Not Exactly Nirvana
By Lisa, 10/12/09
Pros: nice outer appearance; two thick bathrobes in room; fireplace in room; delicious appetizers every evening (pineapple upside-down cake, artisan pizzas, outmeal raisin spice cookies, warm nut crunch clusters); great selection of coffee, tea, cider, cocoa, and water; mini-fridge in room; cozy main cabin; great selection of games, puzzles, and complimentary DVD rentals; the owner that I met seemed very friendly and nice.
Cons: room was pretty small; thermostat wildly fluctuated - went to bed broiling and woke up in the middle of the night freezing. Room had the overpowering scent of air freshener (had to open the door just to keep from getting sick from it). Asked for a folding chair one night and was told it would be at our room in 1 hour; went to bed and still no chair, awoke the next morning to find it propped outside our door - no one even bothered to knock and let us know when it got there. Asked for a log for the fireplace one night, which is supposedly complimentary; it never arrived. On Saturday night, had to listen to two dogs barking constantly (and I mean constantly) for about an hour before I had to get dressed and go outside to find out that it was coming from the inn owners' room. After banging loudly three times on their door with no answer (and just making the dogs bark more), I called the main cabin while standing outside - I could hear the phone ringing inside the main cabin but no one answered. I then found the back door to the kitchen unlocked and walked inside, where I encountered one of the owners, standing within a matter of feet from the phone. I asked him whose dogs were barking, and he went over to his room and finally made them stop. One morning my boyfriend went to the main cabin for breakfast and they were rather dismissive when he asked if he could sit at a particular table (he ended up not being able to sit at his preferred table and left without having breakfast). Every morning a rooster or some other similar creatures makes loud noises for a long time, making it impossible to sleep. The Inn advertises free wireless Internet - it absolutely sucked - took at least 2-3 minutes to even get a connection the first time, then it was dog slow for about 10 minutes (about 2-3 minutes just to a load a single web page), then crapped out and stopped working, at which point it was impossible to reconnect again until the next morning, when it again worked s-l-o-w-l-y for about 10 minutes, then died and couldn't connect again. Not even worth trying to connect at all. Also, I can't directly fault the owners for this, but it would be nice if they could at least try to do something about it when it happens: our first evening we went to the main cabin for a quiet game of Scrabble, and although this one overly-friendly couple came in for a few minutes and had to make some loud comment about our game, they soon left; however, the following evening they were in the main cabin, along with a handful of other guests, and the loud couple proceeded to make loud conversation with another loud couple the entire time we were there (at least an hour). I realize that B&Bs sort of pride themselves on having a more "friendly" atmosphere than your large chain hotels, but "friendly" does not translate into "loud, nosy, thoughtless and rude." Why the owners allow this type of behavior is beyond me.
