Report: Metropolitan by COMO, Miami

100   Recommended
March 17, 2015 by EXPERT

 Map | 1 Review | 100% Recommended
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Metropolitan by COMO
 Map | 1 Review | 100% Recommended

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This year, we decided to celebrate my wife’s birthday in Miami Beach. After looking at a number of hotels, including the MO (downtown, not in Miami Beach), The Betsy (small rooms, too much in the middle of the scene), FS/RC (both seem to get pretty lukewarm reviews around here), and the Setai (out of range at $850+ for base rooms during our dates), we decided to try the new Metropolitan by COMO.

We stayed for three nights over this past weekend, and though things weren’t perfect -- we had some early hiccups, but the service recovery was superb -- we’d gladly return.

Below is a short report of our stay:

Check-In

Based on TripAdvisor reviews (my own mistake -- the hotel is very new and I couldn’t find any dependable reviews elsewhere), I had booked a Metropolitan King room with a Balcony. This is the third level up from lead-in.

No upgrade was proactively offered, so I asked for one. The next level up was an Ocean View King room. The check-in agent confirmed that one was available, and offered to show us both the booked room and the upgraded room, and we agreed. And to be honest, we were underwhelmed by both. The balcony rooms face a residential building next door, and the “Ocean View” room was on the 3rd floor, with a view of the tops of palm trees (and very little ocean). Both rooms were quite small.

My wife had to go to an appointment we had pre-booked at the spa, so in a bit of a rush, we agreed to take the upgraded room.



The bathroom looked oddly like a hospital bathroom:





The “Ocean View”



As I began to settle in, I noticed that it was hot. Very hot. About 78 degrees, and 15 minutes later nothing had changed. I called downstairs, and they sent a maintenance employee up, who reset the system and told me that the A/C should now be working.

15 minutes later, still hot. When I the door to the room next door slammed shut and I could clearly hear the conversation our neighbors were having, that did it. I went back downstairs and told them that the room wouldn’t work for us.

This time, the FOM, who was terrific and very understanding, was there. She immediately offered to show me an Ocean View room on a higher floor.

While the view was much better, the room was even smaller than the one that we were in. I offered to pay for a suite upgrade. When she heard that I didn’t like the third room, she immediately offered to comp an upgrade to an Ocean View Suite (a triple upgrade) to make sure that my wife and I “enjoy the birthday celebration.”

That, to me, was a wonderful service recovery gesture.

From there, things gotmuchbetter.

The difference between the rooms and suites at this property is night and day. Your experience at this hotelwillbe defined by the type of room you book; I suspect there isn’t anyone in this corner of FT who would be happy with a regular room (and I’m not the kind of person who ONLY books suites).

Our suite, one of 6 or 7 Ocean View Suites, was beautiful.



Now we’re talking









The master bathroom was long, with a walk-in shower and large bath:



Products were COMO’s own, and very good.

There was a guest bathroom as well (note how different the walls and decor look from the one in the first room):



Property

While the property suffers from a couple of legacy issues from the old Traymore Hotel that it took over for (too few elevators, many rooms have connecting doors which lead to noise issues), they did a terrific job of renovating.

There are two pools, one “hydrotherapy” pool on the roof:



And one regular pool downstairs:



Because of the smallish size of the hotel (74 rooms but seemed like pretty low occupancy), neither pool was ever crowded. The downstairs pool, as well as the chairs the hotel placed down on the beach, offered towel, food and drink service right at your chair.

Another very “COMO” feature of the hotel was its steam room (also located on the top floor), which had a cool shower that mimicked different types of rain (Tropical Monsoon, Polar Mist, etc...), and also dispensed aromatherapy scents to match each setting.

The gym, while small, was serviceable.

We found the restaurant and bar area very pleasant. The bar specializes in gin (stocking more than 30 varieties), and was a lovely setting for a G&T.



The restaurant also had outdoor seating, either at tables or on comfortable wicker furniture:



Service

Aside from our initial hiccups, service was very good to excellent. Most of the staff remembered us and what we were up to, asking how our night was and whether my wife was enjoying her birthday weekend.

The GM, Javier, was also quite welcoming and hands-on, checking in with us and buying us drinks at the bar.

The staff also left treats at turndown every night:



And on the night of my wife’s birthday, we returned to a gorgeous (and very tasty) cake:



Housekeeping was stealthy and thorough, and service at the restaurant was both warm and efficient.

Dining

We had grand plans to eat all over Miami Beach, but after our first meal at the Traymore, the in-house restaurant, we ended up having many of our meals there (aside from one notably incredible meal at The Bazaar).

Continental breakfast is included with Virtuoso bookings, but unless you’re satisfied with pastries and fruit for breakfast, you’ll probably want to opt to apply the $28pp credit to ordering from the menu.

The menu is light and flavorful, with a special COMO Shambhala menu offering “healthier” fare and delicious fresh-pressed juice blends. We ordered off of this menu several times, and everything we tried was great. We especially liked the Real Toast for breakfast, a sunflower seed “bread” with smashed avocado, heirloom tomatoes and shaved cucumbers. It was a sharp departure from my usual egg-and-breakfast-meat-inhaling ways, but it was so good that I didn’t really mind.

Location

For us, this location was perfect. Just north of the true South Beach action, it felt like a quiet respite from the crowd, noise and “scene” that SoBe can be. A gate in the pool area leads right onto the boardwalk and beach, and we were able to walk to anywhere in SoBe in minutes.

Overall

Aside from the early hiccup, we really loved our stay at the Metropolitan and would be happy to return, as long as it’s to a suite. The property itself is great, but the wonderful employees really make it worth returning to, and the food and “just outside of the action” location make it a strong choice for visiting South Beach but still staying outside of the scene.

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