I had to cancel my reservation with several weeks notice, and got charged $35 for cancelling. Frankly, that is shocking enough to me to figure I'd best drop a note and warn folks.

I have stayed at the Castle Inn before and was surprised at what a wondeful stay we had again. The hotel was right in the center of everything and the river was beautiful from our balcony. We will return and suggest everyone stay there. Thanks,Susan

My husband and I stayed at the Castle Inn September 2-3, 2006. We arrived late in the afternoon. You have to go directly to the property management site to pick up your keys. They told us that they provided parking behind the Inn. They did, but only 14 spaces. We were told that if their parking lot was full, that we could park in the lot behind their parking lot. Their parking lot was full, so we went to the other "pay" lot. (The fee is waived when you show your Castle Inn dash card.) The attendent at that lot said we could drive around and see if there was an extra space, but he believed they were full. Luckily, we found the last vacant space! If not, we would have had to find another lot some where in Helen.
We were really disappointed when we saw the back door we had to enter to get in the building.It was behind the restaurant that was attached to the Inn. It did not appear safe. Once in the door, you had to walk up two long flights of stairs. The odor was so bad I had to hold my nose to walk through there! It smelled like old, burnt grease (apparently coming from the attached restaurant). You had to punch in a three digit code to enter the door at the top of the stairs. The room was okay, but the windows were so dirty/cloudy that you couldn't see out of them well. We didn't reallize until we got in our room and needed some more towels and coffee creamer/sugar that there was no one on site to get these things for you! The place where we picked up our key closed at 7:00 p.m. We called the number we were given and just got a voice mail. I left a message for them to call because we were not satisfied with our room. They did not call until the next morning. ( We couldn' go to sleep until after the bar with live entertainment closed at 1:00 A.M.!!!!! The music was very loud in our room.) We told the lady that called that morning that we were very disappointed in the Castle Inn and that we felt it was not clearly represented on the internet site. We told her we had not wanted to stay last night and we wanted to cancel our reservation for that night. We were told that the only one that could make that decision was the owner and she was not working that day. I asked for her to call the owner and she said "definitely not". I told her that I had never stayed anywhere that there was no guarantee for custormer satisfaction. She said it was a small business and there was nothing else she could do!

Helen was a little busier and more commercial than I expected. Plus everything closes at 10 pm in the off season. So staying there was not as nice as I had hoped. Our room at the Castle Inn was very nicely decorated and very clean. However, it's not really an Inn, but a vacation rental- meaning that the office where you have to check in is up the street, and there is no room service, and we received no maid service (stayed 2 nights). The location of the Inn is good, but noisy with the only nightlife in town pumping out dated dance music until after midnight.

If we stay overnight in Helen again, I will stay at one of the cheaper, less nice places, and hopefully get some quiet and basic services.