Frank M.
Yelp
Where to start? Noisy (our room was an echo chamber), small (a boxy-room with a tiny closet, one small chair, no desk or table..), outdated (the gas 'fireplace' looked used and abused, the small television was pre-flat screen with a limited choice of fuzzy stations) and though clean was in bad shape (light switches broken, the shower door nearly off its hinges). Then it got worse.
We were there for two nights, including New Year's Eve - just us two, a kind of romantic but Covid-conscious get-away, in lieu of our traditional small group of friends cocktails and appetizers NYEve. We understood (or expected) that many venues would be closed, or their operations modified because of the Pandemic, but that was fine with us, as we would be taking extra precautions as well. Overall P-Town had it under control: the downtown was a 'mandatory mask' zone, most stores were closed, and those that were open had made a concerted and often very creative effort to adapt with safety in mind.
Our NYEve dinner was a positive case in point: "Sal's" had taken over another venue and offered what they called a 'pop-up' take out experience that included, on this night, an elaborate box dinner with cocktails, flowers, dessert, and more, around large 'family-style' offerings of creative entrees. We picked up our dinner just after 6 and brought it back to our room and had a kind of picnic on the bed - as there were no chairs, tables, or space for dinner beside the bed. To do this though we had to walk through the lobby of the hotel, which on the main floor is adjacent to all of the rooms (ours was at the back, with a small balcony, off a short hallway that services two other rooms) and pass through a gantlet of six friends (including the manager I believe) who filled the chairs and couches there. They were under control - in terms of noise - and it was relatively early, so the concern for the atmosphere (the spread of water vapor from conversations and laughter) was not enough to dissuade me from walking through the area - though it was concerning and seemed, to me at least, be something the management would discourage, not participate in.
Once we had dinner in the room though, there was a changing of the guard: the friends of the manager left, I believe, and were replaced by several couples, most of whom were obviously drunk and - unless they had been trained for the opera - could not have been louder. Their voices weren't musical however (though they turned a radio in the lobby way up), but hysterical. One woman literally howled for the next 5 hours and when you could make out what she was saying, it was usually something vulgar. Her companion tried to quiet her, but it was no use. Around 9 there were fireworks - right behind the hotel: bottle rockets that exploded near our balcony, over and over. The howling, the blasting, the music; it was so loud that, when we tried to watch TV to drown out their noise, it didn't work. They were louder than the loudest our television would go - and they were in the lobby. We would have liked to go outside at midnight, but that would have meant a likely confrontation, and exposure to their un-masked vocalizations. We felt prisoners in our own room. We called the hotel - our own hotel - but no one picked up.
In a real hotel, management would not have allowed any of this. In a competently run hotel, the shower door would be fixed, the broken light switches repaired, the guests informed of the proper way to conduct themselves at this particular moment in time. All around them businesses were displaying great sensitivity and creativity in regards to the pandemic, but not the Anchor Hotel.
Over $200 a night for a tiny, tattered, noisy room - with a balcony - and an indifferent host. Until this place has been sold, the interior redesigned, and the Pandemic defeated, I'd suggest you look elsewhere if you want to stay the night in this, otherwise, fascinating town.
Postscript: looking over the Yelp info for this 'hotel' I don't see any picture of the kind of room we had: the pics are all of larger, far more spacious rooms. There are also a lot of pics looking down from above at - what I believe - are other properties.
