Ocean Beach Palace Hotel and Suites

With our flight canceled at Miami international, we had to rebook through Fort Lauderdale, and hotels across the Miami Metro area were full. We were lucky Ocean Beach Club Hotel had a room. When we called, Viviana was so sweet, kind, and understanding. She assured us it would be ready when we arrived around 1 o’clock in the morning, an hour later. She was a real comfort on an otherwise rough night and a credit to the hotel.

Angela at the front desk made this place awesome. She was swamped and still so kind, especially while I had to change my reservation and take up a lot of her time. The rooms are clean, though it’s a bit of a walk to the beach. I’d give it five stars if the rating were based just on Angela!

The location isn’t close to much, about a 15 minute walk, and room service is by request. We didn’t get extra blankets. The rooms were clean and seem to have been renovated, but the appliances are old and don’t work well. The fridge didn’t cool and its temperature knob was missing. The safe gave an error for the code from the front desk, and the AC sounded like a vacuum cleaner. It’s okay for a night or two.

This hotel felt unsafe. There was pubic hair in the bathtub, and the rooms smelled musty, with roaches and mold. Homeless people could walk onto the property freely, and we had four unsettling encounters. Twice, someone knocked on hotel room doors in the middle of the night. At the pool, a man on the third floor balcony stared at my young daughter for a while. When I asked him to stop, he said he’d lived at the hotel for three months and could do what he wanted, then blew her a kiss. Front desk and management didn’t seem to care when we complained.