Stayed here on business. Wrong place. First of all there is no parking at all. You have to pay $32 a day to park your car with the valet. When I first checked in at 5pm I waited 30 minutes. Then they wanted a personal credit card to put on file even though the room was booked by my company.
The doormen were not helpful at all and just watched me carry 4 bags to my room. My room wasn't even where I checked in it was next door in another building.
The room was DARK. I had to take the lamp shade off just to use my computer.
The coffee was $4 in the morning.
The front desk called my room at 530am by mistake and after waking me, they didn't even apologize. I woke up an went to the front desk and the girl that called me said there's nothing she could do now that she woke me up.
Overall just a pitiful example of management and how poorly a company can be run.
Just lousy

I grew up in the area and will frequently stay on South Beach when I'm back in South Florida to escape my parents for a few nights. Had never stayed at the Catalina Hotel & Becah Club before, but there were few hotels available the weekend of the BCS National Championship game, which was being played nearby, and it was reasonably priced and in a good location on Collins Ave close to Lincoln Road.

First impressions: my husband and I arrived around 7pm and there was a line out the door to check in. The lobby felt like a cheap nightclub with ugly, oversized plastic furniture. The rooms were small (totally fine) but felt dirty, worn, and almost dorm-like. My husband remarked that the bathroom (BTW, the door handle was broken and falling off) looked like a locker room, and that this was the type of bedroom that he would not want to go over with a black-light. The hallways smelled like a combination of mildew and bleach, and I was not impressed with the stripper-esque posters in the elevators or left on the desk in the room. Notably, we had just returned from spending a week in South America, and felt LESS safe at the Catalina Hotel than we did in any city we visited in Argentina or Chile.

I wouldn't stay here again.

If you are looking for party and want to be well located, go for it. Although I was not looking for party I liked it very much. And I'm very selective and cautious regarding the cleanness of the room and bathroom. Everything was ok. Hotel is a little noisy. Walls like paper. If u don't mind it, GO ;)

We stayed at the Catalina from Jan 1st - Jan 5th. Our first night at the hotel was nothing short of a nightmare. We arrived late and checked in to room 275 which is an ajoining room our Neighbors were very loud the room was not very clean. In fact we unfortunately found a cockroach in the bathroom under the sink (I will add the picture after I post the review) My wife went down to the front desk and talked to them about the situation so Sabrina (who is a wonderful employee) moved us right away to 283 and apologized for the situation. We ate breakfast at Maxine's which is one of the two restaurants that are part of the hotel and had a great breakfast we especially enjoyed the the Italian scramble. The hotel provides free towels and lounge chairs at the beach which is a short 1.5 block walk away. They also have a very friendly gentlemen who takes care of towels and chair tickets named Wadley. We also ate at the other hotel Restaurant Kung Fu and my wife really enjoyed the honey garlic chicken. In the evening they have a happy hour with free drinks from 7-8 it includes well vodka, gin, whiskey, and rum. The bartenders here are great we had an extremely funny bartender on our last night she is very tall and we unfortunately did not get her name but she was a riot! When we checked out on Saturday we had some odd mini bar charges which the front desk representative removed from our bill however we got the impression she did not believe we did not actually use the items. If not for our first night and our check out experience we would rank the Catalina a 4.5 out of 5. The best features of the hotel are its location and staff.