Pine Lodge — Hotel in Bristol

I really didn’t want to write this, but it’s been weighing on my mind all week and I hope this can be a genuine opportunity for the business to improve and to help the next guest should a similar situation arise.

Adam, you seem to be the one responding, so I hope you understand my perspective on this and take the feedback well.

I was hired to film a wedding here and so my wife and I travelled 7 hours out of province and stayed 2 nights.

The venue is beautiful for a wedding and the breakfast/wedding dinner was great.

Where things went wrong was during the day of the wedding, the kitchen was shut down, so no food was available after breakfast.

Unfortunately for my wife, she wasn’t part of the wedding, so the idea was for her to relax and hang out while I worked.

We completely understand that things happen when running a business and if staff calls in sick, there’s nothing you can do.

BUT, what we were disappointed in was the way things were handled thereafter.

At lunch my wife asked if there was any other food she could buy or what she should do for food.

The staff she spoke to basically said they don’t know and it is what it is.

One would think the staff would be apologetic as we were far from other towns or restaurants. Perhaps go down to the kitchen and see what she could find or offer some help since this would seem like a rare and special situation.

You have a guest that has no access to food for the entire day.

But the staff member didn’t help or offer any suggestions. When asked if there were nearby restaurants, they simply replied that they didn’t know. My wife ended up buying some peanuts and bottles of water.

She looked online for local restaurants and couldn’t find any that delivered. She doesn’t have a driver’s license. She finally found someone on Instacart that would drive some groceries out to the venue coming from over an hour away.

The groceries didn’t get to the venue until 9:30pm by which time she had come over to join the reception and I heard about what happened.

Data is spotty, so she had texted me but I didn’t receive it. Otherwise, I would have scrounged something up from the wedding dinner and brought it to her. My wife didn’t want to make a scene or bother me/wedding couple so she toughed things out for the day.

Again, being out of province guests, we don’t know the area and the responsibility should have been on the staff to help us out rather than say so bad, so sad.

The day after, I thought I’d bring this up to Jodi as she is one of the owners and was very pleasant to work with on the wedding day.

Employees may not care, I can see that, but for sure I thought the owner would care.

Nope. Jodi, too, was matter of fact saying that yesterday was crazy and it was out of her control. Staff should have told my wife about the restaurants they order from.

No apology, no sympathy and no compensation. That’s what really gets me.

Jodi even pushed it back on us to say that my wife could have Googled restaurants.

She did try to find restaurants, she did ask your staff about the nearest restaurant and no one was helpful.

So, all this to say, I wish your staff and owner would have shown more sympathy and tried to make things right.

It’s not like we’re in the middle of the city where you can grab food anywhere.

Maybe I’m completely out to lunch, but if you’re at a remote stay and the kitchen shuts down — the responsibility is on the staff to help guests find food for the day rather than having them sort things out.

In case something like this happens again, please have a list of restaurants and make sure staff knows to direct guests to these places for food. I would think a comp on meals or room would make sense in this situation. Just try to make it right rather than you don’t care at all.

All in all, it was a situation that had a solution if staff was willing to help. The venue is lovely and we had a great time at the wedding. It was just heartbreaking knowing that my wife...

Was supposed to have my elopement wedding here, I cancelled as not reassured at all. It always took a while to get word back, wait a week or two still nothing. I always had to call as no response to messages on messenger nor email. When I would call the employees could not see my information in the system, they would give me detail information where as I would get different information afterwards from another employee. I asked for pictures of the cabins and the private room, never received any. I asked for list of vendors such as hairstylist, photographer, bakery, wedding decorators.. again never received.. I asked multiple times for early check-in time for guests if possible.. never any response. When I would call to discuss the reservation no one could see the information, one lady thought I was calling for a Christmas party, one said no reservation under my name. They didn't know the employee that took my information down, they must have lost it as she said. She took my information and said someone would call me back to clarify the information. No one ever called. The reservation was wrong, called multiple times to have it changed, left a message to call me back no one called back. They would always say " oh were having phone issues and telephone issues" each time I'd call. Most of the time no answer at all. I called 3 times a day over 3 day period in hopes reach someone so I can Cancel my wedding as not at all reassured, not getting responses, they were not calling me back, losing my information, one employee would give me some information and another employee would tell me the opposite. After days of trying to reach them to cancel my wedding, I spoke to the lady who was the one responsible for organizing wedding, I mentioned to her it was to cancel, she didn't ask why, never asked if she could of done anything different to change my mind and host my wedding, never apologized for lack of response and organization...Nothing at all... And within 3 minutes I had received the cancellation email.

Overall very disappointed. Seeing how this was for an elopement / intimate wedding I feel like they did not care, as going through things like this was far from being satisfied or reassuring. Maybe to them they don't care, but to us it is our wedding day, our one and only special day. And this was far from being what we expected. I am happy we did not get married here. Seeing how unorganized and lack of response we had, we were not reassured and did not want to show up the day if our wedding with nothing done or everything forgotten or...

This is a wonderful family-owned business I was honoured to support in these challenging times when 'small', 'local' and 'family-owned' are an endangered business species.

Despite a staffing shortage and my bum knee the owners made time to make me comfortable. It was a good experience. I had planned to be on a solo kayaking trip for 5 days when I tore the meniscus in my knee. I needed to get away and managed to book a room last minute at the lovely Pine Lodge.

I cannot speak to the food as I had already dehydrated and prepped most of my food beforehand for my trip. Breakfast came with the room and I was surprised it was a hearty and delicious meat/eggs/home fries combo. My one suggestion would be to include a lighter option, ie: apple or banana with a muffin.

The room was rustic and clean. Cool also despite the heat. The bed and pillows were surprisingly comfortable for this 50+ gal. A shared and very clean bathroom among 3 rooms worked out much better than I would have expected. A chair (of any size) in my room would have made my stay more comfortable. I knew it would be rustic and the price was reasonable. It was a great last minute salvage, but this combined with the stairs and my injury made it challenging.

I was a bit disappointed to realize that beach access meant I had to walk more than I was able. The owners made a point to let me know that they would be happy to drive me to and from the beach in their golf cart. And they did with cheerful and sunny dispositions. I did not feel comfortable to take them away from their work, so I explored and found a few beautiful (public) beaches in the area I could drive up to. I highly recommend Portage du Fort (NOT for little ones d/t fast current).

The Lodge was a major contributor to the community July 1st fireworks 🎆 which were 👏 👏 👏 spectacular. And the owners made sure I did not miss it, insisting to drive me to the beach launch site where I had the BEST seat in the house.

In health 🙃 this could have been a one-stop holiday for me with plenty of nature, golf, beach, food, & wine. Instead, I got to discover that the area has some cute hidden nuggets as well. I admire their creative solutions to sustaining a hospitality business in these challenging times. Bravo! All the best as you...