My spouse and I stayed at the Shore Club for three nights in
early July 2016. We booked our room using the Shore Club’s parent/group website
for the Morgan Hotel Group (with other properties in Miami, New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Europe, and the Middle East). Note that although
some people call this a “sister hotel” to the nearby Delano, in fact, the two
hotels are owned by the same hotelier, nothing more. You do not receive
reciprocal privileges for one hotel by being a guest at the other.
The Shore Club is located on Collins Avenue in South Beach,
in the same ocean block as the Raleigh/Richmond/South
Seas/Surfcomber/Marseilles/SLS hotels and in the block next to the Setai.
Nearby restaurants include the Orange Blossom Café (at the Boulan) and Maxine’s
Bistro (at the Catalina). In addition, Terazza is the hotel restaurant, with the outdoor Skybar available
for drinks. Note that Nobu restaurant is no longer onsite at the Shore Club
(Nobu now resides at the Eden Roc Resort). Despite claims that the hotel
operates an indoor bar/nightclub, the space was empty and deserted during the
busy holiday weekend when we visited, which included a Friday, Saturday, and
Sunday night; if the bar was not open on a busy holiday weekend when the hotel
is operating at capacity, we assume that it is never open.
Be
aware if you plan to use Uber when you stay at the Shore Club: for the 10+
times that we used it over our 3-night say, on all but one pickup, the drivers
had to call us because they could not find the hotel, and on every single
drop-off, the drivers took us to the side of the building rather than the front
driveway. Google maps (or whatever directional application the drivers use)
sent them around to an unused side entrance across the street from the Setai
side entrance, but you cannot enter or exit the Shore Club from there because
the doors are locked. We mentioned this Uber issue at checkout, but the clerk
said that he uses Uber all the time, and they can always find him! So perhaps
it was just some error that we kept making. Parking costs approximately $42 per
night, and note that because there is nowhere to park nearby, posted signs at
the front door inform you to allow 30 minutes for staff to retrieve your car.
The
lobby smells awesome, looks hip, and feels serene; you can purchase scented
candles in the gift shop to recreate the smell at home. That is where the good
comments end. Much of the hotel looks old and tired; particularly the outdoor
bar and the pool area and furniture.
Although the Shore Club is an Art
Deco-style property with a landmarked lobby, the hotel was designed by British
modernist David Chipperfield. Chipperfield modeled the property’s gardens in
the style of the Yves Saint Laurent-designed Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech.
The
“active” swimming pool contains Moroccan beds with lots of colorful stuffed
pillows and Turkish loungers. However, during our stay, the unique furniture was
covered up with heavy plastic and featured standing rainwater, while
pool/outdoor staff stood around idle. (Seeing the standing water was alarming
because of the recent Zika mosquito outbreak in Florida.) Music from the
weekend pool party at the Shore Club and its neighboring hotels is ridiculously
loud, so thunderous that the entire hotel reverberated and vibrated along with
the bass. It would have been tolerable if we could have heard the music; as it was,
we just felt the throbbing and pounding of the bass notes. Not only was it
impossible to rest during the daytime, guests must be early riser as well,
because the racket begins at 10:00 am and continues until 8:00 pm. Actually,
when we initially felt the pulsations, we went up to the floor above ours (the20th/top
floor), thinking that must be where one of hotel bars was located that was
playing such ghastly noise, but it was the rising, resonating, and echoing of
the music off all the concrete buildings
The
lounge chairs on beach are arranged very closely together; and the service provided
by the beach attendants is slow. Some guests (older and unattractive ones, like
us) were charged to use the beach umbrellas at $19 per day, while other guests
(young and attractive ones, unlike us) were given the umbrellas for free.
Guests can also wander in themselves while the beach attendants are seating
other guests (because of under-staffing), and claim chairs that already have
umbrellas next to them, thus saving themselves the daily fee. With such
expensive room rates (and with a resort fee already assessed), the nominal
umbrella fee should be waived for all guests, not just the pretty ones!
This
hotel is not suitable for families. There was some topless nudity displayed around
the pool (and condoned by the pool attendants), which is not legal in Florida,
and the vibe party atmosphere. This also is not a hotel for the older crowd –
the pool lounge chairs are not regular height, but more of a platform bed type
of lounger, which may be difficult for anyone slightly mobility challenged to
easily get in and out of. (Both pools do contain handicapped lifts, however, to
raise and lower guests into the pool.) The hotel has two pools, one that is
supposed to be more relaxing, but the pools are located adjacent to each other,
and it is impossible to escape the clamor from the “active” pool.
The
Shore Club offers 309 minimalist rooms, with concrete floors, white
bedding/duvets, sisal area rugs, and luxurious bathrooms. We booked an
oceanview suite, and we were placed on the 19th floor (of 20
floors). Our suite featured a small living room with a futon daybed (not
suitable for sleeping), a separate bedroom with a king-size bed, desk/chair,
and nightstands, and two full bathrooms. One of the large sandstone bathrooms
contained a wet area divided by glass doors that housed a large soaking (but
not jetted) bathtub and rainfall showerhead, with a shimmery mother-of-pearlish
tile floor. The other bathroom was smaller and more traditional. The hotel
offers Malin + Goetz toiletries (in 1.7 ounce tubes, so you get more than one
use from them). Perhaps the best feature of our suite was a large terrace that
was positioned along the side of the building, affording views of the bay, the
Art Deco district, and the beach. Two small tables, each with two chairs, were
arranged on the covered terrace; however, we could see other rooms similar to
ours with uncovered terraces that also contained lounge chairs.
We encountered
several problems during our stay, and spoke to the front desk about them, but
we never received any satisfactory resolution. General Manager, Jesper
Soerenson, went unacknowledged to this day. We have heard that the Shore Club (which
opened circa 2002) will eventually be closed and turned into condos – you can
see evidence of this from the sales desk in the lobby (we seem to remember
prices starting at least $1 million per unit). The pending closure is apparent
in most of the staff’s attitudes.
The
most distressing event of our weekend occurred as we sat at the outdoor Skybar one
afternoon. The bartender washed his bar tools (silver strainers) in an ice
bucket that was collecting rainwater runoff from the roof. When we questioned
him about it, he laughed! This cleaning method made us wonder what the staff is
doing behind the scenes to the food, drinks, and serveware, if that is what an
employee will do in front of us! We voiced this concern to the manager on duty
that night, who said she would investigate, but we never heard any resolution.
We probably should have called the local health department, for that was
certainly a health-code violation! We even had to pay for that disgusting round
of drinks (which was only a beer and a soda)! We definitely did not eat in the
restaurant or order any more drinks after what we witnessed. To make this
matter worse, as I told the front desk manager, I am recovering from cancer and
chemotherapy, so the thought that some callous bartender could have introduced
unnecessary germs into my body is just unforgivable and demonstrates depraved
indifference! And even now, we have received no response from the management of
the Shore Club. The Shore Club truly does not care about the health and welfare
of their guests!
We do
not recommend this hotel – there are many newer properties nearby where you
might get better service! Although you might read some positive reviews on
TripAdvisor, take heed of the number of those great reviews that are the only
one posted by the reviewer, which to us is an indicator of a planted fake
review. We feel like we tried every avenue to correct the issues we experienced
during our stay, but no one seemed to care! We are still waiting for Mr.
Soerensen to return our phone call to address our concerns – ten weeks after
the fact! We had hoped to keep our issues between us and the hotel, but his
lack of response has encouraged us to post them now. Skip this property!
No comments:
Post a Comment