I had booked a room at the Middleton Inn for my husband’s birthday, we had reservations at the Comfort Suites but a co-worker of my husband had said that we really needed to stay at the Middleton Inn. It was really beautiful, the rooms were wonderful and it was peaceful and quite. So, I changed reservations and made reservations with the Middleton Inn instead. I made the reservation back in September and according to the site since I was making them so early I got the “early bird rate” of $159.20 a night. It said we would get a wooded/courtyard view king room. The photo's were lovely.
We arrived on November 9, 2012, we pulled off the main road and into a beautiful dirt road that passed the stables on the right and within a few minutes had arrived at the reservation desk. We went inside and was greeted by two desk attendants and we checked in. The lady gave me the keys to the room, we were in room 311 and a map. She briefly went over where we were on the map, circled the Lake House Conference center, the Lodge, and of course the building that we were in. She gave us information on the Middleton Plantation and explained that they had a “healthy” breakfast. She then told us about the lodge serving wine, beer and cheese between 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM and that a restaurant was on the plantation but reservations were needed to eat there.
My husband and I got back in our car and proceeded to our building that our lovely room was in. We parked and got out to look for the room, our first impression of the building was not good. The dark black boards and the brown walls made the place resemble a structure from a scary movie, but we were here and we knew the room we had reserved would be great. After all, the photo’s on the web were spectacular. We started at the end of the building, around room 324 I believe and started the search for our room, we had only been told it was in this building. We went all the way to the end which was room 313. Oh, my! Where is room 311? We were after all at the end of the building and from there the numbers went up. My husband walked down a flight of stairs at the end of room 313 and it appeared that the only thing there was a wooded path for a nature walk, he told me he would go back to the reservation desk and ask where the room was, because we had searched for about fifteen minutes looking for 311. Just as he began to walk off I decided I would take a look below as well. When I got the nature path entrance I turned and looked at the building and on the bottom was a black door, on a solid black wall tucked under room 313. I indeed had found the basement to the building and there was our glorious room 311. I called to my husband and told him that I had found the room and laughing I told him it was in the basement.
We pulled our car to the tiny parking lot that was next to the nature path and unlocked the room and proceeded to go inside. Right upon entering I noticed that this room was not like what I had seen on the web pages that I had been shown when I made the reservation. This room was very similar but it was a lot smaller. As soon as we walked in the king size bed was on the left it was next to the shuttered windows that spanned the entire length of the room, which looked out at the woods. At the end of the room sat the fireplace and in the right corner on a very small shelf was an old black TV, from the appearance of it that TV was manufactured in the 80’s. At the end of the bed on the left next to the windows was a couple of the chairs that is shown on the website but they sat very close to the edge of the bed. On the right was a small table and chair, and past that was the tiled bathroom, the small fridge and of course the closet and a couple of drawers.
I looked around and I thought, you have got to be kidding me. This is what I paid for? This is not what was shown on the web site at all. The bedspread had some sort of stain on it, from the looks of it someone had just a little too much fun on the bed and the stain did not come out! The braided rug that was in the floor was dirty and stained as well. The walls next to the door had some sort of brown smear on it and the paint job was well, shall we say, looked like a four year old had did it. You could tell where they had painted the wall all the way to the ceiling and the roller hit the ceiling and they didn’t bother to fix the mess. The bathroom walls were not any better, the walls were concrete and of course concrete is gray. They had attempted to paint the walls, but one coat will not cover concrete and the gray showed through and once again the paint looked like a child had did it. The tub and shower was unique to say the least, the black grout which really looked like mold really made me want to sit in it and take a long hot bath. NOT! There was also dirt on the wall next to the tub.
We left the room and went back to the registration desk and to talk to the ladies that had checked us in. We told them we were not happy with the room, that it was dirty and stained and it felt as if we were in a basement. Actually my first comment was that they had put us in the basement, and Katherine (the front desk supervisor) said “it’s not a basement, it’s a wooded view room”. I told her no, it’s a basement. My husband asked if they could move us to another room. She said that we had a couple of choices, 1: we could move to a room that had twin beds in it, or 2: she could put us in a Grand Room for a cost of $260.00 a night. Well, number one, when I made the reservation I thought I was getting a grand room or one similar to what was shown on the web and since I booked so far in advance and got the “good rate” why should I pay an extra $100.00 for something I thought I was getting to start with? We decided not to “upgrade”. We went to dinner, out in town, which is only like five miles away so it’s not that secluded and when we came back we noticed that someone had been in our room. You might ask “How do you know that?” Well, we knew that because a bottle of sparkling wine was on the table next to the door and a note that said “welcome to the inn, we hope you enjoy your stay, Thanks, Katherine”. Like a bottle of sparkling wine is going to make the stains and brown smear go away! It might if I drank the whole bottle myself!
That night we went to bed and as soon as I laid down I could feel cold air, it was 43 degrees out side and I told my husband that I could feel cold air coming from somewhere. He got up and walked over to the door which is right beside the bed because the room is very small and put his hand up at the door frame. There is cold air coming in from around the door, all around the door. He opened it up and there is not one single piece of weather stripping around the door. Not one. Then as we were first checking the room out next to the closet is this door that has a lock on it, no knob just a lock. It’s made out of wood and there was about a half inch to an inch in some places a space around the whole door. When we first went into the room and was checking it out I told my husband I didn’t like that door being there and wondered where it went. We turned out the lights as we went to bed there was light coming around that door, all the way around the door. I woke up at 11:00 PM and the light was turned off, did I mention I didn’t like that door? The next morning we get up and take our showers in this cold tile bathroom because there is only one heater vent in the bath and it’s up above the sink. We go to the conference room for this “healthy start” breakfast we had been told about. We walk in and it’s not a healthy start breakfast, it’s anything but. It has bagels, muffins, cereal, milk, juice, some fruit. It’s a standard breakfast you would get staying at the Holiday Inn. We decide not to eat there, so we go back to our room and walk around the outside of our room to see what is on the other side, you know, where that door leads to. We find another room just like ours. It’s room 312 and it’s in worse shape than ours. The door leading to the room was all rotted out, they had curtains in that room instead of the shutters and from what I could see inside it, it would appear they were using it as a storage room, a basement! Imagine that, they did put us in the basement.
We stop by the reservation desk on our way out to breakfast to ask if we were in the right place for the “healthy start” breakfast and the gal told us yes, and that we could order off the menu. What menu? They was not wait staff in there that we saw. So we went to town, 5 miles down the road to Perkins and had a healthy breakfast!
We came back to the room around 4:00 PM and decided to watch a bit of TV, they had mentioned that the stations were limited due to the seclusion of the place. The only reason that it’s limited TV is because they only subscribe to basic cable, and that would be it. So I figured with nothing on TV due to the seclusion I would power up my laptop and stream some of my movies via Netflix. They did have Internet there, once we unplugged the router they had in the room that was broken and was able to connect to the actual Middleton Inn Internet, so I opened up the Internet but the bandwidth is so slow that even Netflix would not stream. Strike TWO!
The next morning we get up and decide to check out early, were not happy with the room, the Internet is slow, no TV to watch at night so we go to check out. The young lady that checked us in was there and when we told her we were checking out she asked us why. We told her it was because we didn’t like the room, so she said she would give us a free night since the room was not satisfactory. She did her magic, or so I thought and handed me the bill. We had reserved three nights, we stayed two and she said she would give us a free night. What the bill showed was the two nights we stayed and the bill was for $240.00 a night which included the taxes. I told her, that was incorrect, that my confirmation stated that the room was $159.20 a night, not $240.00 a night. She tried to fix it and still got it wrong, she was also giving us the last night free but as I informed her we wouldn't pay for that night anyway since we were checking out a day early. DUH! Then said she could not figure out how to fix it that she had only been there for a month. So we told her to make a copy of the confirmation that I had and when the manager, Katherine, got there to have her fix it and give me a call.
Around 10:30 AM, Katherine called my cell and said that we would be getting a credit for $111.00 and it would show up in three or four days. I asked her if that was for the two nights we stayed and the rate of $159.20 a night. She told me yes that was correct, so we didn’t get the free night for our trouble after all! I just want to warn everyone on Tripadvisor, that what you see on the website at the Middleton Inn is only half correct. From what I understand they do have nice rooms there but we did not get one of them and when we asked for another room we were expected to pay and extra $100.00 per night when you can book it online for a Grand Room at $179.00 a night. My husband and I will NEVER stay at this place again. We plan many trips to Charleston and have many people ask us about the places we stay, this will be one place that I tell everyone to stay far away from.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
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