If you don't mind paying $350 per night for nice furniture, have a ball. If you actually want a place that will live up to the proclamations on it's website, go elsewhere. The difference between the Wickwood Inn Experience (website version) and an actual STAY at the Wickwood is ridiculous.
Go to their website (wickwoodinn.com) and read up. Now forget everything you just read. Go stay in Grand Rapids at the Amway Grand. Buy yourself some sweet treats from Starbucks downstairs, eat in their most expensive restaurant, have room service deliver dessert to your room, and save yourself a little money!
I feel I should go into a little more detail so here are some highlights from the website along with how the Wickwood lived up to their advertising:
Website:
"Every evening lush hors d'hoevres are served at six that highlight savories with bold seasonal flavors from around the world, including artisan cheeses and sausages, soup shots, cheese pinwheels, carmelized onion tarts, bruchetta, or shrimp and crab atop crostini." "Every evening at six o'clock, guests gather in our Garden Room and Gazebo for drinks and scrumptious hors d'oeuvres. These may include a Roquefort Pecan Tart, Baked Brie in Phyllo, Salmon Mousse, Smoked Michigan Whitefish, Saucission en Croute, Red Pepper Pesto Tart, Herbed Bruschetta, BBQ Baby Back Ribs, Individual Pizzas, Black Bean Dip and Spicy Tomato Salsa or a Crudite Flower Basket and with various dips."
Reality:
At six o'clock, out came one soup shot per person, a tiny and unremarkable foccacia-type thing for the four of us to share, roughly the size of a Pizza Hut personal pizza and just as imaginative----and a square of cream cheese with some cranberry something or other dumped over the top with a few boxed grocery store crackers. Wow. "lush" could only be meant to describe the person who actually thought this was suitable gourmet fare.
Website:
"Taste surprises continue to appear from dawn until way past dusk." -- "snacks galore" --- "On weekdays, the centerpiece of the buffet might be perfectly ripened berries and other fruit gathered that morning from the local farmers' market, served from Simon Pearce bowls, along with a selection of homemade warm muffins, scones and coffee cake. "
Reality:
REALLY! The berries at breakfast were wonderful. I'll give them that. The selection of "homemade" stuff was a homemade scone, that we were made aware of halfway through our eggs. Although the eggs were good (with sundried tomatoes & asparagus), there just weren't choices that we were made aware of. Husband doesn't particularly like either of the above additions to the eggs and would probably have opted for something else. The baked goods that were there at the start of breakfast consisted of a basket of storebought mass-manufactured sliced bread and some store-bought bagels next to a Sunbeam toaster. Coffee was in the other room. We were never offered more of anything. There were no snacks in our rooms, as proclaimed on the website, and the cookies that were there on our arrival consisted of nickel-sized chocolate chip cookies and a few Russian teacakes that were pretty standard fare in my book. The bedtime snack that was supposed to be some of the best chocolates anywhere in the world, were--in reality- a few common brownies roughly the size of large dice. The bowls of fresh fruit and their own special gorp turned out to be a platter with 5 granny smith apples in less that perfect shape and a deep jar of walnuts mixed with wasabi peas. The only taste surprise for me was that nothing imaginative or spectacular ever appeared. Again, WOW!
Website:
"each room has fresh flowers" "a generous supply of spa products to pamper"
Reality"
No fresh flowers. Spa products were a tiny bottle of hotel shampoo, one of conditioner or lotion...I forget which, a hotel-sized bar of bath soap, and a hotel-sized bar of hand soap.
I will say that our room was beautiful and well-furnished. We got one of the larger rooms and enjoyed the fireplace, floor cushions, and seating area. The bed was comfortable and loaded with pillows.
My problem with the place was simply the discrepancy between what we were led to believe we would be experiencing, and what reality was. It would have been a great experience for under $200. In fact, there was another inn we looked at that was about $150 that had great reviews. I wish I had checked the reviews before we went to the Wickwood. I NEVER would have gone.
If you really want to spend $350 per night, you'd be better off staying at a nice hotel,and folding up 200 crisp one dollar bills into paper airplanes and sailing them out the hotel window to benefit the homeless. read more