The Sayre Mansion — Hotel in Bethlehem

Murder. That is the main reason that I brought my husband to stay a weekend at Sayre Mansion. Did the murder occur? Indeed, it did. Why, you ask? What was the motive? Murder Mystery Dinner. The weekend was April 15th and the time was approximately 3 pm. My husband and I are experienced Murder Mystery Analysts and here are the results.||Before arrival: An email was sent a week before informing us of minor details of the event and what to expect. Very basic. This included; trust no one, take a head count, cocktail hour at 5pm, talk to others, and a suspect list and other materials were to be given at cocktail hour. ||At arrival: We pulled around to the historical front main entrance. At first glance, I was impressed with the grand, gothic-style cathedral door. Level of excitement? High. Level of confusion? Equally high. Where is the parking? Who is in charge? Where do we go to check in? It had just poured buckets of rain and as such, the basement flooded and everyone was here, there, and everywhere. It was difficult to tell who worked there and who may have been a guest. I stood for a bit taking it all in, wondering if anyone would check me in. Eventually, someone did. ||Check in: It was a quick process and I signed the bill, wrote down my name for the suspect list and I was told that they weren't sure about cocktail hour and it didn't look like it would happen. I was disappointed but flexible. My husband, the novice detective, sleuthed as well and asked three other individuals that worked there, and was told conflicting information but no one said, the original 5 pm time as documented on the email. So off we went to check out the room (carriage house suite).||The Room: Room 3. Impressive. The room was nicely furnished with a large space to move and relax. The view was beautiful and we were impressed. The fireplace, comfortable bed, spacious bathroom and jacuzzi tub were all up to snuff. We quickly unpacked and went to visit a local bar to grab a quick bite and enjoy a cold beer. We were in walking distance to Seven Sirens Brewing Distillery. We had a beer, played a few games of Uno and were just taking it easy and was about to grab a bite to eat. Then my phone rang. It was Sayre Masion calling to tell us that the cocktail hour was staring in five minutes. Now, I understand. Things can get messed up in the hustle and bustle of flooding but this could have been prevented. Who dropped the ball? I believe MurderMystery.com did. Why? More to come. ||Murder Mystery Cocktail Hour: After running back to our room (yes, I did actually run in the rain in fear that I would miss out on little weenie dogs and clues), we quickly changed and put my face on. Cocktail hour was held under the portico (porch) and off to the left was a makeshift bar. I never got to that side as it was overly crowded with guests trying to buy a beverage and mingle. We were able to talk on the right side to a few guests and were severed tasty appetizers (wrapped brie, spinach gruyere quiche bites, mini pigs-in-a -blanket, chorizo baked tortilla wraps) which was warm and kept on coming. We were happy with the food, not with the space. Did we get our suspect list and other material? No. Or other direction as to how the night would progress? No.||Murder Mystery Dinner: With the flood, in the event hall that was in the basement, plans changed and they quickly pulled all hands-on deck and arranged two very large tables to be located in the main sitting room and in the breakfast area. The events coordinator apologized for the chaos and we were sat at 7 pm with not much more direction than, sit wherever. We sat at the end, farthest away from the door with not much understanding of what the night would look like. Friendly guests came and chatted as we waited with our salads in front of us. Eventually, the room filled up and we were asked to move down a seat, and another place setting needed to be squeezed in. Again, attention to detail was lacking. ||Entertainment: We had Rob as our lead host. He was enjoyable, witty and kind. He worked the room as best he could having to go between two dining rooms and make sure everyone heard the clues announced. The acting started right away with a male actor who was the detective (a bit of a sassy pants) and narrator if you will. The clues and acting were confusing. Throughout the night, before salads, after salad, after main meal, the acting continued (6 actors I believe all meshed in at the tables as "guests"). They were called up to stand between the two dining areas and talk in between the entrances. They did the best they could in the situation. The 7 "clues" were super basic (someone on a Word document with a color printer and on the fly with a little notebook and writing it as he spoke). An example is "Nice Try, don’t be stupid, don’t do anything else that stupid!!!!!!" I think you get the point. After some random pulling of guests to be involved as a potential suspects- to read some of the clues, we had to guess. ||The Guess: At dessert, we were given paper (No pens, luckily, I had one in my trusty purse since I was taking notes the entire time since we had no suspect list or any other materials- ahem). The paper wasn't as simple as "Who was the murder" but required many answers to questions like… Who was being blackmailed, who murdered the bookie, who murdered Steve? What was the motive? Um... yeah. I wanted another drink. Based on the 7 basic clues, many of the guests figured out who the possible murderer was but nothing else. When the “answer” was provided, it was clear as mud. It was weak, at best. ||The night: Some guest left and others hung around to booze it up. We headed back to our suite and enjoy the accommodations. Ear plugs were provided. Why? The traffic, we believed. Yes, that was the case. The traffic was loud but even louder., the drunk, karaoke, ‘woohoo’ calling individuals who stumbled up to the suite next to us to continue their party past 1 am. Who does that? Not sure. The guest downstairs can up and asked them to be quiet and they declined. The front desk was called to intervene and the noisy guest finally complied around 2 am. They sloppily left the room and we thanked our little lucky star that we would finally get rest. Ear plugs, check. Comfy bed, check. Quiet room. Nope. Mr. and Miss Spoiled Pants next door decided to have a tantrum and stomp and bang for the next hour. Yes. These were adults. ||Breakfast: Served promptly at 8 am with a nice sideboard of goodies and a yummy menu to order from, we enjoyed our very sleep-deprived breakfast with lots of coffee and good food (get the French toast!). Gabriella, a catering service professional, was a doll and was a treat with kindness and a wealth of knowledge about the estate. ||Overall: |Room: 4 stars (noise level a big negative/thin walls)||Food: 2.5 stars (Dinner was just okay and I was expecting awesome -Divon chicken, scalloped-ish potatoes, and snowpeas. Breakfast was great.)||Service: 3.5 stars (accommodating but lacking at arrival and with attention to detail)||Entertainment: 2 stars (could have been so much better). We have been to other MMDs and received material in advance with our character name and storyline and theme. We dressed the part and interacted more with other guests. We knew what to do and what to expect with a detailed itinerary. The clues we props and specific based on the crime. I understand about the flooding but even with that, I can’t say that it was organized and detailed. Just too off the cuff for that price tag. ||Overall: 3 stars. I was glad to experience the Sarye Mansion. I would have loved to explore all of the rooms and really experience the history of the estate. Even with the noise and a few badly behaved guests, the room was beautiful and the space precious. The Murder Mystery, with some changes, would be...

My wife and I stayed at Sayre Mansion for 4 nights in October. The good first - the rooms are charming and cozy, and the breakfast, while having fairly limited options, is pretty tasty. They even customized my order of pancakes one morning, which was very nice of them, so a couple of stars for that.

The bad - we stayed at Sayre Mansion, a bed & breakfast, for the purpose of having a relaxing getaway to see the fall foliage in the area. However, there was roof construction scheduled during prime leaf peeping season, and we were woken up each morning of our stay around 6:30am to footsteps and loud hammering above us, and people climbing up and down a ladder right outside our bathroom (the very first morning by an incredibly loud crash that sounded like a construction worker dropped his toolbox right above our heads). We were only told about the construction upon checking in our first day. They mentioned that there was a notice of some sort of their website, but we booked our stay a couple months in advance and saw nothing at that time. They had our email address from when we registered, so I'm unsure as to why we didn't receive an email of some sort before we checked in. Furthermore, after complaining about the noise after our first night, they apologized at the front desk and mentioned that they'd try to put us in another room and that they'd check with the construction workers if they could alter their work schedule to start later in the morning. Turns out the only room they could put us in was right next to the kitchen, which would also be loud each morning, and apparently they had no way of changing the construction schedule (they hired the crew, how is that possible?). After we asked what else might be done, they mentioned the possibility of a discount on our stay and to check with them later once they checked with management. We've now called 3 separate times asking for an update, each time hearing from the person answering the phone that they would check with their manager who each time was away from the desk. Still have not heard back.

We would not stay here again ourselves, if anything because of the runaround we have gotten from the staff here. Disappointing stay at what was supposed to be a relaxing bed...

Musty - don’t stay if you are sensitive to dust or musty areas. My wife and I stayed at the Sayre Mansion the night of our wedding 13 years ago and came back with high hopes. We walked in to a piano playing - so cool. The front desk person asked that we make our breakfast reservation for 9:30 at the latest - a little odd but whatever. When we walked into our room (33), we were disappointed - it was dingy and reminded us of an old, run down apartment. Whatever - it wasn’t exorbitantly priced and we would have stayed. Unfortunately, once we were in the room for a minute, we started to notice how musty it was. We were feeling fine before entering the room but started to feel a scratchiness in our throats and knew we couldn’t stay the night. We left right away and went to tell the front desk. Other guests were around and we didn’t want to bring up the mustiness around them so we told the front desk person we had to leave because our babysitter fell through but asked the manager to call us so we could discuss more and get a refund since we were only in the room for two minutes. The manager never called. I called back and left a message explaining that we left due to the mustiness, and she did return my call saying she wouldn’t give us a refund. We’re extremely disappointed and won’t be staying again, which is sad because we had such great memories there from our wedding night. We booked through a third party site and asked them to try again for a refund. I’m giving two stars and a fair review despite being upset because I’m sure some people don’t react as much to mustiness and it is an old building. I did see in the reviews, though, that others had a similar experience. I’m not sure if it’s a cleaning issue or a maintenance issue but it was bad. Again don’t stay if you are sensitive to dust and mustiness, and at least one of the rooms is dingy. Keeping my fingers crossed for a refund and I’ll update the review if they...