us they had lost our reservations. After refusing to leave without an explanation, we were told a million lies — they went from saying they lost the reservations to saying the rooms had leaks and couldn't be rented out! We spent hours trying to speak with the manager. She wasn't there and didn't answer calls from her employees (allegedly, anyway). We were not compensated in any way for this huge error and were told to come back the next day to speak with Karen. She amazingly had a "family emergency" that day and was unavailable to talk with us. What a horrible way to run a business. We had traveled from all over the country (L.A., NYC, Tennessee, San Fran and Ohio) to give our best friend a great bachelorette celebration. Whitelaw ruined the first several hours of our trip and offered nothing in return for their giant mistake! I am amazed they can stay in business. It's an embarassment to the entire South Beach area.

The hotel overall was clean and very nicely decorated. the staff was mostly full of smart remarks and bad tourist advice. I do not recommend drinking at the bar if its not happy hour. the workers party and do drugs til 5 am, no way to sleep!