John F.
Yelp
Stay away from this hotel if you value a luxurious, calm, and customer-first guest experience.
This hotel is a party hotel; they don't care about their guests. I stayed here during Art Basel this year as the Delano is closed and changed ownership.
The 1st four nights were fine, even with the riffraff partiers at the club at the 2nd pool. You could still enjoy the hotel bar nearest the hotel. The central location to all the Art Basel Miami tents was why we chose to stay here.
On the 5th night, a SUNDAY NIGHT, after Art Basel ended, a blowout party dragged in all the outlier riffraff from all around the Miami area. We came back from dinner on Ocean, and the place was pumping. At 11:47 PM, one overhead speaker announced, "Please evacuate the building." We didn't hear a 2nd one or get a call to our room. When we tried to call the front desk/operator, it was either busy or ring-no-answer. We waited a few minutes, and no other announcements were made. After poking my head into the hallway, we saw other familiar guests working their way down the stairs. Once outside, all the staff stood around, not saying anything and the partygoers flooded out of the side of the building. Older guests in robes, as well as the other guests, were sitting near the stairs until the police came and made us, along with the partygoers, move a block away as there had been a bomb threat (assume directed at the party for some unknown reason). Some of us asked the hotel manager to tell us what to do, but they were clearly in a panic, and we were left to fend for ourselves. There are no announcements to the hotel guests ($500+ a night spent) on what to do or where to go at midnight with all these scary partygoers. A policeman told me that clearing the building could take until 4 AM. I called SLS management in downtown Miami to see if they had any directions for us, but they said to wait around, and it would not be long.
After waiting on the street a block away, 3 AM rang in. They were nowhere near done sweeping the hotel, so we checked into the Hotel Gale South Beach to sleep. We then got up in the morning, packed out bags at the SLS, and went to the airport to go home. Not even an apology, not an offer of any kind, was given for the inconvenience. We did hear that no one was let back in until after 4 AM.
I get that there was a bomb threat; I get that they needed to evacuate the hotel. That much is obvious. What is appalling here is that there was no customer service for the hotel guests who paid big dollars to stay there. I would go to many other great hotels on either end of Collins if you can.