Last spring I went to Miami for a large electronic music festival they have there every year. The first step is usually to look for plane tickets and figure out \”is this doable\” in terms of making it down there from NYC. I never thought that this year I would discover a place better than some high-end resorts!

The next step, besides putting off buying the weekend pass to the event (which then, the price goes up $30 and you’re kicking yourself you didn’t catch the presale) is finding a place to stay. The year before, which was the first time I went to Miami, I put off finding a place until about 2 weeks before the event. Everything was booked solid.

The first time I went, I waited until there were only two weeks left, and every place I called was fully booked already. I ended up finding a place in Hialeah through an agent. I thought I would be able to walk there from the event, but it ended up being more than a half hour drive and in a bad area of town, so I eventually had to call a cab to get me back to my room.

So this time, I decided not to wait until the last minute (I stilled missed buying my tickets on presale however), especially since my girlfriend was going to go with me. I began looking with two full months left before the event, since I didnat think my girlfriend really needed to see the part of Miami that looked more like Cuba than the well-known resort city.

Even with so much lead time, I was having trouble finding something affordable. An online search of aHotel Miamia kept coming up with rooms that were a minimum of $250 per night, and although I would have loved to treat my girlfriend to a $500/night room, it really wasnat an affordable option.

I searched everything that I could, \”Motel Miami\”, \”Motor Inn\”, \”Resorts Miami\” etc, everything was too high priced (or believe it or not, already booked!). Then I had to stroke of brilliance to search \”Bed and Breakfast Miami\”. To my delight a few searches popped up, one of which had a link to the BandB website, I called the office, they explained how they were setup, I reserved, and the weekend was taken care of. This place we found was not only affordable, it was walking distance to downtown, and to the metro trains, which we needed to catch the airport.

It was a great discovery, and the best thing about the bed and breakfast was the fantastic customer service. Practically at the last minute, I decided to take my brother with us to Miami, so I emailed the Band B to let them know what the situation was and that we would have somebody else staying in the room, probably on the floor or something.

You won’t believe this, but a week before this event, surely they were booked solid, the owner (who we later met in person), emailed back and said, \”we have upgraded you to an apartment suite, glad your brother could make the trip\”. Expecting a substantially larger bill to pay, we were surprised that the BandB hardly charged us $10 more, literally upgrading us to a full apartment with living room, kitchen and 2 bedrooms for free. This kind of customer service only comes from those owner-operated locales that really distinguishes a Bed and Breakfast from corporate chains.

We spent a long day traveling and a longer night partying, and then we were able to sleep well in a fantastic room. When we got up the next morning, we were treated to a great breakfast of cereal, fruit and banana bread, and then we took off for another fun-filled day and night. If you ask me, Bed and Breakfast places are more top of the line than most of those high-priced resorts, and they come with superior customer service at a truly affordable rate.