Got Orbs?

Down the road from the Inn at Ormsby Hill is a beautiful graveyard. One entrance sits just beyond the entrance to Hildene, originally built as a summer home by Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary. Robert, the eldest son of the President and his wife, was the only one of their four sons to live to adulthood. Robert Todd Lincoln led a very interesting life. It is quite possible you'll read about him here some day.

 
We had intended to visit Hildene during our not-so-romantic getaway but when we learned from a local shopkeeper that the gardens were designed to look like a stained glass cathedral window we decided to wait until the flowers were in bloom. As I have a thing for gardens and old cathedrals it was a no-brainer. We did drive through though, just for a quick peek.

Before we drove through Hildene we explored the old cemetery. Dellwood Cemetery does not have a web page that I could find, but I will have more about it in a future post.

Dellwood has many old graves, including those of Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers and a woman who died during the Titanic tragedy. 

I know what you're thinking. What does any of this have to do with orbs?

I have a friend who warned me once that ghosts like me and I needed to be careful because they liked to follow me home. Interesting, I thought. 

I like to take pictures of places purported to be haunted and check them out for orbs or any other kind of proof (if you believe in that sort of thing). I'll be posting what I find in future. During this trip I took copious amounts of pictures everywhere we went, including the inn where we were staying. I got very excited when viewing the pictures and short videos from day one because I saw something bright flying through the darkness of the downstairs. Upon closer inspection I decided it was some kind of insect because I was pretty certain I could see wings fluttering. The pictures were equally disappointing. 

When we returned from our travels, which included the graveyard, I walked through the inn and took another set of 150 or so pictures. The next day we visited another graveyard (among other places, I am not that morbidly-focused) and returned to the inn to change for dinner. Before going out I took another goodly amount of pictures of the inn, including some of the empty rooms, and when we returned from dinner I took more pictures of our room. (Yes, I do drive my husband crazy at times, but to be fair he was napping while I was picturing so I was being considerate.)

There were no orbs in any of the over 500 pictures I took of the inn. (It's a digital, no worries.)

With one exception.

Our room.

There were quite a few pictures, below are some of the more noticeable ones.

So who followed me "home" this time?

Guess We'll Never Be Invited Back

First, as a writer I always keep a pen and paper handy not to mention ye olde laptop. I am also a pretty honest person and have no wish to bend the truth to cause someone grief.

When we went on our romantic break I dutifully took notes the entire time because I had intended to blog about the trip and was hoping to get some cool stuff and an awesome inn to write about, but when the trip descended into disappointment it was not meant to be. The trip was not a total loss. I did get some cool stuff, some of which was in the inn. (Yes, I know you're shocked. This place has been around since 1764 and I am a huge history buff. Hopefully it will survive the current ownership ....) 

My husband was still upset over the disappointing trip and decided to write up a short comment and post it on a review site. He is a man of few words and this is what he wrote:

I chose this Inn due to the fact that it was listed on the Select Registry and my wife and I had a gift certificate to apply. It was a romantic getaway that we normally would not have the necessary funds to experience if it was not for the gift certificate. We accept some responsibility due to the fact that we had not read the fine print prior to booking (which said to let the inn we were staying at know that we had a gift certificate when booking), but due to the stringent cancellation policy of this property we had no viable options other than losing our substantial deposit. In trying to work with the innkeepers to come up with an amiable solution we experienced what I can only call poor and inflexible customer service and the stay cost us significantly more than we had budgeted for.

The remainder of the stay was less than welcoming. Neither my wife nor I were treated with the comfort and hospitality expected of such a highly rated private Inn. I can agree that the property itself was beautiful and well maintained, but the experience with the Inn Keepers put a damper on the weekend.

Unlike moi he did not go into detail as to the specifics. He also gave the inn high marks in three of the six categories, and not so bad marks in one other. The worst was for customer service and the other not so good one was for value.

Mr. Innkeeper responded, names withheld to be nice and polite to all concerned:

Regretfully, this couple has not explained correctly what transpired.

Wife spoke with Mrs. Innkeeper over the phone on the morning of their day of arrival. They had reserved in a three-night stay on a special that we were running – using their credit card as a 50% deposit. She was calling because she wanted to use a Select Registry gift certificate for her stay. Mrs. Innkeeper explained that we should have been made aware of their Select Registry gift certificate at time of booking (as is noted on the gift certificate). Had we known at that time, we could have explained that they may use their gift certificate, but not also receive the special discounted package that they requested. Mrs. Innkeeper explained that we do not receive the face value of the gift certificate, thus we note on our promotions that one cannot use a third-party gift certificate. She told Mrs. Innkeeper to keep the reservation as booked, which we did.

At check-in with Mr. Innkeeper, Wife asked him to explain this to Husband. Mr. Innkeeper did so, and Husband made the decision to use the gift certificate and not participate in the promotion. Therefore, we took off the promotion rate, charged them the regular rate of stay, and applied the gift certificate. This consumed nearly all of the gift certificate value. The amount that was still left on the gift certificate was noted on the gift certificate, following SR directions, and given back to them that evening. Thus, even though they did not make us aware of their SE gift certificate when booking their reservation, we did honor it and applied it to their stay.

We feel our service was excellent. However, they feel otherwise because they would have liked us to take responsibility for their actions/mistakes. This, to us, does not measure up to poor service. We make every effort to be fair, and we hope it is clear that we cannot give a special rate, and then also accept less than the full payment.

So, let's break this down, shall we?

>> Regretfully, this couple has not explained correctly what transpired.Wife spoke with Mrs. Innkeeper over the phone on the morning of their day of arrival. They had reserved in a three-night stay on a special that we were running – using their credit card as a 50% deposit. She was calling because she wanted to use a Select Registry gift certificate for her stay. Mrs. Innkeeper explained that we should have been made aware of their Select Registry gift certificate at time of booking (as is noted on the gift certificate). Had we known at that time, we could have explained that they may use their gift certificate, but not also receive the special discounted package that they requested. Mrs. Innkeeper explained that we do not receive the face value of the gift certificate, thus we note on our promotions that one cannot use a third-party gift certificate. She told Mrs. Innkeeper to keep the reservation as booked, which we did.

Mrs. Innkeeper was not as pleasant on the phone as Mr. Innkeeper implies in his response. She was very abrupt and her explanation was exactly as I related it. I should know because I was one of the parties actually participating in the conversation. As Mr. Innkeeper was not a party to the conversation I am fairly certain that he is not an authority on what was said between his wife and I. I was also present at every subsequent conversation. Here is my problem with what Mr. Innkeeper refers to as a 'third-party gift certificate'. The Select Registry program is a network of unique and highly rated inns, and in fact their website states:

"For many years, the symbol of the Association was a lit lantern, symbolizing "the Shining Light of Hospitality." Today, this value continues to be an essential component of who we are. In an increasingly impersonal world, the "personal touch" of a welcoming innkeeper is often what sets apart a lodging experience, and, in conjunction with comfort, luxury and quality, are what our properties are known most for. Whether it is the personal greeting by the owner/innkeeper, a convivial meal, solicitous meeting of special needs, or passing along the association directory as a gift to a new friend-quality and hospitality ultimately continue to define the concept of "traveling the Select Registry way.""

If an inn chooses to participate in this program they should make every effort to ensure that the guests who come to them by way of this program are treated well, as with any guests. Treating your guests well the first time they stay with you will not only translate into repeat business, but also in potential new business due to the good experience your guests have. If you do not get full value for the gift certificate because that is the cost to you of participating in the program, you should not use this as a way of penalizing your guests. This is simply common sense. We did not get a discount on the gift certificate, nor did the people who paid for it. This nonsense of getting a discount on a discount is surreal. That is like getting a gift card and when you try to use it the establishment says you can only use it on full price items because they have to pay a small percentage to participate in the gift card program. I told Mrs. Innkeeper to keep the reservation as is because this is their cancellation policy:

Advance Deposit Policy: To confirm reservations, a deposit (per room within seven days of booking) of one night's lodging is required for one and two night stays. A deposit of 50% is required for stays of three nights or longer. Deposits will be forfeited if a guest arrives after the confirmed arrival date or departs before the final day of the reservations. When given at least ten days' notice of cancellation, we will refund the deposit less a $35 per-room processing fee. If less than ten days' notice is given, deposit may be used toward another visit within six months, provided we can rebook the cancelled reservation.

So it was either lose our deposit or just go. Since the inn was not fully booked the chances of their rebooking were pretty slim.

>> At check-in with Mr. Innkeeper, Wife asked him to explain this to Husband. Mr. Innkeeper did so, and Husband made the decision to use the gift certificate and not participate in the promotion. Therefore, we took off the promotion rate, charged them the regular rate of stay, and applied the gift certificate. This consumed nearly all of the gift certificate value. The amount that was still left on the gift certificate was noted on the gift certificate, following SR directions, and given back to them that evening. Thus, even though they did not make us aware of their SE gift certificate when booking their reservation, we did honor it and applied it to their stay.

What was missing from this is that my husband asked him if he could reverse the credit card charge, apply the entire gift certificate, and we would pay the balance of the now full price room. Mr. Innkeeper refused, most ungraciously. His behavior following the refusal was also most ungracious. This was the root cause of our dissatisfaction.

>> We feel our service was excellent. However, they feel otherwise because they would have liked us to take responsibility for their actions/mistakes. This, to us, does not measure up to poor service. We make every effort to be fair, and we hope it is clear that we cannot give a special rate, and then also accept less than the full payment.

We took responsibility for our "mistake". I guess reading comprehension is not one of Mr. Innkeeper's strong suits. Yes, I am straying into snarky territory but my ire is reawakened by Mr. Innkeeper's not so gracious comments. They made no effort to be fair, which is a strange description of the situation because it was not a matter of being fair, unless refusing to discuss or explain the reason for the credit card adjustment is their definition of 'being fair'.

And dear Mr. Innkeeper, making us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome during our stay does not qualify as excellent service.  I find it to be very indicative of the attitude of the innkeepers that they did not address this part of my husband's comments: "The remainder of the stay was less than welcoming. Neither my wife nor I were treated with the comfort and hospitality expected of such a highly rated private Inn."  Perhaps that is tacit confirmation that we were indeed treated as if we were there on sufferance during our stay. Unless making your guests feel uncomfortable and unwelcome is your definition of excellent service ...

And implying that we wanted you to accept "less than full payment" is also misleading. We never ever said anything of the kind. Your convoluted notion of how the Select Registry gift certificates should work needs to be reevaluated in my very humble opinion.

I will not reply to Mr. Innkeeper on the review site. It is very clear from his reply that he accepts no responsibility whatsoever for our less than stellar experience and could care less if we (or our many many friends and relatives and their many many friends and relatives) patronise their establishment (again). I have no desire to get into one of those p* contests with someone so single-minded and after this post I am done with it. I doubt he'll  ever read this but even if he does I do not think it will make much of a difference. We were 100% wrong and he was 100% right. Best to avoid poeple like that my daddy always said.

If I were said innkeeper I would have reached out to my disappointed guests, regardless of fault, and offered to smooth the waters. But having gone back and re-read his responses to negative comments it is always the guest that was in the wrong and not the innkeepers. His establishment and everything it has to offer does not warrant such selectiveness.

You can chalk this next comment up to my (increasingly) jaded observations on how things work. I find it interesting and highly suspect that a glowing review mimicking the title of my husband's was posted the day after ours. From our experiences with the innkeepers and having read the reviews and comments, I have no doubt that there are certain folks (aka 'friends') who rush to their defense (with prompting I would bet) to make the complainers look bad. I am happy that the innkeepers have such friends at their disposal, but turning a blind eye to dissatisfied customers is not doing them any favors. Kind of like parents who blame the teacher when their child acts out in class ...

And in all of our travels throughout the years, this is the first time we have ever felt compelled to write a negative review about a place we have stayed at.

We unhappy guests are a surly lot, are we not?

How (Not) to Support Your Local Economy

So my alter ego was off to a romantic holiday with hubby at an historic Inn in beautiful Vermont.

Or not.

Everything was all set. Car was packed, cat babysitter lined up, we even went to bed at a decent hour.

On the way we took a wrong turn but the GPS handled it with her usual aplomb and in fact re-routed us on a road that took us over (and under) a covered bridge. Covered bridges are cool. This particular bridge is called the Henry Bridge, and the cool factor went way up as we crossed the bridge near dusk. I took some pictures but they did not come out as good as the pictures in the link so check them out.

We had long discussed spending a romantic weekend at an inn but we'd never gotten around to it, and when we received a generous Select Registry gift certificate as a wedding gift we thought it was meant to be sooner rather than later as the old finances were still suffering from recent wedding expenses. (The family who gave it to us did not know we'd wanted to do this.)   

My sweet darling husband decided to take advantage of a long holiday weekend and plan the trip as a surprise. He searched for nearby inns and found one that looked nice and was within our budget. Even better, they had a special package where the third night would be half price, plus the special came with a bottle of champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries and coupons for discounts at local businesses. He decided to do the special because with our gift certificate the whole stay would have come to about $100.00 out of pocket, well within our budget. Since our honeymoon had been pretty disappointing (but we had each other on the trip so we managed!) we thought this would be a nice, romantic way to make up for that.

When my husband booked the trip he used his credit card for the deposit, which was $330.00. He was not sure how the gift certificate would work but he assumed the innkeepers would sort that out as they are long-time members of Select Registry (and proudly displayed the associated plaques at their front entrance) and were probably used to dealing with them. 

Well, here is where we made our first mistake. Tucked behind the gift certificate was a thin piece of see-through paper with a bunch of information, among it a line item that said we should let the inn know we had a gift certificate. We found this the night before we were to leave. Thinking that a gift certificate is a gift certificate we thought okay, well hopefully there will be no issue but just in case I decided to call the inn in the morning (it was too late to call that night). I have never had to call Macy's in advance to let them know I was coming in to shop with a gift certificate, but I understand that everyone is different.   

I also did some searching on the Internet about the gift certificates and the inn we were going to stay at but had no luck. I did, however, discover that many people who stayed there thought the inn was beautiful but the innkeepers not so much. And of course once I started reading the reviews I had to read them all. Ouch. One travel site had a total of 127 reviews to date, approximately 25% of which were terrible to average. The majority of complaints were about the innkeepers and their lack of innkeeper social skills. Uh oh, I thought, this can't be good, but I decided to keep an open mind. We're pretty easy going guests, we keep the volume low on the t.v., tiptoe quietly through hallways when we return late, re-use our towels, and keep our stuff neatly arranged so as not to look like class-less piggies who trash hotel rooms.

And yes, between us we have stayed in many different types of lodging, both in the U.S. and Europe, and while not every experience was totally awesome we've never had one that made us say we'll never stay at this place again.  

I called the inn the next morning and spoke with a woman who seemed surprised that the phone was ringing at 8 a.m. You may be thinking that this is early but since their website says that a hot breakfast is served at 9 and a buffet from 8 - 10 I thought it was safe to call then. The woman answered with an irritated 'hello' so I thought perhaps I dialed the wrong number and meekly asked if this was the Inn at Ormsby Hill. She said yes, and I proceeded to apologetically explain about the gift certificate. There was no discussion at first. She was very insistent that we could not use the gift certificate at all. My heart sank because I know my husband had not budgeted for an almost $700 stay. She then said well maybe we can apply the gift certificate to the balance. I said okay, I will pass that along.

A few minutes later she called me back, this time identifying herself as the owner, and said that they could not take the gift certificate at all because we had gotten a package. I asked why (and the whole time I heard a man coaching her in the background whom I assumed was her husband) and she said because they (the inn) did not get full value for the gift certificate so letting us use it would be like getting a discount on a discount. (This means that as participants in the Select Registry program they forfeit a small percentage of the value of the gift certificate to be in the program. I know this because I called SR to get the scoop. IMVHO this is too bad for them. They chose to participate and that is simply a cost of doing business. If they had not been a Select Registry inn we would never have stayed there and their income for that room from us would have been goose eggs. I should also mention that the inn was not fully booked.) It was early in the morning so my brain just replied um, okay, and she went on to say we could use it if we paid full price. I said um okay once more because she was talking so fast I lost her.

We got to the inn around 6:30 p.m. and the innkeeper gave us a very rushed rundown of things then showed us to our room. It was small but looked cozy. On the bed was the bottle of champagne and the strawberries, as well as the discount coupons. Almost immediately he asked us what we wanted to do and we asked him to explain again. The bottom line was that we could pay full price for the three nights and they would take the gift certificate, or we could get the package and not use the gift certificate. My husband said then you'll reverse the credit card charge and apply the certificate and we pay the difference, right? And the innkeeper said no, we cannot do that, we'll just apply your balance to the gift certificate and make a note on it of how much is left. He was very firm. And after having read the reviews describing various negative experiences with this man plus the inn's very stringent cancellation policy, we knew we were stuck, especially since we were going to be there for three nights. 

Either way the romantic getaway was going to cost a lot more than we'd planned for. If we'd known that we would not have stayed there.

We decided to go with the full price option. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, upon this decision our gracious host scooped up the champagne and strawberries, then grabbed the coupons as well. His demeanor was abrupt and irritated, and after grabbing up the extras he quickly left the room. We felt humiliated and a lot poorer.

Now, we do not drink and I don't like strawberries so that was no great loss. But he took the coupons! I mean, seriously dude! What a way to show support for your fellow business people! I was kind of shocked. I still am. (And now I wholeheartedly agree with the negative reviews of the lack of innkeeper skills displayed by this innkeeper.) 

Here's why. First, we take full responsibility for not reading the fine print. However, anyone possessing an ounce of good customer service skills would have tried to make the best of the situation for both parties. After all, I am sure that the innkeepers would love to have repeat customers and positive reviews. Best case for us he could have reversed the credit card charges and applied the full value of the gift certificate, or on his part let us keep the package and still use the gift certificate. We would still have paid more but not nearly as much as we ended up paying. He would not even consider this. 

Second, as we were now paying full price leaving the champagne and strawberries would not have dented his bottom line one bit, regardless of whether or not we drank (and the innkeeper did not know this). It would have been a gracious gesture from a gracious host. This place is very expensive, and he knew that we wanted to use the gift certificate and were disappointed when things did not work out. Way to make an effort!

And third, taking the freaking coupons! Wow, I am still stunned by this. The area we stayed in is surrounded by a few big ski resorts. As everyone knows, snow has been pretty absent this year and the local economy is suffering. For a holiday weekend and winter school break the area, which also has shopping outlets, was pretty dead. Here are two people visiting your beautiful area, and knowing that we are now paying more for our visit than we planned means less money to spend in your area, well, sorry but that was petty and mean. Petty in attitude and mean to your fellow business people because you robbed them of a potential sale. Coupons should not be part of a package, they should be given to ALL of your guests to help support the local economy if you have access to them. 

Sadly that was not the end of the disappointments. We decided to make the best of it and aside from eating (cheaply :) ) do fun free stuff (I will dutifully report on that later as well as some oddness in our room). Breakfast would be easy enough because our stay included breakfast. Breakfast of course had a few rules. Mrs. Innkeeper is purported to be an accomplished chef and makes a hot breakfast for the guests, provided you arrive promptly at 9 a.m. and sign up by 8 p.m. the evening before. Otherwise there is a buffet from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. And if there are not a lot of guests then there is no buffet and you don't have to sign up the night before. Plus there is only one selection, so take it or leave it. Got that?

The choice for Monday's breakfast was not that appealing so we decided to do the buffet. The next morning we walked into the dining room around 9:20 a.m. and there were about 14 people seated and eating. A woman (whom we found out later was Mrs. Innkeeper) was busily flitting from guest to guest cheerfully asking if anyone needed more coffee and how was everything? She looked up at us and said not a word. No hi there, good morning, have a seat, here's the coffee, how are you, welcome. Just a look. A long look. And then we were ignored. Wow, way to make the new guests feel uncomfortable and awkward. We wanted to leave but since the budget plan was blown to bits we stayed hoping the buffet would tide us over for a good portion of the morning.

The buffet turned out to be three different kinds of cold cereal, pound cake, fruit salad that was homemade but turning brown, and stale English muffins. I opted for a toasted stale muffin, hubby had pound cake and a muffin. After we toasted the muffins (one toaster and two muffins, so you do the time period), got some orange juice and sat down at the communal table, Mr. Innkeeper came out and greeted us. To his credit he offered us the breakfast selection as there was some left but we declined with thanks.
  
We continued to feel awkward during breakfast. None of the other guests spoke to us other than a quick nod in our direction. Perhaps we were being shunned because we did not partake of the hot breakfast prepared by Mrs. Innkeeper. Perhaps Mrs. Innkeeper thought we'd signed up for her culinary morning repast and had dared to be late. Oh well, we're very nice people so it was their loss.

After the gift certificate fiasco the breakfast snubbing ruined any chance of redeeming the rocky start. We really did want to just go home at that point. It was that uncomfortable, trust me. We ate quickly and left the inn to go do stuff.  

We decided to try the hot breakfast the next morning. The folks at this seating were very nice. We started with a lemon poppy seed pound cake that was okay (although I was still picking poppy seeds out of my teeth two hours later), the pears I passed to my husband (not a pear person), and the French toast (described by the host as Vermont bread pudding) was inedible. It was soggy and very sweet and just bad with an overwhelming maple taste and smell. A teaspoonful of melting ice cream on top was about all I could manage after sampling it. Two pieces of bacon on the plate were so burnt the taste was non-existent. The man next to me said he ate the soggy stuff to be polite. I was not so polite because if I had eaten the whole sickly sweet mess I would have suffered from a tummy ache the rest of the day. I was not the only one who did not finish. To be fair my husband didn't think it was bad and ate his, but declined to eat mine because it was too sweet. I guess I am not much of a foodie.

Luckily I had crackers in the car to tide me over until lunch.

About the inn itself. Very old, and borderline creepy. I have no problem with creepy, I am a writer of creepy stuff. This creepy was of a different sort. The inn was decorated with Americana, some of which were those dolls that always seem to be possessed in horror movies. Not so bad during the day but a wittle scarwy in the dim light of the evening.

And there were rabbits everywhere, in pictures and as decorations. (I would not have been surprised to see the Rabbit of Caerbannog pop out from around a corner.) In each room there was an Etch-a-Sketch, Slinky, and rubber duckies. Oh, and an embroidered pillow that said 'Believe in Magic'. The toys were so out of place they made the creep factor go off the scale. And there was no magic happening in that place, believe me. Just creepiness.

We never felt welcome and when we were there we stayed in our room. The common areas to relax in were shut down at 9 anyway so we really had no choice as we got back from dinner shortly before then. As I said the room was small but cozy, although not very comfy for relaxing. The bed was very high and awkward to get on. (Other rooms we saw had bed steps but ours did not. Perhaps they were also part of the package ....) The flat screen t.v. was about the size of my laptop screen so when you are lying in bed you could not really see the picture very well. And while the couch is closer to the t.v. it is at such an angle that you cannot see the picture at all unless you are hunched on one end. And no, it does not move, it was flush mounted to the wall.

We really did feel as if we were there on sufferance and had to be very careful that we didn't mess anything up. For example, there was a black towel in the bathroom you were supposed to use for removing your makeup (yes, they use a linen service, we saw the truck there one morning). I admit I am lazy and often do not remove the very minimal makeup I wear before going to bed, but I did make an effort. It did not all come off so I ended up covering my pillow with my own towel each night to keep the pillow clean. One of the reviews mentioned charges for 'soiled linens' so I did not want to cost us more money than we were already paying.

The second morning I spoke to Mr. Innkeeper and let him know that we would be leaving early the next morning as we had to go back to work. I wanted to let him know early so they would not plan on us for breakfast, plus we had a full day and wanted to get out and about as quickly as possible. He directed me toward his wife who was in the office. There was another woman before me checking out. That went pretty quickly until the subject of dogs came up. Then I was toast. I had to stand there for almost 15 minutes while the hostess (with some back and forth from the guest) discussed her dogs, her new one and the one that had passed. I am an animal lover so I have no issue with folks who love theirs, but, and you knew that was coming, to leave me standing there so long without an oh sorry, be right with you or any acknowledgement while you discuss your dogs? You guessed it, poor customer service skills.

On the second afternoon I went out to take pictures of the outside of the inn and the surroundings. Mr. Innkeeper was outside as well fetching firewood. I waved hello and my gracious host looked right at me and kept going with nary a wave or bye-your-leave. I am pretty sure I left my cloak of invisibility home but maybe I packed it by mistake.

The last bit of fun came when we got the final bill. Although their prices are plainly listed on their website:

All ten exceptional guest chambers feature fireplaces,
canopy beds and luxurious private baths with Jacuzzis for two.

	Midweek	Weekends	Peak Periods10/5,6,7,8 - 10/11,12,13,14 - 10/19,20
	$390	$425	$535
	$330	$365	$435
	$305	$340	$410
	$250	$285	$360
	$250	$285	$360
	$250	$285	$360
	$250	$285	$360
	$205	$240	$345
	$205	$240	$345
	$205	$240	$345

. . . we were charged the weekend price for Monday. Granted it was a holiday but nowhere on their site does it say that President's Day is considered a weekend day. We didn't bother to argue. We will simply never stay at this place again, especially when there are so many other lovely inns in the immediate area that we can stay at. And of course we'll check the reviews first!

It was not all bad. The surrounding area was very nice and we will be back. The Inn has some very nice architectural elements that are very lovely. Beautiful fireplaces, wood ceiling beams, curved walls, a neat old tree in the backyard.

Bottom line we will never stay here again (yes, I know I am repeating myself) nor will we recommend this place to anyone. When I read the glowing reviews given by folks about the innkeepers I wonder what we did wrong. Were we shunned because we had a gift certificate? Kind of like the scholarship kids who go to a rich preppy school? Maybe we were not the sort of people they prefer to cater to. We are normal, simple, college-educated (grad school) folks with decent jobs and both of us are fairly intelligent. We come from good families and own our own home. We're neat and clean and shower daily. We are good guests and do not party and make a ruckus. And yes, I do know about customer service skills because I ran my own business for almost twenty years. (I started young.)

They have written this about themselves on one of the travel sites:

"Our warm hospitality, attention to the smallest of details and countless romantic amenities are what separates us from other Inns and Bed and Breakfasts in Manchester, Vermont and beyond ."

Maybe they are originally from Antarctica so they have a different definition of warmth. Or maybe we just weren't the right kind of people they want as guests. The magazines they left in the room were a bit 'snooty'. (Not a judgement, just an observation.)

They have a journal book in each room to write notes about your stay. We passed but when flipping though it I found this, which made me giggle:

So maybe we're not inn people.

Then again, maybe the innkeepers aren't either.