Posh South Beach Hostel
Hostels
820 Collins Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
This place is Fascist Summer Camp.
I had artwork up at this event for Art Basel and decided to stay in Miami Beach. If you read my reviews, I stay at A LOT of hostels all over the world. I usually like to stay at the nicer ones with cool amenities, like the beautiful pool on this one sold me quickly. The atmosphere in the kitchen area is great and the ice cold pool is at least as beautiful as it looks!
However, the rest of this place somewhat sucked.
I booked this place back in August because I knew Art Basel would sell everything out fast. They have a requests section after you pay $50 a night for this hostel. I requested a bottom bunk because I am kinda old now and don’t have the monkey-like flexibility of climbing up and down ladders as I did 15 years ago. And that’s actually exacerbated by having a somewhat awful back due to a bad bike accident that has seen three chiropractors and a year’s worth of physical therapy.
When I got here, the first thing I sensed was that this place was insanely understaffed during Art Basel week. The guy who helped me was really busy. I had to wait about fifteen minutes for him to finish up as he was working the front of the hotel this was connected to. An older couple came in after me to check in to the hotel part of the building and he helped them out first since I’m steerage. Eventually, he signaled me to follow him upstairs. I told him I requested a bottom bunk and without hesitation, he unapologetically responded “it was a request – and we don’t have any.” I could forgive if they’re just insanely busy because of Art Basel and if they’re understaffed. But what’s the point of having the requests section listed on the website if no effort is made to fulfill them? Sin esfuerzo! It’s a beautiful place but just the entire first impression made me feel like I was staying at a $15/night public youth hostel. I was paying almost $250 on their glitchy and outdated credit card machine with a loose wire while signing a long waiver with two pages worth of rules: ‘NO SEX – that’s what a hotel is for!’
When he finished, he rushed me downstairs through a long and winding series of beds. My first reaction is that it looks like a Turkish refugee camp. All the blankets, towels, feet, heads, clothing, and shoes hanging from almost 50 beds in one large room were a bit overwhelming. I was almost running to keep up with him! This is the first hostel I’ve ever stayed at that doesn’t have individual rooms. I am not against this idea but its execution is a bit crazy. I hope their Haitian cleaner gets paid well to keep up with all of this, as she was doing quite a good job for how insanely busy it was.
Since it was one large room and we still have two primary genders, they have a guard with a flashlight doing the rounds every night to ensure there is one clothed person per bed. There are no curtains on the bed unlike some hostels with large rooms. And there is basically a lot of security protocol at the entrance and pool area for that very same reason. If you want to have sex here, the best bet is the showers all the way to the back.
Breakfast is awful coffee, hot water, earl grey tea, orange juice that tastes a bit like Tang mixed with actual orange juice, very low grade processed white bread, cream cheese, butter, jams with high fructose corn syrup, apples (sometimes) and it comes with styrofoam plates and cups and no recycling bin for them.
Posh is a misnomer and pricey for what it is not. But at least it’s clean, incredibly located near South Beach, and has an awesome pool and kitchen/tv area. The management/workers are a bit mean but I appreciate that they’re not pushovers and they need to be tough because the sheer size of their one large room of beds must be insane to control at all times. The lack of private dorm rooms perhaps is a problem too.
Useful: 5 Funny: 2 Cool: 0
12/7/2016
Comment from Indira G. of Posh South Beach Hostel
Business Owner
Hello, hello Chris G.! Thanks for taking the time to write out all of your thoughts and observations on Posh Hostel! We value your opinion. It’s a bummer some of our policies were not what you were expecting when choosing Posh Hostel. We do have strict rules that all guests must abide, as we want everyone to enjoy their time here in Miami and with us here at Posh! We’re sorry your time wasn’t the glowing 5 star one our guests so often write to us, raving about. Kind regards,
Katrine Read
12/7/2016