Trip Reports - Roney Palace Resort Miami Beach

Searching various travel sites for a four-nite stay in MB, I came across this four-star hotel. Looks nice, but wondering: why is this hotel so much less expensive? Expedia gave me a four-nite average rate of $71.25 for a "Deluxe sleeps 4" room. That's a great rate for a nice hotel. But is it?

This brings up the more general question: what's a good site to get Flyer-Talk style (non-commercial, independent forums) reviews of _individual_ hotel properties? It'd be nice to know whether the hotel I'm considering is a dump before handing over the old Amex.

~BK

This is a _very_large_ Hotel on 23th street and it has been very recent renovated.It looks rather nice but was fully booked when I try to get a room by walk in last weekend and the only room they could offer me was a 189,- US$ room. I did not see one of the rooms but the hotel lobby and the outside looks rather nice. HOWEVER it is 15 streets away from the art deco city centre that is around 8th street and so you have to walk rather a long disctance to get there - or take a cab - or go with your car and pay the parking fee(not recommended) - the advantage is that the 23th street area is rather quiet so if you want be be in a silent neighborhood this is the place to go. And it has to be said that also the famous DELANO and the NATIONAL are in this part of the town but it's like the beginning of the "large tourist hotel ghetto". If you want to enjoy the wild life of South Beach just outside the hotel go to a different hotel between 5th and 10th street. Another disadvantage is that the roney palace is a "standard chain hotel" looking place and not one of the many wonderful ART DECO hotels if you mind something like that. For about 100US you get hotels in the ART DECO district if you stay at least 2 days. I took some photos of the city and the Roney last week and if you email me I can send you the mails or upload them to my web server.

Bidkat -

Wnedoe has seen the Roney since the Renovation, I have not, but I know the hotel is doing a lot of advertising locally at the moment. I have heard that the hotel is quite nice, but again, I have not seen it.

You may also want to check out miami.com, as some of the Art Deco properties list their special offers on that site.

Overall, I think the hotels in Miami are suffering due to the downturn in visitors from Latin America. You should be able to snag a reall good rate.

CanGuy

I stayed at this hotel from 4/15-4/20 this year. We stayed in a two bedroom suite that was larger than my apartment for a rather reasonable $349/night. I rather enjoyed my stay at this hotel. Note that the hotel was undergoing renovations while we were staying there, but the only significant inconvenience that we noticed was waiting an unusually long time for an elevator in the early afternoons.

The amount of space for the cost is unparalleled on the beach. This property is a mixed-use resort--half condo, half resort. As mentioned above, the resort is at the top of South Beach, so I would strongly recommend a taxi when you want to head to areas within SoBe. Taxis come by the portico rather frequently, and it was never a problem hailing a taxi at all hours. The bell staff is also very friendly at the hotel.

Some interesting observations about the property:

1. No stereo/CD system of any kind. This actually surprised us very much since almost every tiny boutique hotel has one, yet this more "home-away-from-home" type property did not. The A/V department also did not have any available for rent (Surprising since this hotel is also trying to really sell its meeting space to travel agents).

2. Again, while the suites have rather large and nice kitchens with a dishwasher, microwave, stove, and granite countertops galore, you will not find a single dish, glass, or item of silverware aside from the standard two drinking glasses found in every hotel room in the world.

The hotel is right on the beach, and it has both a beach club with towel service, as well as a large pool deck with bar service, which was very nice, although the pool water tended to be rather warm.

I am not sure what stage of renovations the hotel is in now, but I was quite impressed with the decor and size of the suites. I would definitely stay there again if I were travelling with a group of friends, unless of course I wanted to be down in the heart of it all.

Terrific info, guys. Thanks.

With FTer's rep for fast intelligent responses, I wonder if I could get an answer to really hard questions, like the meaning of life. (No HHG responses, please. :-))