My boyfriend and I did not have a great experience at this inn, and found the owners to be completely unaccommodating and overbearing. We arrived on a red-eye flight from the West Coast and, after transferring through Boston, we found ourselves in Nantucket around 10 am. Now, we knew it was too early to check in, but we didn't think it would be a problem to leave our bags in a SECURE place at our hotel. We were wrong. Century House refuses to keep your stuff. Instead, they provide space on their porch, and tell you 15 times that they are not responsible if stuff goes missing. Considering we had our work laptops and camera equipment, we didn't really feel very comfortable leaving our stuff on the porch, especially after being told it wasn't their problem if stuff went missing. So we had to haul it around with us ALL day. When we called at 1:36PM to see if our room was ready, the answer was no. Check is at 2PM. No flexibility whatsoever.
Apart from the ridiculous baggage policy, we were not fond of the 20 minute check in lecture, where we had to hear every single rule (and there are a lot of rules). Keep in mind that we had just gotten off of a red-eye, and the LAST thing we wanted to sit through was this. When we finally escaped (and escaped is what it felt like), we hauled our stuff around for the rest of the day until were were allowed to check in. When we came back (after 2PM of course) to check in, we were greeted by the owner's sister, who wanted to go through the whole check in lecture again. It took five minutes to get her to understand we already knew all of the rules, we had friends waiting for us outside, and we just wanted to drop our bags off in our room. This is, of course, after we waited 10-minutes for her to show up with the key, even though we had called ahead telling her we were 2 minutes away.
The next morning at breakfast, the owner's sister, who was overseeing breakfast, reprimanded some guy next to me for using a glass glass (instead of a plastic glass) for his orange juice because he might break the glass. We are talking about an adult man here, and I'm sure he was fully capable of not breaking the glass. Once we had our oatmeal (that is what breakfast is, oatmeal), it was cold outside, but my boyfriend and I decided to sit outside just so we could enjoy our breakfast in peace. Unfortunately, the owner found us outside, interrupted our breakfast, and asked my boyfriend (who was shaking his leg) if he was cold or had to go to the bathroom. Totally appropriate question to ask a paying guest at your inn.
Upon check-out, we were asked to write a fabulous review on trip advisor. Here is what was fabulous: (1) the house was lovely; (2) our room was clean and adorable; (3) our bed was very comfortable; and (4) the inn is pretty close to town. As for the rest, it wasn't an enjoyable experience. The luggage policy is such an inconvenience (we had to pay another hotel to take our luggage once we checked out) that on that alone, I would not recommend staying here. Add on the obnoxious check-in lecture, the completely over-priced hotel room, and the overbearing owners and staff - we will be staying somewhere else next time. read more