Katy H.
Yelp
I just returned from a stay at this place and I was so disappointed. I had read through the reviews online, as well as Hotel Mountain Brook (HMB) website, so I thought I knew what to expect, but I was very wrong.
Service was nonexistent. No one was there when I arrived in the pouring rain at 7 PM. A note was left for me with a key to my room. The "hotel" was empty & I couldn't find anyone to answer basic questions like whether there are any places open nearby to get some dinner. I ended up having to go back out in the rain & eventually found an old Grand Union grocery store up the street to purchase sandwich supplies for dinner. I was the only customer in the store, which was unsettling, as was the fact that many of the store's items had expiration dates that had already past. Tannersville is apparently a ghost town on a Wednesday evening.
I was told by my breakfast server that I was the only guest staying at the HMB that night. This management had ONE guest and they couldn't be bothered to show up to check me in? Or meet me the next day to see how everything was going? Or to check me out? I clearly did not matter at all to these people. Once they had my money, they were done with me apparently.
The only employees I ever saw were the breakfast servers (a woman on Thursday & a man on Friday). They were nice enough, but did not introduce themselves and they did not seem to have much information about HMB. My second day there I saw a man behind the front desk with 2 other people and I approached him to ask where the ice machine was (an ice machine was listed on the in-room card). He acted as if my presence was an imposition & could only bring himself to point & tell me the ice machine was "around the corner." I never found it, despite walking around the entire main building, including the upstairs hallways. When I walked back out to the front, the man took my ice bucket, stomped down some stairs, & brought back ice. I don't know who this man was because he never introduced himself to me or engaged in any of the usual niceties, like saying hello.
At 6:15 AM today, while I was sleeping, the fire alarm started going off in my room. I jumped out of bed, put on some shoes, & went outside. No one was there. No employee of the hotel, no fire department, nothing. The alarm eventually turned off. I didn't see any smoke and no one was there to tell me what was going on, so I decided to go back inside and wait until I could finally check out of this abandoned motel.
When I went to check out this morning, again no one was at the front desk or anywhere in the lobby area. I called the number left on the desk twice ("call for service" printed on a sign on the desk), but couldn't reach anyone. I left a voicemail informing them that I was checking out & very unhappy with my stay. No one has responded to the message as of yet.
So the service was terrible & the people I did encounter acted like I was bothering them with my presence. But what caused me the greatest disappointment was not the lack of service; it was the deceptive description of the accommodations.
I stayed in what they call a "superior cabin." The HMB website describes the "cabins" in this way: "Roomy queen size cabins with handcrafted fireplace surrounds, sitting areas, and private porch for outdoor relaxation with fabulous mountain views." This is not true. They are not free-standing cabins. What it is is a motel set-up, with one long building with multiple rooms. Each room's front door opens to the outside. It is just not truthful to call these rooms "cabins"; they are motel rooms, albeit nice motel rooms. My room had a fireplace and whirlpool tub and was decorated in a woodsy theme. It was nice, though the bathroom was tiny (see photo), but it was definitely was not what they described it to be. These rooms share walls with other rooms and my second night there I could hear voices through the wall. I thought I was going to have a cabin to myself, since all HMB's literature describes these rooms as "cabins."
The HMB website should just be ignored. Check-out time is 11 AM, not noon as it says on the website. The WiFi in my room was intermittent, with such spotty service that I gave up trying to use it. There was a small dorm-size refrigerator that even on its highest setting was only slightly cooler than room temperature. There was no HBO on my television. Both the jacuzzi tub and the fireplace are on timers that tick loudly, which makes it feel even more like a cheap motel room.
I paid $378 for 2 nights mid-week in a glorified motel room with zero customer service. I think there are much better deals in the area and I would encourage everyone to look at other places rather than staying here. I was very, very disappointed.