If this 47-room newcomer on the edge of SoFi (south of Fifth Street) is self-conscious about its conspicuous lack of glitz and flash, it doesn't show. The low-key property includes the two original 1930s Angler's Hotel wings plus two brand-new structures. The petite pool area feels like a secret—and with only a handful of plush loungers, this is an unlikely locale for any raucous parties. The slim rooms have all the necessary boutique accessories: a massive flat-screen TV, cheeky minibar offerings (eye mask, condoms, Apple headphones), a contemporary palette of taupe and tan, plus some unexpected perks, like clever inset shelving flanking the beds and a balcony off most suites. The ever-helpful staff take care of everything from providing MapQuest instructions to troubleshooting computer misfires. On the ground floor, Maison d'Azur, already a favorite of homesick Europeans desperate for elegant brasserie fare, is perfect for cozying up over cocktails and steak tartare, while prime outdoor tables are buzzy late into the night.

This place is more famous for its beautiful—and overrated—restaurant. The five suites in the Mediterranean villa, on the other hand, are less widely known but altogether a better bet—provided you can snag one. Casa Tua now operates as a private club (Boris Becker and Elle Macpherson are among the founding set), and members get first dibs, so you must reserve as far in advance as possible. It's worth it. The owners, Michele and Leticia Grendene, have lavished extraordinary attention on the rooms, creating deluxe cocoons with overstuffed white sofas, four-poster beds, and lovely, unexpected details—Loro Piana cashmere throws, 200-year-old Chinese chests, '50s Italian chairs. Before you arrive, you fill out a personal amenity list so that your choice of Santa Maria de Novella toiletries is waiting in your glistening, white bathroom (you can buy them and plenty of other things around the house). You also choose grade of sheet, type of flower, scent of candle…it is, after all, "your house."

The Catalina is a rock 'n' roll mod fantasy: There's red shag carpeting everywhere, curvy white furniture, and thumping music in the lobbies and out by the pool. The all-white rooms are large and well equipped, with enveloping beds, stereos, gleaming bathrooms, and a chaise; for a few extra square feet—at a slightly higher price—book a room in the hotel's second building (the onetime Maxine Hotel). Best bonus at this hotel? Private nooks in the common areas, where you can steal away with a cocktail or a book. There are art books to browse in the main lobby's mezzanine, and a semi-private garden with squishy chairs and sofas. The only downside is the service, which is enthusiastic but a bit amateurish.

With its iconic Miami Modern architecture and guests like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, the Fontainebleau created a buzz when it opened in 1954. Now, a three-year renovation has put the 1,500-room beachside behemoth back on the map, with an over-the-top "what recession?" atmosphere and new adjacent towers housing rooms, 11 restaurants, and a $50 million spa. As a one-stop entertainment complex, the resort lives up to its billing—although the service will have to improve to keep up with the number of guests. All the large rooms, which fill four towers, come with 20-inch iMacs (from which you can make restaurant and spa reservations) and very comfortable beds. On-site distractions include the lobby nightclub, Liv; a series of high-end shops; and a gargantuan complex of pools that includes the see-and-be-seen original. Architecture buffs will enjoy the historic Morris Lapidus details—like the bowtie-motif marble floor and the famous staircase to nowhere, which allowed women to make a grand entrance.

You have to keep faith while entering the sterile lobby of this 70-story office-and-residential tower, but once you get upstairs to the real hotel entrance, you find an art lover's nirvana, particularly if you like the voluptuous statues of Fernando Botero. This addition to the international chain, which opened in 2003, is positioned near the Brickell Avenue business district for the convenience of its largely expense-account clientele. There are perks for leisure guests, too: The Sports Club/LA is a 40,000-square-foot facility, the sixth-floor outdoor swimming pool is atmospheric (as long as you don't look down at the parking lots below), and the Splash Spa offers everything from a Turkish steam room to mojito massages (a lime-and-sugar scrub followed by a rub down). The 221 rooms and suites are decorated in the group's handsome, if generic, international style. A good choice is the 750-square-foot Executive Bay Suite, with its gorgeous view of Biscayne Bay. Expect to run into local executives at the popular 14 Thirty Five martini bar and the poolside Bahia lounge.

Much like South Beach's penchant for the beautiful people, this Miami outpost of NYC's landmark Meatpacking District hotel feels more focused on style than substance. Even the scant few fish in the massive aquarium in the hotel's chic lobby appear bored and self-absorbed. The service is friendly if not overly knowledgeable—even basic questions flustered the front-desk staff and managers frequently had to be called in. But everyone is very easy on the eyes. The 334 rooms, too, can feel full of vapid space, maybe because they are among Miami's largest at about 600 square feet: If you like to spread out, this is the place for you. The luxury amenities are all there—400-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets covering ridiculously comfortable beds, iPod docks, flat-screen TVs, and bathrooms with both soaking tubs and showers. The room decor isn't for everyone: hot-pink headboards and couches, slightly risqué black-and-white photos on the wall. The hotel has 195 rooms in the ocean-view category (the higher the floor, the better). Deluxe rooms have "city views," which means you can check out the valet queue and some blah buildings. Where the Gansevoort South irrefutably shines is at the 18th-floor rooftop pool, which looks like a liquid catwalk and lures a style-savvy crowd (there's also a ground-level main pool if you just want to catch rays). The highly touted David Barton Gym attached to the hotel is a Moroccan-themed workout world, which unfortunately even guests have to pay extra to use.

The Hyatt Corporation made a big gamble when it opened the Victor in 2004 as an outpost of hip on sightseer- and weekend cruiser–besieged Ocean Drive, South Beach's original main street. The company manages the property but decided to remain anonymous, so as not to pierce the aura of cool designed by Parisian style icon Jacques Garcia, the man behind the Hôtel Costes in Paris. Garcia has certainly lived up to his end of the bargain: The 89 rooms are plush and lush with red satin headboards; lacquered ebony furniture; and light fixtures that look like crystal jellyfish (continuing a theme from the lobby, where a tank is filled with them). The pool area, with its views right over the beach, is compact but energetic. And while Ocean Drive is becoming slightly more tolerable—the reopening of the Tides up the block helped—as soon as you open your window or step outside, the perpetual spring-break scene interrupts the hotel's contrived cool. Speaking of contrived, the concierge goes by the title of Vibe Manager. But if you want to stay on Ocean—and be just steps from the busiest slice of the beach—this is a good place to do it.

Worlds (well, 20 minutes) away from the mania of South Beach, this serene, stylish property on a private island near the Brickell business district has stunning views over Biscayne Bay, a man-made beach with Balinese daybeds, a soothing 15,000-square-foot spa, and prime restaurants and bars. Decor in the 358 rooms is light and breezy, with an overall color scheme of beige and white and Eastern touches such as bamboo floors and rice-paper screens. The top suites have balconies with wraparound views over the bay. The really top suites, the Oriental and the Mandarin, have, respectively, a private media room and a spa suite as well. (The Oriental also has a kitchen with top-of-the-line equipment christened by the personal chef of the suite's first guest, Luciano Pavarotti.) And the service is sublime.

The One Bal Harbour (formerly the Regent) feels a universe away from the over-the-top nightclub-in-the-lobby atmosphere of its competitors in Miami Beach—and that's exactly how the well-heeled patrons want it. The lobby is hushed and refined, and staff are impeccably professional. Guest rooms are discreet and elegant, with dark polished wood floors, ample workstations, stand alone egg-shaped tubs, and floor-to-ceiling windows (all rooms have a view of either the ocean or the channel leading into the bay). The food stands out throughout the property, from the poolside restaurant (try the chili-crusted fish sandwich with avocado and mango salsa for lunch) to One Bleu, where the lobster with saffron linguini and the crab-crusted grouper are among the highlights. The on-site Guerlain spa is a soothing centerpiece. Beach lovers may prefer the wider expanse of other parts of Miami Beach, and the pool area is rather cramped. Joggers will like the well-lit, clearly marked running path, and shoppers the easy access to one of the best malls in the United States.

Finding a room in Miami under $150 a night can be quite a feat even in the off-season, especially if you want to be anywhere near the water. But you can find one—at least off-season—at the Pelican, a stylish 1940s Ocean Drive hideaway that was revamped by Italian clothing company Diesel in the '90s. (Rooms in high season start at $300, still a great deal.) Each of the hotel's 30 rooms is done with a different theme, using garage sale trash-turned-treasure and recycled bits like shower-curtain rods made from the building's original pipe work. Just be aware that each room is vastly different, and you could find yourself ensconced in a bastion of Southwest kitsch as easily as a calming Scandinavian oasis. The Best Whorehouse glows predictably rouge, and psychedelic '60s throwback Love, Peace, and Leafforest has tree-patterned wallpaper for a bed backboard, fuzzy chairs, and plastic butterflies on the walls. While the vintage furnishings never change, there have been upgrades to the amenities (plasma TVs, Geneva Lab sound systems, iPod docks). The original designer, Magnus Ehrland, is also called in to modernize the themes and keep them from looking stale. The hotel attracts European families, fashion types, and even Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who is said to be partial to Penthouse One. Called the James Bond suite, it has three bedrooms, an oceanfront terrace with a hot tub for eight, and a master bedroom with views of the ocean filtered through a giant aquarium. The hotel has a very good Mediterranean restaurant in the absinthe-green lobby, and outside the staff will set up complimentary beach chairs and umbrellas, which might make up for the lack of a pool.

One of the most significant buildings in the South Beach Art Deco district, this hotel is centered around the area's most beautiful and famous swimming pool—a scallop-edged jewel that was a setting for Esther Williams' aquatic film scenes in the forties and is now the scene of Sunday pool parties. Built in 1940, the 108-room hotel had lost its luster before hotelier André Balazs, owner of the nearby Standard, Los Angeles' Chateau Marmont, and The Mercer in New York City, moved in to restore the Deco style and élan. Cannily, he also lent the place a cool, laid-back feeling that is rare in glitzy South Beach. Now, the redone hotel, with its Old Havana theme—bold colors, rattan and cane furniture, brown-and-ocher terrazzo floors, fluted pillars, and lots of plants and palm trees—is pulling patrons from other hotels down the street. The stylishly eccentric rooms vary enormously; some are frankly on the small side. Why not splash around instead in the tub of the 980-square-foot Esther Williams Suite?

Key Biscayne is barely Miami at all—at least in atmosphere. The island—a bridge span from downtown—is a quiet, moneyed hideout, where starched uniform–sporting nannies wheel their charges along manicured sidewalks. No wonder, then, that the Ritz-Carlton here is equally lush and family-friendly. Set back from the main road, and part of a larger condo development, its 400-plus rooms, many overlooking the ocean, are huge and filled with overstuffed, classic Ritz furniture. There's a roomy spa and several first-class restaurants on the premises, from the rustic Tuscan Cioppino to a Havana-style rum bar overseen by a rum sommelier to a burger lounge on the sand. Of the two pools, the large southern one is for families, and the smaller northern one serves cocktails and loans iPods. The on-site tennis center is a nod to Key Biscayne's obsession with the sport. Given Florida's iffy weather, staying at a Ritz is comforting in hurricane season: If a storm bears down, the hotel will transport all guests (without charge) to another hotel somewhere in Florida to finish out their vacation.

The Ritz-Carlton company spent $200 million to transform the former DiLido Hotel, an Art Moderne landmark built in 1953 at the foot of Lincoln Road, into a showstopper resort that's a bold step away from the Federal-style-and-Oriental-rug look of its sister properties. Doormen in loose shirts and Panama hats welcome visitors into a lobby decorated in mango, cobalt, and chartreuse tones; an enormous wall of backlit convex mirrors is a great effect. The 375 rooms have a vaguely ocean-liner feel, with bold stripes and dark woods. Best are the six Oceanfront Lanai Suites, just a few grains of sand away from the beach. And proof that this Ritz has a sense of humor, there's a poolside "tanning butler" who applies the appropriate lotions to your basking skin. (We just wish the pool area was a bit larger: There's a daily scramble for lounges.)

Nurturing and intimate with just 30 suites, this boutique hotel a few blocks away from the crowds and the beach intends to live up to its name. You enter through a Japanese garden and courtyard filled with bamboo. For further relaxation, there's a full-service spa and a rooftop pool with private cabanas. If you need a personal trainer or a private session of yoga—hell, if you need a Gulfstream jet—the concierge will arrange it. The one-bedroom suites are contemporary and sophisticated, each with a terrace and kitchenette, plus all the toys anyone could desire: espresso machine, 42-inch plasma TV, and deep soaking tub in first-floor rooms. Breakfast is included in the room rate. A soothing alternative to the glamazon hotels lining Collins Avenue.

In a place as devoted to Mammon as Miami, it was bound to happen: an Amanresort. Well, not exactly, but this combination of hotel and residential tower from Adrian Zecha is as gorgeously appointed, as serenely Asian, as quintessentially luxurious as his chain of sumptuous resorts. And as expensive: Rates move well into the four-figure range in high season. Hence the burning question since its opening in 2004: Is it worth it? Perhaps. The place is stunning: While the exterior is Miami Deco (formerly the Dempsey Vanderbilt Hotel, built in the late '30s), inside, it's Shanghai Deco, decorated in brick, bronze, jade, and teak, along with Asian art and artifacts and arrangements of roses as precise as topiaries. The 75 guest rooms and 50 suites carry the Asian stamp as well, with large granite baths, teak floors, and silk coverings—and maybe a few too many pieces of furniture (you can't, for example, tuck the desk chair all the way in). The spa is an oasis with a variety of Asian treatments, and there's an Asian grill restaurant with an open kitchen. The pool area may be the best feature: Three of them, held to varying degrees of temperature, are surrounded by hedged-in seating areas that provide just enough privacy. That's the essential difference here: It's a hotel for grownups, people who aren't interested in parading around the pool or having a party in the lobby. (Here, the socializing is done in a serene courtyard with reflecting pools.) And the service, while not exactly meticulous, may be the best on Miami Beach. So if you're short on patience and long on cash, it's worth coughing it up.

Owner André Balazs needed to offer some enticement to compensate for his hotel's location, on the bay side of South Beach (15 minutes from the sand). Hence, the on-site, all-access spa that occupies the entire third floor with treatment rooms and a unisex hammam (there's a gym on the second floor). The hammam and sauna provide sybaritic pleasure, even if swimsuits dampen the vibe somewhat: Ask the attendant to run a bath for you in one of the steel soaking tubs in the main room. Around the infinity pool is also a lush place to lounge, but only the brave should dip in the waterfall-fed hot tub then dunk straight into the icy plunge pool. As for the 105 smallish, motel-style rooms, the pale wood and white decor are very Zen; there's even an embroidered cover to tuck over the TV if you want to ignore mod cons. If you forget to mute your cell phone in the lobby, the ubiquitous signs requesting guests to keep voices and beeping gizmos hushed will remind you.

When the Viceroy Hotel Group decided to renovate the Tides, its iconic Art Deco hotel (and now the flagship for a new resort brand), in 2007, it entrusted celeb designer Kelly Wearstler, known for ultra-glam hotels like the Viceroy Palm Springs. It seemed like the perfect formula for yet another gilt-and-mirrors SoBe party spot. Instead, Wearstler created a spalike oasis, trading her signature Hollywood Regency glitz for a more mellow, marine-inspired look. Inside is all modern elegance: White driftwood sculptures sit atop mirrored Deco credenzas and faux-zebra rugs cover pale travertine floors. All 45 rooms have oceanfront views. The service is also configured for ultimate relaxation: Personal assistants are available 24/7, leaving you handwritten welcome notes, setting up spa appointments, and sending up popcorn and movies if rain spoils your beach time. And although the hotel occupies prime real estate in South Beach party land, the lack of on-site clubs keeps more unsavory nightlife elements a just-far-enough stumbling distance from the front door.

Tucked in the shadow of the better-known Shore Club, the tiny, five-story Townhouse Hotel is a stylish budget gem: The 67 minimalist rooms may be small, but they've been impeccably designed by India Mahdavi with comfy white beds and chocolate-colored sofas. She's also added some fanciful and useful touches, such as a red beach ball tossed on the bed and exercise machines stashed at the end of the hallways. Best of all, the staff is both helpful and affable (a rarity in Miami’s budget boutique hotels). The free Continental breakfast in the lobby is a plus, too—fresh croissants, muffins, and strong coffee—and though there's no pool (just overstuffed red waterbeds on the roof, plus a garden), the beach is just a two-minute walk away.