La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Miami Airport West

Autoro at the front desk on Monday was the one person who made a difference. He was kind, understood how serious things were, and moved us to a new room with genuine care. He's the only reason this review isn't a zero. My family checked in Sunday and left Tuesday after what became one of the worst hotel stays of our lives. The first room was dirty with hair, dust, and grime everywhere, and had no toiletries. We were later told housekeeping had to be requested a day ahead, something nobody explained at check-in. The hallways were stiflingly hot the entire time. When I complained, the manager said the hotel doesn't turn on hallway AC, so this was policy. At check-in they also tried to charge $5 a day for parking, despite the hotel's own website advertising free parking. We had to push back to get that fee waived. Early Monday, while my toddler and I were asleep, a maintenance worker walked into our room without warning. He apologized and hadn't known anyone was inside. Apparently we'd been put in a room still under active repair, without being told. By Tuesday, our second room appeared to have termites: wings were scattered across the dusty floor and vanity, there were larvae, and live insects seemed to be coming out of the walls. Maintenance came up, took photos, and looked shocked. He said it was beyond what his spray could handle. Bugs got onto our bags and into our clothes, so we packed and left. I'd been asking for the manager since Monday and much of Tuesday. Staff said she'd left, but she'd actually stepped out on a personal errand and they didn't know where she was. When I finally met Erika, she suggested the insects might have come in through a window a previous guest left open. She didn't apologize for the maintenance worker entering our room. When I said I'd never seen a manager who didn't walk around and engage with guests, she replied, “Well, I don't work Sundays.” Later she said she'd gone to the bank and didn't have to tell staff where she was. She claimed to interact with guests, but we never saw her once during our stay. Her remarks felt dismissive and completely out of touch given the situation. When we asked how other guests would be notified and said health department standards might consider this a violation, she accused us of trying to intimidate her. She denied having superiors when we asked who we could escalate the matter to. Only after more than 30 minutes of arguing did Erika offer a full refund. It still hasn't appeared on my end. Once she agreed, she said we had to leave immediately. She'd first refused, claiming she was trying to make things right, but nothing about our stay had been right: dirty room, maintenance intrusion, bugs, and hours of being ignored. We were given $16 for laundry, with no detergent, but didn't use the small, hot, airless room and its undersized machines. We drove to a laundromat and washed our clothes until 10 p.m. with our three-year-old, afraid to bring whatever was in that room home. I'd never written a Google review before. The morning after leaving for another accommodation, I reached for a clean pull-up for my toddler and found a bug inside. The infestation had reached my child's clean belongings. That's what this property exposed my family to. Erika replies warmly and understandingly to Google reviews, but that isn't how she treated us. I'm sharing this for the families who come after us.