Hazel Will See You Now: Kimpton Vero Beach Hotel & Spa

The first member of staff you meet at the Kimpton Vero Beach is sitting on the luggage cart. She is a golden retriever called Hazel, her title is Pet Experience Director, and she takes it seriously. Arriving dogs are met as her personal guests, which is a courtesy most hotels do not extend to arriving humans. Behind her is a spa hotel on a barrier island with the Atlantic a few steps away. The thing that makes it unusual is not that it allows dogs. It is that it never once makes you feel it is doing you a favour.

The Setting

The hotel sits at 3500 Ocean Drive, on the barrier island that keeps the Indian River Lagoon from the Atlantic, in the quiet heart of Florida's Treasure Coast. On one side is the ocean and a long pale beach; on the other, a short drive over the bridge, is the old town of Vero Beach, with its arts district and its oak shaded parks along the lagoon.

It is a gentle sort of place, a long way in spirit from Miami and Palm Beach, and that is what makes it so good with a dog. The roads are calm, the lagoon is lined with trails and boardwalks, and the town itself eats outdoors for most of the year, usually with a dog under the table.

The Hotel Itself

The Kimpton Vero Beach is a West Indies inspired beach hotel of 113 rooms and suites, from ocean view rooms to suites of one, two and three bedrooms. The Ocean View rooms each have a private furnished balcony over the water, with stone floors, premium bedding, and in some suites a full kitchen and a separate dining room. Below them, palms frame a heated pool on the edge of the sand, with beach chairs set out on the shore.

There are two restaurants, both looking at the sea. Cobalt is the beachfront dining room, casually elegant inside, with a lounge, an open air patio and fire pits on the oceanfront, and live music on the beach from Wednesday to Saturday through spring, summer and autumn. Heaton's is the outdoor bar and grill by the pool, cooking coastal seafood against the backdrop of the Atlantic, with a firepit for the evenings. The White Orchid Spa is a full service spa open every day. U.S. News and World Report ranked the hotel first among Vero Beach hotels in 2025, and Travel + Leisure has twice placed it among the best in Florida and the country.

The Welcome

Every dog owner knows the feeling, the small apology you make with your body as you cross a hotel lobby, half braced to be told your dog is too big or welcome only in a certain wing. Here you can put that down at the door. Every single room is dog friendly, so there is no set aside annex. There is no weight or size limit, so the big lolloping retrievers so often turned away are exactly as welcome as any lapdog, and the hotel sets no limit on how many dogs come with you. And in a gesture almost unheard of at a spa hotel of this class, your dog stays free.

Under Hazel's watch runs the Pampered Paws Paradise programme. Your dog arrives to a luxury teepee with a plush bed of its own, a Vero Beach bandana in cheerful island colours and a gift bag chosen just for them. In the room there are real food and water bowls, treats and toys on arrival, and a wash and shower area for sandy paws after the beach. The hotel even takes a Polaroid of your dog to display in the lobby for the length of your stay.

What separates a truly dog friendly hotel from a merely permissive one is where the dog is allowed to be, and here your dog goes where you go: into the bar for a nightcap, into the restaurant for dinner, out onto the terrace and through the lounge. It can rest at ease in the room while you take an hour in the spa, and the hotel keeps the number of the emergency vet to hand. That completeness is rare at any hotel, and rarer still at one with a spa and a proper dining room.

Dinner on China

Then there is dinner. The Pampered Pets menu is served across the hotel and in both restaurants, on china, with a bowl of bottled water. It runs from organic chicken breast to Atlantic salmon, ground beef and a filet of beef with gravy, each plated with steamed rice and seasonal vegetables, and if your dog fancies something that is not on it, the kitchen simply asks what they would like. It is one of the best dog menus anywhere and a highlight of our guide to the world's best hotel dog menus, and the filet at the top of it is the most generous plate in that guide. It is the kind of menu that makes a dog owner laugh out loud the first time, and then quietly order the salmon.

A Day Here With Your Dog

Start with the beach. Immediately north of the hotel, the beaches of Indian River Shores welcome dogs on the lead, and the town even permits off lead running at set morning and evening hours with a simple town permit, so it is worth the five minute drive for a proper beach walk. Closer still is the Vero Beach Dog Park, five fenced acres on the Indian River Lagoon with separate areas for small dogs, for older and quieter dogs and for everyone else, plus water and shade, which makes it the safe place for an off lead run.

For a morning walk on the lead, you are spoiled. The Lagoon Greenway gives you around three miles of mulch path and boardwalk along the lagoon, flat, shaded and quiet. The Historic Jungle Trail runs some eight miles of unpaved track through native hammock on the barrier island, best taken early before the heat. Captain Forster Hammock Preserve, in Indian River Shores, is a short trail through oak hammock that ends at the ocean, and because it sits in the Shores the beach end welcomes dogs. For something gentle near the bridge, Riverside Park has grassy fields and easy walking tracks.

You will not go hungry with a dog at your feet. Mulligan's Beach House is an oceanfront seafood spot a few minutes away with a patio where leashed dogs are welcome. Across the bridge, the arts district around 14th Avenue is where the town eats, and it does so happily with dogs: Kilted Mermaid is a wine and beer bar with a dog friendly patio and water bowls on request, Post & Vine is a wine bar the locals bring their dogs to as a matter of course, Armani's Cucina serves Italian in a covered courtyard where a water bowl arrives with the menu, and Azul Mexican Restaurant keeps a side patio for diners with dogs. For breakfast, Beach Bum Bagel has outdoor tables where your dog is welcome. If your dog needs a wash after all that sand, Orchid Island Dog Spa in town handles grooming, and a round the clock emergency animal hospital sits about fifteen minutes away.

Why It Matters

Spa hotels are supposed to be the ones that say no. Quiet corridors, white robes, a dining room with a dress code, and a polite line about pets in the small print. The Kimpton Vero Beach took all of that polish and married it to an unforced, wholehearted love of dogs, in a town that largely feels the same way, and then put a golden retriever in charge of the welcome. Book it, bring your best friend, and spend the entire stay without once apologising for their presence.

Good to Know

Dogs stay on a lead in the bar, the restaurants and the lounge, and if you leave yours in the room, let reception know and make sure it is settled first. The guarded town beaches nearest the hotel are kept for people, which is why Indian River Shores is the beach to know, and off lead running there needs the town permit and keeps to its morning and evening hours.

The Kimpton Vero Beach Hotel & Spa scored a Roch Rank of A+. Read the official Roch Dog review or visit the hotel's website.