FL Miami Mayfair House Coconut Grove

[JulesBo]

I lived in Coconut Grove for two years and the Mayfair House had an excellent reputation, so I was excited to stay there for a Friday night at a reduced rate through Hotwire. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. Mayfair House had closed for renovations a couple years ago (not sure when) and they're still working on the rooftop pool area, apparently, but the rest of the hotel looks just beautiful.

Our room was called the Blackberry Suite. It had a gorgeous travertine-tiled bathroom with an LCD TV. The spa products were great, my husband even took home one of the shampoos! The closet stored a safe, ironing board, two bathrobes, and a stocked mini-fridge with enough room to add your own bottles of water or soda. A light inside the closet automatically turned on when you slid open the door--cute little feature.

The bed was super comfortable, with down pillows and ultra soft linens. There was a big LCD or plasma TV, 50" I'd say. Almost too big if that's possible. The room was plenty big enough for the king-sized bed and a sitting area. We were pleasantly surprised to find a private balcony with a big hot tub...although the weather was too hot to enjoy it. We did take a dip and wow, was it hot! Guess we let it warm up for too long.

The room was beautifully decorated and just practically perfect in every way. Did I mention when we checked in, we were given a cool aromatherapy towel with which to freshen up? Yes, this place deserves all four of its stars.

The common areas of the hotel looked very nice, but we merely walked through them on our way out to the vast array of entertainment offered in Coconut Grove. This is a loud late-night area, so bring earplugs Thurs-Sat. We were on the third floor and I never would've slept without the earplugs in.

We arrived in the late afternoon, so were able to park on the street at the 3-hour meters enforced until midnight. We left the car on the street overnight and retrieved it before 10 a.m. when they start charging again. Having lived here, I don't recommend parking overnight anywhere outside the busiest areas, because seeing a smashed-in window on the outlying quieter streets is not uncommon. Coconut Grove is beautiful and (in my experience) safe, but it's right next to a high-crime area.

Incidentally, if you're in the Grove from 4-8 p.m. on a weeknight and you like fresh shellfish, you MUST go to Monty's raw bar. It's walkable--probably a mile from Mayfair, but they do have free parking with validation. Head up Bayshore past City Hall and the Charthouse and you can't miss it. Go to the outdoor seating area next to the marina and enjoy giant caught-that-morning shrimp--one dozen for $8. Also stone crab claws and oysters, but I just go for the shrimp.

I also recommend Green Street for the lamburger with goat cheese.

Thursday nights the Grove is flooded with beautiful U. of Miami students, and the rest of the time is a mix of well-heeled locals and tourists. Definitely a worthy destination, and a convenient drive to Coral Gables (another shopping Mecca) or South Beach.

[Rafael Pinto]

Hi folks,

I'd like to share my experience at the Mayfair Hotel & Spa, located in Coconut Grove, Miami, FL, between Oct 18th and Oct 25th

The hotel is beautiful, very well located, and although they had a party on the pool on a Saturday night, the room isolation was good enough for the noise not to bother us. The decoration is a bit outdated, but since it creates a whole scenery, I'd say I liked it!

All the hotel employees were extremely nice and polite. The hotel was selected via Priceline.com, so the rates were amazing.

The cons:

1) Wifi access was only possible in one small area of the lobby. Anywhere else, including rooms, it did not work. Nothing to do with signal strength, but some weird configuration on the routers would not the devices acquire IP addresses.

2) The room was clean, but not pristine. The room smelled like mold mixed with some kind of benzene based cleaner. It was worse when the A/C was off.

3) The disappearing towels: on one day we did a round-trip to Disney's Epcot and back (4h each way!). Arriving around 11:30PM, we found out that we had only ONE bath towel for us two!! As a result I had to use my wife's wet towel to dry myself... The next day, we found two bath towels, but now, no hand towels...

4) No ice machines, so you cannot bring your own beverage without having to call room service for ice.

5) The cherry on top: a false fire alarm woke us up around midnight Oct 19th. After 16h of flight, we were exhausted, and had to wake up in the middle of the night to abandon our room. After it became clear it was a false alarm, we went back to our room, to be awaken again, fifteen minutes later by another false alarm!!!

Hope you guys like it!

Best Regards

Rafael