My husband and I were celebrating our anniversary and we delighted to find an Irish B&B within the distance we were looking. Based on the website, we were anticipating a wonderful weekend. Unfortunately, the owners were not there (they also host trips around the world at various parts of the year, according to the website), and the inn sitter was not very hospitable. Both mornings when there was lively chatter with the other couples there for the weekend around the breakfast table, she interrupted the conversation without so much as an "Excuse me", and took food away without asking if I was done. The Sunday morning everyone was to check out, she broke into the conversation and said that we all needed to check out at 11:00 and needed to pay our bills beforehand. I felt there was a better way to handle this, such as speaking to each couple individually before breakfast. It was very awkward. Being an older house and the weather being very cold while we were there, it was chilly in the downstairs almost all the time. She was not always available to turn the heat up, and when someone did, she was somewhat confrontational.
I've stayed at many B&Bs because I do travel writing, and I've never seen a place that didn't have coffee and/or tea available all the time, and often cookies or some homemade treat. Nothing like that was available, except packaged flavored nuts, chocolate candy bars, soda, bottled water, and small bottles of various alcohol in the room with a note that said it wasn't complimentary. The one evening I asked for a cup of tea because my throat was a little scratchy, the innkeeper sounded as if it was an imposition to fix it. I would have been glad to fix a cup of tea myself, but we were told at check-in that we were not to use the kitchen.
The food was a bit disappointing as well. The second morning was a baked bread pudding dish that was still soggy in parts. While the fresh fruit cup was good both mornings, the meat was a little dry, and so were the biscuits. Additional cups of coffee seemed troublesome for the innkeeper to provide when putting more than one carafe on the table would have been a quick and easy solution.
Considering the cost of the B&B and the promotion on the website, we were very disappointed and will probably not be returning. read more