I stayed at this hotel with my wife, Nov. 14-18, 2007. As a previous post said, the public areas of the hotel are 4*, while the rooms are 3-3.5*. The common areas are very pretty and are well-staffed. I paid $105/night plus the usual tax and Priceline fees. Our room was a corner room on the 15th floor facing the beach and was for handicapped guests. It had lots of space and was attractive. The furniture was a bit worse for wear, but completely serviceable. The bed was very comfortable and the AC was effective and quiet by hotel standards. The hotel is at the north end of the Art Deco district, but remains an easy walk from lots of clubs and restaurants. I worried about this hotel because of the many complaints that the rooms are not up to the 4* standard. I have to say that I think the complaints are off base. The reality is that the Royal Palm is just about the only 3.5-4* hotel that is available via Priceline. That's because the other 4* hotels are filling up at $200+ per night via normal channels and don't need to turn to Priceline to keep customers coming in. The Royal Palm is no longer part of a chain and doesn't have the luxury of ignoring Priceline. This is not a neighborhood where you can get cheap prices easily. There are too many impulsive rich folks visiting South Beach and they bid up all the services. If you want 4 stars and a lower rate, try other neighborhoods. The hotel adds $19/night for a resort fee. I think this stinks, but it's typical of the resort hotels in this area and Priceline's rules allow it. Notice that Priceline's rules would permit a resort fee of any amount ... a super-high fee would never happen in practice, but the Priceline contract allows a mandatory resort fee of any amount. I think that Priceline should insist that any mandatory fees be part of the price that you bid on. Valet parking is $39/night. You can park just across the street for $16/day in the "Anchor Shops" parking garage (off 16th Street). If you like to be served, by all means spend $23 more per day plus tips on the valet service. I felt cheap and used the garage. If you haven't been to South Beach before, be forewarned that it is a very expensive place to visit. Even modest restaurants charge at least 20% more than is usual in US cities (other than NYC). Still, you can eat fancy food and drink creative martinis and see 20-something babes in party dresses all over the place. The beaches are lovely, too. The Royal Palm has an interesting story that is described in some detail on some displays in the lobby hallway. I hope I remember it correctly. The hotel is built around the shells of two of the original Miami Beach resort hotels from the 30s, the Royal Palm and the Shorecrest. They were in disrepair in the 90s. Then Miami and Florida suffered a 3-year boycott by the African-American community after Nelson Mandela was not allowed to appear somewhere in the state. To stop the boycott, the Miami tourism community and city agreed to do various things, one of which was to ensure that there would be an African-American-owned resort hotel in Miami Beach. The Royal Palm is this hotel. The main building with the lobby is actually a faithful reproduction of the original Royal Palm building, because the original was not sound and was demolished. The Shorecrest building is at least partly original, but both buildings date effectively from the mid to late 90s. The two towers are modern additions that were allowed to make the hotel large enough to be viable.
