We made it out alive
My wife and I spent 2 nights for our 30th anniversary at the Mt. Washington resort at the end of September 2008. On the first night, we were awoken by the fire alarm at 3am. We spent an hour out in the cold and were not given the same explanation twice by the staff as to why the alarm went off.
On the second day the hotel was evacuated because a construction crew pierced a propane tank. According to one of the construction workers the tank contained over 24,000 lbs of propane and was shooting propane up three feet into the air and we were not told about this for about 1/2 hour. We were gathered in a parking lot for about an hour where we could smell the fumes and would probably not be writing this since the tank that was ruptured was one of 3 in line tanks. Then we were brought down to the Bretton Woods base ski lodge which was closed since spring. While there, they made coffee in the pots that had not been used since closing.. When I took coffee from one of these pots, black chunks came out. They only removed that one pot and did not bother cleaning the others. They opened the bar for alcohol and served the alcohol that had been sitting there since the lodge closed. And yes we had to PAY for drinks. We were there for over 3 hours.
My wife and I bought the fall foliage package which included meals each night. When we went back to the hotel, they were still requiring jackets in the main dining room and were serving the food buffet style. After spending all of that time in the base lodge, I did not feel like taking a shower and dressing for dinner so we went to one of the lounges we were told was serving food. The only food the lounge was serving was appetizers. Then we were told we could order from the room service menu so I ordered a meal for myself but my wife could not eat. Since meals were included, I was told that I did not have to pay for the meal but would still have to pay the 20% tip and the 3% delivery fee. After arguing this, they did remove the charges.
After 2 evacuations in 2 days, I noticed one of their lamps hanging from the carport outside had 3 inches of water in the globe and was continuing to fill up. I told 5 different employees about this and none of them did anything about it.
The room itself was nice except for the fact that the by the time you were done taking a shower, there was 8 inches of water in the tub because the drain didn't work. We were told “this happened at this time of year”. Other couples had no water come from the shower head even though there was plenty of water pressure. Still another couple had lights in their room go on and off for no reason.
I will say that the wait staff was very nice but the rest of the staff made me feel as though I was staying in a used car lot. Hidden fees everywhere, a 20% tip added to every meal, a "hotel amenity” fee and the list goes on. IF you asked for a credit for the inconvenience of the evacuation they gave you a 50% credit, if you didn’t ask, you didn’t get.
In addition to the meals our package also included lift tickets to the top of the quad at Bretton Woods to see the foliage and lunch at the Top of the Quad restaurant. The only problem is that they closed the restaurant a week before our trip and didn’t tell us. It didn’t matter since we were told the lift was not operating any way. Although, if the tank did blow up we would have made it to the top of the quad. When I asked for a credit for this I was told that there was no value to this as stated on the voucher for the free lift. We were also denied our carriage ride which was part of the package because of the evacuation. When I asked for a credit for this they offered $32.00 even though if it were purchased separately you would pay $50.00.
I did get them to raise the credits on a few things but after all was said and done, we ended up paying about $350 for 2 nights of no sleep, 1 dinner and 1 lunch and a story takes this long to tell. Oh what a bargain.
