463 Beacon Street Guest House — Hotel in Boston

We’d just arrived at the Beacon Street Guest House for a 4-day, 3-night vacation. We got to our room (Longfellow, #41) and my wife said, “OK, we’re in Boston, what do you want to do first?” ||||What I wanted to do first was head to the Home Depot and drop a few bucks on supplies to make the room more habitable. Spackle to fix the cracks in the plaster, primer to cover the water damage to the ceiling, paint to cover up the whole mess. Some miscellaneous hardware to reattach the light fixture falling off the bedroom wall and the medicine cabinet falling off the bathroom wall. If I was really ambitious, I’d replace the salvage-yard shower enclosure held in place with drywall screws that still stood half an inch proud of the fiberglass surface. Maybe even rip up the tatty, stained carpet and replace it with something amenable to bare feet. Seriously, the whole room looked like it had been slapped together by people who will never, ever be referred to as craftsmen. ||||Then there’s the furnishings – yard sale stuff from the wrong side of the tracks. The microwave was broken - wouldn’t work at all. Opening the mini-fridge door was an exercise in diplomacy because the handle was falling off. ||||Another reviewer described this place as ‘backpacker quality’, which is pretty much on target if you’re not a particularly discriminating backpacker. But to be fair and balanced here, I will say that the location is quite good, the nightly rate (about $248 in our case, taxes, etc. included) was about $200 less than actual hotels. The outside of the building looks great and the public spaces inside, including a spectacular staircase, were quite nice. ||||On our way out, I got a peek into a couple of rooms on the second floor – just a peek from the doorway – and they looked pretty nice. To be honest, I might give this place another go, but only on the second or third floor, because it looks like everything north of that may well be as bad as the Longfellow room. ||||One last thing. These guys really should work on their communications skills. When I made my reservation online, their website went into a loop and I got no confirmation. I called their phone number – many times – and never got anything but a recorder. An email inquiry was finally answered a day-and-a-half later with my confirmation. One line of that confirmation promised that late arriving guests (like myself) would get instructions on entry five days before their date of arrival. Day one came and went. On day two, feeling a bit anxious, I tried calling again – every twenty minutes for close to two hours – until a human answered the phone rather than a recorder. Got a reassurance that instructions would be sent immediately through booking.com. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to ask that they be copied to my personal email, because the booking.com instructions didn’t arrive until 9/30, less than eighteen hours ahead of our 10/1 flight out of Phoenix. Could have led to some serious anxiety if I hadn’t covered the...

Cannot believe that this place charged what it did for little more than a flophouse. Looking st the reviews going back to 2005 the place hasn't improved one iota and noticeably the manager never bothers to reply.||My poor partner had to lug a heavy case up to the fifth floor, at least someone was there to help. The room looked ok ...at first.||All the stained glass was peeling off the windows; dirty sticky carpets everywhere; horrible dirty bathroom with the sink falling off the wall and the bin not emptied. Flat pillows which provided no support at all. The shower was so small youneither froze or scalded yourself waiting for the water to heat up as there's was no room to avoid the water. Noisy doors so hard not to disturb other guests if needing the toilet in the night; had to bang on the wall as could hear every word next door late at night. ||Clearly left the sign on the door requesting service in our room. Got back to find the AC unit had been removed (there was a note to this effect), think towels were possibly hung back on the door..bed UNMADE. Vacuum cleaner left on landing since we arrived. Noisy ice filled fridge which we had to switch off. My partner's hat fell on the floor behind the chair and came out covered in dust. ||I wouldn't recommend this hovel to my worst enemy. Felt like I needed a shower on leaving the premises...and goodness knows what scuttled under the cupboard in the hall as we left. I would rather have stayed at the Bates Motel...

First of all, the hours when staff were suppose to be there was completely wrong from the website. They slash their staff hours for off season leaving the place vacant from early afternoon and on but never indicate this on their website. We got an email saying that our room key would be in a drawer in the lobby. We get there, use the passcode emailed to us to get in and find the room keys for multiple days with their day of check in. First of all, this seems like a poor idea to me. It means anyone can just get into your room before you get there. Secondly, our key wasn't even in the drawer. There were two emergency contact numbers, but no one ever answered after repeated calls. I even left messages and no one bothered to call back. We are looking all over, trying to find anyone to help us. I hear noise in the locked office and I start knocking on the door. We then start pounding on the door before a cleaner FINALLY opened it. It took us at least an hour before anyone responded to our yelling for assistance and pounding. We finally get to our room and it seems quite small (not that we expected much) The shower in the shared bathroom had mold all along the edges. The only reason I give this place 2 stars is it's location and the fact that the one time we interacted with an employee (during check out because there was almost never anyone there) he was very nice...