Shalimar Motel

I booked this via
. It was just OK, the rate is a bit high for what we get — but considering it’s always tourist season here, it makes sense. To get a nicer place we would’ve had to shell out $ 40+ more a night. So this is an OK economical choice.
PROS:
— Relatively clean. Provides beach towel, iron, hair dryer
— Nice big mirrors
— Good AC
— TV works, and there’s cable
— Good lighting
— The area is pretty nice and quiet. It’s walking distance from Starbucks and a few good restaurants (Organic Bites, Blue Collar, Via Verdi, Lo De Lea).
CONS:
— No hooks for hanging things in the bathroom.
— Tile floor with no carpeting. It gets a bit cold, a rug would’ve been nice.
— A haphazard collection of Ikea furniture
— The Hotwire description advertised queen-​size bed but it was actually a full
— WiFi is absolutely horrible
The ‘continental’ breakfast consists of a bagel, small orange juice, fruit cup and yogurt. It’s cheap but better than nothing. They also offer coffee and tea, with milk. The staff doesn’t speak much English but is nice.

I just stayed at this motel and it was so clean. My room was nice, I had a king sized bed, a desk, and 5 pillows. Clean sheets everyday, the housekeepers were really good, my room was spotless. Tania the desk clerk was such a nice lady, she moved me to a king sized room the second day, for a great rate. It was busy too, all the rooms were rented to an art moving company. This was during Art Basel 2015. Breakfast was a bagel, fruit, good yogurt, coffee, and green tea also. I felt safe and liked the Art Deco exterior. I will come back again and again. That area is changing rapidly. Starbucks down the street, a gas station that sells good wine and really good food. A publix grocery store about 10 blocks away. I liked it and also liked the owner and the night desk clerk. So sweet they all were.

Came to this motel and checked in Thursday morning. I paid for the night, got my room key and breakfast tickets for the following morning. I informed the young guy at the front desk that I would possibly be staying for a week and he said to come back any time before 3pm to purchase the rooms for my extended stay. I went around 1:30 to pay and he told me there were now no other rooms available. I was shocked! I literally came down 2 hours after speaking to him about this and now there are no rooms! The room was clean and spacious, nice bathroom and decent TV channels. I was excited to stay here for the week and not have to move after getting comfortable.
The following day, after my complimentary breakfast, my bf went and spoke to someone at front desk to inform them about what happened the previous day. The woman was extremely helpful and made all the necessary arrangements to accommodate us for another couple of days. We will definitely be recommending this motel to our friends who come to visit and would even consider staying here again!

I paid $ 135 a night for THIS PLACE? When you walk into a motel and the first thing you see is a big «NO REFUNDS» sign, you know you should have booked somewhere else. You also walk into the clerk being behind bullet-​proof glass. Classy. They only have a sheet on the bed (no blanket), rooms are sterile (pretty much everything is white including the floor), shower doesn’t have anywhere for you to put your soap or shampoo, small rooms, and parking sucks. Their free breakfast sucks too. I walk in, give the guy my ticket, and he starts putting stuff on my tray (croissant in a package, muffin in a package, a banana, watered down orange juice, and jam). That was my breakfast. They don’t even let you pick the flavor of jam you get. You just get what they give you. It’s obvious the owner is ridiculously cheap and doesn’t care a lick about customer satisfaction. Even Motel 6 is better than this place. Avoid this place.

Very nice and renovated motel. the best at the area. rooms are good, breakfast is continental, and wifi is free which is very important for me

We turned around and left as soon as we saw the room.
Needless to say, they kept our money… if they gave refunds to dissatisfied customers they would be out of business. My guess is that most patrons don’t sleep over… but for different reasons than ours.
If the alternative is sleeping in your car, then this might work for you. But romantic getaway it is not.

I pre booked a room at this location seeing it being the best for its price. I went in and could not check in, I previously called to make sure they could charge the card used to book the room as I just didn’t have enough on my card to cover the remaining charges + deposit. Being that the card was not present they could not let me in although they one, already charged one night and two, had the card OWNER on the phone to verify any info. They lady (management) was VERY nasty. But I’m glad that happened because I ended up with an amazing balcony view on south beach. The building on the outside looks wrecked. Would not go back.

I have always wanted to check out the slightly trashy, kitschy 1950s motels lining Biscayne Blvd., so on my last trip to Miami I finally indulged. It’s a delicate operation. You definitely have to SEE the rooms before you pay, because most won’t refund you. And be prepared to walk away, which shouldn’t be too hard because most of them look like hell.
This particular weekend was the Art Deco festival, so throngs of tourists booked up all the Miami Beach hotels. I’m a cheapskate looking for a bargain, so I stopped at the Leeward (skip it), The Hacienda (ditto), and Stephan’s International Motel. The Shalimar was the best by far.
Please allow me to put these 3 stars in context. This is no 3 star hotel. It is simply 3 stars in relation to the rest of the hooker holes on this stretch of Biscayne Blvd. If you are traveling and in need of a basic, clean, cheap hotel close to the action, you won’t beat Shalimar.
The façade isn’t tempting, and the area is skeevy. When I came to check in, I was asked if it would be for a «short stay,» industry jargon for the half hour to an hour time slot needed by ladies of leisure everywhere. That was $ 30. The whole night in one of their newly renovated rooms is $ 55 (unrenovated is $ 45, but I wasn’t feeling that adventurous). I decided to go for it. Feeling brave, I crossed the overgrown parking lot and unlocked the humble door.
To my surprise, I was greeted by dark, wide wenge plank flooring, a minimalist but clean queen bed, bright white walls, modern armoire (housing a newer model tv) and a clean, faux marble bathroom. The room was spartan: it only had a bed, a nightstand, 2 chairs, the armoire and 2 lamps, plus a few hangers in the closet. But really, when you’re doing Miami on the cheap, right across the causeway from South Beach, what else do you need?
The only problem was the room smelled of cigarette smoke and I couldn’t find the remote control. So the desk clerk Keisha (who was losing her voice, poor girl) gladly searched the office for the remote controls for the newer TVs, and when she couldn’t find them, called her supervisor at 11 pm to hunt them down. That’s customer service unusual in even Miami’s best establishments.
She also changed my room for another. Sadly, no dark plank flooring here, but new clean white tiles. Overall, it’s a much better deal than the hostels on South Beach where, for $ 28 more, you’re sharing a bathroom with strangers, paying $ 20 a night to park, and cramped into a room the size of the bed that’s in it.
The Shalimar provides a totally satisfactory experience for the bare bones traveler.