I booked a room at the JW Marriott Marquis. The day before I left for Miami, I got an email from someone at the Beaux Arts, inviting me to upgrade for no charge. I accepted. Later that day, I saw some comments on another online review site, suggesting that Beaux Arts was gimmicky. I decided to keep the upgrade.

I arrived around midnight. Check in was at the ground floor. The clerk offered to show me how to work the various techie objects in the room, and to escort me to 38, but I declined, figuring a little peasant cunning would let me figure things out.

The 38th floor was nicely done, not opulent, but tasteful, subdued, and looked nicely planned and built. The room was generously sized, with a large bathroom. Very nice hardwood floor. Comfortable and expensive-feeling sofa and chair. Large flat screen. Complicated stereo with speakers behind couch. iPad with info slides (and, in a nice touch, it had my name on its opening screen). Good desk and good desk lighting.

Bed had high-quality linens and duvet. Great mattress and pillows. Drapes opened by controls next to bed, nice touch. Great view.

Mini-bar with expensive treats and an espresso machine. Well-designed closet, with good lighting. Nice robe. Excellent towels, lots of them and high quality.

Large bathroom. Shower with above the head shower bar and option to switch to handheld. Lots of nice stone. Snazzy flat screen tv built into mirror over sinks. Water pressure from sinks was fine. It does splatter a little, but just a little. The blue-red light to show the mix of warm and cold water is eye candy. Not kitschy, just sort of bling-y.

Good sound insulation. Was near elevators but heard nothing.
Breakfast was excellent. Fine selection, friendly staff, and excellent OJ, all in a nice room with great view. I used the pool early in the morning, and it was warm and there were plenty of towels available.

I don't know what the rack rate is. Up to $350 or maybe $400 or so, no problem. Above that, would stick with the JW for regular business travel. I'm glad I had the chance to stay here.

After endless searching for a hotel for a quick weekend break to Miami, we finally settled on the Beaux Arts, and we're so glad we did. If you've ever stayed at the Four Season in Vegas (it sits at the top of the Mandalay Bay), this is similar, just the top few floors dedicated to a boutique-style hotel, with much more intimate service.

The arrival at the JW Marriott was a little disorganized, but once they worked out where we were staying, we were quickly hustled into an elevator, to the sanctuary of Beaux Arts (oddly pronounced 'boze arts' by many of the hotel staff, but maybe I didn't pay enough attention in my French lessons at school!). During check-in we were served a cocktail, and the corner room I'd previously requested was reserved for us.

We were shown to the room, with a brief demo of the gadgets. The room is exactly the style we like, very sleek and contemporary. Having the corner room gave us lots of light and views, overall, a very nice room. Back to the gadgets. I'm a gadget freak, but I never did quite work out how to make the alarm work (it's all integrated with the TV/audio, not that you'd really know that). The glowing faucets that you'll see photo's of are very cool, if a little impractical. Overall, it's a great concept, but not one of those things that inspires you to go home and redesign your bedroom! (unless you have a daily maid service at home). Having the iPad in the room is handy for pre-booking the valet, and selecting a time for turn-down. On two of the three nights we got a couple of cookies with the turn-down (the only reason I ever request it is to see what goodies are left :-) ) which were great.

The breakfast, as others have said, is fairly average. The busiest morning two of the tables were taken, but generally you do feel like you're the only ones in the hotel. The service was very odd on one of the mornings, with the table not being cleared (we were the only ones there), and just a very disconnected feel to the service. But the other two days the service more than made up for the somewhat limited food selection - Stephanie and Troy were both fantastic hosts (for breakfast, and pre-dinner drinks), very friendly and professional.

Ethan, the concierge, was also top notch. With a hotel like this it's easy for some of the employees to be a little stuffy, but that's not the case at all here, aside from the one time at breakfast, they were all very professional, friendly, helpful and grounded.

There were a couple of things that could be improved. The car valet, even when we gave 30 minutes notice (via the iPad) was slow. It's not cheap, so I expect it to be quicker. A couple of times we waited for 10-15 minutes beyond the requested time. The pool area is shared with the JW, and is nothing special. We were there in late July, and the area only really gets sun between 11-2. There were no cute little service extra's at the pool, just the standard bar and food service. Finally, the shower gel in the room is Molton Brown, which I'm a big fan of, but the flavor chosen - Heavenly Gingerlilly - has a very 'girly' smell to it (I guess the name is a bit of a giveaway!). Most MB stuff works for both sexes, so I'm surprised they chose this one. Obviously, these are all first-world problems, but for this class of hotel, they matter.

In summary, great hotel, a fantastic place to escape from the city, with great service, except when you have to rely on the parent hotel underneath.

One of the best hotels we stayed in. Really good amenities, very very classy yet comfortable. The best part about the hotel apart from everything else was the view it offered. It was amazing. Also it has a really really good bathroom with a mini fix-in tv on the mirror inside - absolutely cool.

Great hotel. We were greeted in the lobby and escorted to check-in. Staff was friendly, however, we were not offered a welcome cocktail. Maybe you have to ask? We were shown to our room and given a tour. Very nice room with an amazing view of Miami! We were on our Anniversiry trip and I had mentioned this to the staff in the welcome email the week before. I assumed we would get an upgrade as most had in the past but we didn't. I assumed the suits were occupied. We visited the pool which was very nice with comfortable beds! Our room had an issue with the automatic curtains not closing so maintaince had to come work on them which took over an hour. Again I expected someone to offer to give us another room...nothing! We went to the bar for drinks. Bartender was super friendly and the manager stopped in for a visit. He made mention to show us a suite that was NOT OCCUPIED and made mention they were very slow that particular day and we were one of few guests!! I was very put off by this comment. We headed out for dinner and asked for turndown service, which did not get done. All in all it was a disappointing visit to an amazingly beautiful hotel.