Shore Club, Miami Beach > Reviews (1)

I visited the Shore Club in Miami Beach about a couple of years ago, i had read so much about it and my friends and I decided to take a week long break for some relaxing to Miami Beach we pushed the boat out and picked the Shore Club as our hotel. Now only had we read the tripadvisor reviews at that time and we may have rethought our hotel destination.

We eventually got to Miami after lengthy delays due to the weather and the flight being rerouted all over the east coast of america to avoid the storms - not the best start to the holiday so we arrived late at the hotel (much later than we were expected) only to be told by a very rude receptionist that our room wasn't ready yet and we would need to wait in the lobby. The lobby of the hotel is very minamilist with floaty curtains draped from the ceiling and the odd couch bed dotted about it looks like it is out of any hip interior magazine but is certainly not a lobby to wait about in.

We eventually got to our rooms and hit the hay as we were exhausted from the travelling. The next morning we checked out our surroundings, the rooms were all white which looked amazing in the photos but in reality looked a bit tired and the beds were white metal which by the end of the week i had run into too many times that my legs showed the bruises and scars to prove. The rooms weren't huge and we didn't have a balcony, the bathrooms were nice with huge walk in showers and plenty of room in there.

We decided to have breakfast in the hotel then hit the hotel beach which is right on miami south beach. The breakfast is in the AGO restaurant and was expensive for all your standard breakfast fayre like omlettes, pancakes, toast, cereal and fruit. With our stomachs full and our pockets a little lighter we ventured to the beach where we found out that even if you are a guest at the hotel you still need to pay to get a parasol etc. We decided on this occasion to pay up the $15 odd dollars and spent the day at the beach. Mid afternoon we checked out the pool which was more like a club full of beautiful people with music pumping and not a space to swing a cat, while i like to party i don't always want to do it when i am sunbathing.

Pretty much throughout the hotel we found the service was pretty bad, the staff basically thought they were too cool for school and thought they were just there to make the place look pretty, which they did, but the service was lacking, having stayed at many resort/beach hotels throughout the world many rated far higher than this the service was appalling.

The Hotel has 2 main restaurants AGO which is seeminly half owned by Robert De Niro and serves Tuscan style food, which was nice enough but again very expensive. The other restaurant is the Miami Beach outpost of NOBU which was very good and made some spectacular mango martinis (definitly worth trying). A word of warning again if you are a hotel guest you are by no means guaranteed a table in any of the hotel restaurants and often have to book several days in advance!!!!!!!

Not to worry as there are many other restaurants close by that offer a wide variety of choice. The Porch Cafe on the beach was particualrly good for breakfast (amazing omlettes).

The Shore Club also has the world famous Skybar, again notoriously difficult to get into.

All in all i wouldn't recommend the Shore Club, you can get better hotels on Miami South Beach with more atmosphere. It is a beautiful hotel to look at but that is just it under the facade it is very ordinary at very expensive prices.

next time i am paying more attention to tripadvisor!