Design Suites Hollywood Beach

We only needed this place for the night before our cruise, thankfully. The room smelled musty and dirty, and the shower had mold, so my husband and I avoided going in there. My allergies to mold got so bad that I woke up sneezing at 4 am. The floor outside the bathroom was loose and shifted underfoot. In the hallway, despite no-smoking signs, there was a faint smell of cigarette smoke, a little weed, and something else I couldn’t identify. The whole hotel looked very dirty, more like a motel. We put our luggage away and stayed out until bedtime to avoid the room. This was the worst hotel experience I’ve had in a long time. We’ll tell our travel agent never to book a client here again. I made the mistake of not checking reviews first.

The beach is only a few steps away, and my room was large with a full kitchen. A portable AC unit kept the room at a comfortable temperature. The bathroom was my least favorite part: the light fixture was covered in rust stains and one light didn’t work. I spotted and killed one small Roach when I arrived, but didn’t see another. My key kept deactivating, so I had to get it programmed several times. It wasn’t next to my cell phone. One elevator stopped working with someone inside, though it started again and the man got out. Management put up a not-working sign afterward. The room wasn’t expensive compared with other Miami options, but you get what you pay for. This was a last-minute booking, and I wouldn’t stay there again.

We found about 8 cockroaches each day, and one nearly crawled into my bed. The rooms had only been lightly cleaned, the sheets weren’t washed, the stove didn’t work, and the bathtub was filthy with a major leak that was never fixed. The shower door was broken too. The hotel carpet needed cleaning or replacement, and one elevator was broken while the other two barely worked. There’s an extra $10 daily charge for wifi, pool and beach access, which I think should be included as basic amenities. The beach water was brown and looked nasty, so my family and I drove to another beach instead, making the beachfront location pointless. Management needs to improve: office staff didn’t answer calls or emails and seemed unsure what to do when issues came up. We received a yellow notice from the City of Fort Lauderdale on our door. The front desk worker didn’t know what it was and wanted us to handle it, so we left it with them and said it wasn’t our responsibility. They also took a security deposit even though I didn’t bring a pet and the hotel was in such poor condition. It felt suspicious, and I still haven’t received it, four days after checkout.

The rooms look nothing like the photos on the website, and there was a bad smell everywhere, like cigarette smoke, crack, and food. I was relieved there didn’t seem to be bedbugs or anything like that. The bathrooms have no AC, the elevators were odd, and the TV remote didn’t work. The other guests looked shabby, and the laundry machines were much too loud. Parking costs $24 a night. I wouldn’t recommend this place even to my worst enemies.