This hotel is so nice. The decor is amazing and its very contemporary. It fits in with the SoBe culture. The rooms have low platform beds that add the Japanese feel. They have a spa and restaurant also. The staff is extremely helpful. They have a...

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Beds were very comfortable, convenient to bars, restaurants.Bathrooms were a little dirty, could've been a bit cleaner.“Rooms were very small, but very comfortable and well decorated. There was a bar downstairs and sushi place right outside. The...

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I LOVED MIAMI but unfortunately the experience was hindered due to my unaccomodating hotel stay at the Catalina Hotel!! If you go to Miami DO NOT, DO NOT stay at this hotel unless you want to be hot and sweaty, get eaten by bed bugs and/or want to be treated nasty by hotel staff!!

First things first: The picutes LIE! Yes, the hotel is decked out in red and white and the rooms were half-way decent (and I emphasize the word HALF because that's how small the rooms were...half the size of your walk-in closet), however...the lobby area is disgusting! It's filthy! The red SHAG carpet is dirty, the white and red furniture and dirty and worn...there's hole in the cushions...just bad...all bad!

DON'T be intrigued by the "3 nights for the price of 2" deal on their site! What I thought was a "bargain" was WELL overpriced for the type of service I received. What started out as a great vacation for friends to come together turned into a vacation from HELL! Not to mention there was NO AC so it felt like HELL too! It's 2007! Who doesn't have CENTRAL AIR...it's Miami for crying out loud!

We complained about no AC and what did they do? They'd supplied us with another fan and told us they were working on it. There was some banging outside of our window the next morning, but still no air! Hello!?!?

Let's not even start on the shuttle situation! Why does it only run every TWO hours? And the van only seats seven so you might as well schedule your pick up as soon as you check in!

You'd think the good part about the hotel is that there's an open bar for one hour everynight! NOT! By the time you got the bartender to acknowledge you, there was about five minutes left in the open bar special.

They ended up moving us to two new rooms on the last night, and we finally had AC...gee, thanks, and gave us a measly $60 refund for the "inconvenience." But apparently, more than half of us got home to discover we'd been bitten by...BED BUGS!! What the heck! (So now, we're burning our belongings, taking off of work for doctor's appointments or suffering through itchy and swollen bites!

As the complaints rolled in, the staff was extremely unaccomodating.... The Guest Relations Manager even had the audacity to hang up on one of my friends! If this (and the other comments below) aren't enough to turn you away from The Catalina...then fear for your life!

I could not believe that when I got to this beautiful hotel my weekend was going to turn out so frustrating. I missed important beach vacation time doing a room change TWICE because there was NO AIR in the first room and a possible gase leak in the next. To top things of on the second day I was attacked my some form of bug in the hotel and had to go through lots of trouble to make sure the Catalina Bug didnt follow me home!!! These are just a few of the BAD things that happend at the hotel!!

Where shall I begin? The hotel did not have my reservation that I booked 3.5 months earlier. They linen on the bed was filthy...which probably explains the bed bugs!...Yes ladies and gentlemen bed bugs!....Who has bed bugs? Well, there is a chance that this hotel may. Myself and several other young women that stayed with me have bug bites and swelling on our bodies. Throughout the weekend we killed bugs that appeared to be gnats but my have been bed bugs. As if the bugs weren't problem enough, the AC didn’t not work in not 1, not 2, but 3 of the 5 rooms we were placed in. The service was AWFUL and the attendents at the desk were EXTREMELY unprofessional. Which only proves why you don’t need a degree or have to be a Brain Surgeon to work at the front desk of a hotel? The rooms are very small and once we were moved to a larger room the hotel went from being an inconvenience to being a safety hazard. This was due to the stench of gas coming form the AC that yes you guessed it STILL didn’t work! If the website allowed for a negative rating I would give it just that! Unless you would like to get bitten by strange bugs and enjoy excessive itchiness then I would avoid this hotel!

I hated the my stay at the Catalina and I got bit by bed bugs after sleeping in this NASTY hotel service was BAD!!

It all started as I checked in to the “Catalina” at 2pm on July 4, 2007. I had booked the hotel and paid two weeks prior based on the location, images and descriptions given on various web sites. I made my reservations by way of a popular web site. As I checked in I was given keys to room 109, there was a small breakdown in communication as the two people behind the front desk began to cooperatively check me in. They realized they gave me the wrong key and made two new keys for the correct room that was to be assigned to me room 110. I traveled down a dingy looking hallway with red carpeting and was stopped right before I got to my room. I was being assisted by a member of the valet and he began speaking to a cleaning staff member. She told him that the room was still dirty and it wasn’t ready. Being that we already had all of our belongings in the middle of the hallway the valet guy offered to go change my room for me. He came back with keys to room 119. The room was very small and for lack of a better word weird, but the valet guy said oh don’t worry it’s the exact same room just in another location. After he left and the door closed I noticed the fire exit plan on the door which contained the layout of the entire building. It was now obvious that the new room that I received was not as spacious at all. After about 15 minutes I made my way to the front desk thinking by now room 110 must be ready I asked to see if I could get the room that I was first assigned to back and the man behind the counter actually chuckled and told me its not going to be possible because room 110 was already given to another guest but I would have to speak to the manager. I walked over to the manager whom was engaged in a conversation with two other guests. She continued her conversation for about 10 minutes and then asked me if I needed anything. I said that I would like to speak to her when she had a minute. She said something to the effect of no problem just give me a few minutes, she then walked back and disappeared in to the room located behind the front desk. I then thought to myself you know what, I don’t really want to spend any time in my room other than sleeping so my girlfriend and I left to try to celebrate the fourth of July.

We came back to the room at about 11:30pm as the celebrations were coming to a close. We immediately realized that the AC was not working properly. It became very uncomfortable so I went the front desk to see what could be done. The front desk radioed a maintenance man who just happen to be walking right around the corner so you could hear the guy from the front desk come over his radio. The maintenance man didn’t speak English and climbed his ladder to feel around at the non existing air flow. He told my girlfriend whom luckily spoke Spanish that it was a problem that could not be repaired by him. I went back to the front desk again around 12-12:30am as the problem did not go away, it was very humid. The guy behind the desk told me that they checked on it and “the chiller” was found turned off, it was now turned on so he asked that I just give it 15-20 minutes to start cooling down now. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and gave it over an hour. There was no change in the temperature in my room, then again it may have actually increased. I went back to the front desk again and by this time it was already 1:30am and we were tired. I was greeted by new staff members whom new nothing of what had been going on. I now felt that I was lied to a second time and I was told a fake story about some “chiller” just to get rid of me knowing that the shift change was fast approaching. I explained the entire situation again and the fact that I am an asthmatic that can’t breath under those conditions. I was told over and over how there is nothing that they could do. He told me that there were no vacancies and there was nowhere to move me to. He also explained to me that because I booked my room through a third party that I can not receive a refund. It was paid for already, so asked him what he suggested to see what he might say. He said “I suggest that you just deal with it until the morning”. Are you kidding me! I told him that I was probably going to have to leave because the room was not liveable. I returned to my room and called the customer service number at the online booking company. The gentlemen at customer service had trouble figuring out what to do. He asked that I return to the front desk. I asked him what was that going to do being that I had already exhausted all my options. He said that this would be the steps necessary to allocate a cancellation and a refund of the money that I spent on a room that I couldn’t sleep in. I said to the customer service rep that I guess he needed to confirm that I was actually checking out and complied with his request to go back to the front desk. He spoke to the guy at the front desk on my personal cell phone and asked him if they would get charged anyway and the man at the front desk said yes. Mind you he was no decision maker, he was not a manager he was concierge. No manager would be on duty until 9am in the morning. The customer service rep got back on the phone with me and apologize saying that he was sorry but he was not going to be able to refund my money. I asked him why being that he said that he would if I came back to the front desk. He said that the hotel was being uncooperative. I asked to speak to a manager and the rep said ok but he is probably going to say the same thing. I was placed on hold for about 5 minutes and the same customer service rep got back on the phone not the manager. He said that the manager OK’d the cancellation and that I would receive my refund within 30 days. I thanked them and proceeded to leave the catalina. At the front for the final time I came forth and told the concierge that I drank a sports drink and that I would pay for it using my credit card that they had on file. He typed up some sort of invoice which I was asked to sign. I looked at what I was signing and I found $3 being charged for the sports drink along with a $5 “resort fee”. I asked what a resort fee was and you would have thought that I asked him the meaning of life, he was puzzled. He said that a resort fee is just that, a resort fee. I said that there is no way that I am signing this. I proceeded to the valet area, they took about 10 minutes in the high humidity to get my truck and when it arrived we quickly made our way inside of it to enjoy the AC. I drove about 40 minutes north to stay at a motel which is not what I had in mind for a special getaway but I was so tired by this point that I needed to sleep. The next day I awoke and drove to Walgreens, as I left the store and approached the back of my truck I noticed a big dent in the bumper. The dent was curved which was obviously could only be done by a pole either metal or wooden. Who knows how fast he may have been going in reverse no less to make that kind of indentation. Being that I am the only person that drives my vehicle and that I did not go anywhere after I valet parked my truck, the incident must have happened while in the care of the valet service at the Catalina hotel. It wasn’t like the dent was caused by another car it was caused by a pole which was a one person accident caused by the driver. I am the only driver and I know that I didn’t hit the pole, so that narrows it down doesn’t it?. I am so exhausted after my experience at the Catalina hotel and after doing some minor research I found that I was not alone. There were so many complaints and bad reviews made by former guests that it was jaw dropping. I couldn’t believe my eyes, how could they negatively affect that many people and stay in business. Staying there ruined my only chance to get away in a long time and it is just wrong. If there is something that I learned it’s to always read the reviews left by former guests of that prospective hotel, always.

Oh yeah, the hotel is in a great location!

pros: Fun Hotel, great location, great staffWe had a really nice stay at the Catalina. The staff was excellent; extremely helpful and friendly. The rooms could have been cleaner, but ours was comfy and nicely decorated (if not as clean as it should...

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