Well, where do I start? My boyfriend and I had planned a romantic weekend away. We've both passed by the Black Swan Inn many times over the years and were excited about trying this place out.
We arrived on time, and there was no one to greet us or inform us how to check in. There is no front desk and that's fine, but there were not any instructions on how we can check in. The owners texted us before our arrival and we let them know that we would be arriving right on time...3pm. We arrived, but there was a tea party scheduled in the dining room so there was different staff taking care of that. When we asked one of those folks about our reservation and how to check in, they were clueless. We were getting a little impatient since no one knew what to do. Finally, a woman who was working the tea party gave us our room key and informed us it was on the next floor up. That was fine, but it was difficult to see any of the names of the rooms on the brass plaques on each door as it was below waist height and the hallways and rooms are so dimly lit, we had to use the flashlight on our phones to read the room names. We got into our room and noticed that the door does not lock from the outside. It leads into a hallway where there is the bathroom and then another door to the right which did lock and lead into the bedroom. We felt uneasy about our belongings in the bathroom when we were out during the day, due to the fact that anyone can just open that door and decide to use our bathroom. My boyfriend went back down to the car to bring in our bags and there was a knock at the door. I answered and it was Trish, one of the owners. The first thing she said to me was that she was informed by someone running the tea party that we seemed like we were freaking out because of the confusion we experienced when we arrived. I told her we were not freaking out, we just needed to know how to check in and get to our room. She was friendly, but instead of telling me that she was under the impression that we were freaking out, she should have apologized for not being ready for our arrival. She had received confirmation from us that we would be on time, so she dropped the ball from the get-go. She offered to bring up a duraflame log for us since we had a working fireplace in our room. I gladly accepted that.
Once in the room, we tried working the lights. They are sconces on the walls that have a separate switch to turn them on when the power from the light switch on the wall is on. There were no lights in the two coat closets in our room. There was popcorn on the floor in front of the loveseat that was in our room and the fireplace had not been cleaned out, so there was also fire ash on the floor in front of the fireplace, outside of the protective screen. There were a couple of empty plastic wrappers in the top drawer of the dresser.
The bathroom has a nice looking soaking tub, but it's just there for show. No water source to it and no drain hooked up. We were in the honeymoon suite...it would have been romantic to soak in that big tub but no romance there. That bathroom was old and needed repair. There was a hole in the wall where the toilet was attached. The seat cover to the toilet leaned back too far when it was opened as there was no tank. The water source came from somewhere beyond the tiled wall. The grout on the floor in the bathroom was stained and dirty looking. The stall shower needed updating and cleaning. The tile floor in the shower stall was mildew-stained and there was stained caulking around the bottom where the tile met the floor pan. The showerhead was old and barely moved to accommodate my boyfriend's height. There is no working light above the mirror in the bathroom and my boyfriend had to use the flashlight on his cellphone to avoid slicing his neck while shaving. The switch for the exhaust fan was too high for me to reach. This bathroom is just above the outdoor screened patio on the floor below us and I was greeted with the stench of cigarette smoke several times. On their website, under "Policies" it states "no smoking". Why is the porch a designated smoking area??? It should be across the parking lot, at least 50 feet away from the building. So, that means to me that this is NOT a no-smoking facility! There was no information on our very small TV about what channels are available or how to work the TV. We turned it on and there was "no signal"...someone had switched the HDMI cable on the back of the TV to the wrong port. Any other guest may not have known to look at it and plug it into the correct port...there was no way to change the input on the universal remote, either. There was only one nightstand in this room and it was an inconvenience for us since there should be two so that both guests can place whatever they normally need them for, such as charging a cell phone or having a bottle of water. So bad. Ran out of room here....don't waste your money at this terrible inn. read more