Andrew Pinckney Inn — Hotel in Charleston

My husband and I are graduate students, so we were thrilled to find a deal on this Inn to sneak away for a night! It looked absolutely beautiful online and the location is right next to the water, market, and many restaurants. On the website, a beautiful description of breakfast and happy hour served on the roof was advertised multiple times. We decided to pay a little extra for this Inn to enjoy this specific opportunity to eat breakfast and drink wine overlooking Charleston. We reasoned we would save money doing this, as we wouldn't go out to other restaurants. It'd be worth it!

Upon arrival, the valet was so kind and helped us with everything. The room smelled musky and was loud due to construction work... on the roof. We were given a breakfast voucher for the cheaper hotel option down the street where we originally planned to stay. That afternoon, we didn't even stay for happy hour as the wine and snacks were served inside a dark room by a lady who was rude and uninviting.

So clearly, the roof was under construction and we missed the memo. So disappointing.

When we went to check out I mentioned my concern to the lady at the desk. She did not ask me to sit down, tell me her name, or show me any type of human empathy. She talked over me and rudely declared that the news about the roof being closed was posted on the website and I received an email notification explaining this information 72 hours before arrival.

Two things. On one page - it said the roof was under construction. That's why I'm giving two stars. It was technically there. However, I looked over the whole website five or six times before finding it. It also said the roof was OPEN on other parts of the website. Very misleading.

We purchased a room less than 72 hours beforehand. We received no notification whatsoever. I would have told her this information - but she continued to cut me off and snap at me until I finally just left.

It's a beautiful hotel. I wanted it to be great. If the staff had cared about my concerns, then I would have let it go and given it lots of stars. I paid $200 to stay in a loud room, without the promised highlighted amenities, and was insulted and belittled on my way out the door.

Empty promises and horrible customer service sure can ruin a beautiful hotel....

Overall: I wouldn’t recommend staying here. I wish I could rate this inn higher, but there were too many negatives to offset the good. I would’ve rated the inn 3 stars if our stay wouldn’t have been as expensive as it was (over $500/night for the petite queen room).

Pros: The inn is a good location and was walkable to the main things to do in the city. There was free breakfast every day, which had delicious pastries and hot items. There were also wine & cheese hours everyday which were very nice and quaint. The inn sends texts throughout your stay asking if there is anything they can do to improve your stay, which is definitely appreciated.

Cons: Parking is a little annoying - valet is $22/day, and there often wasn’t someone outside to get your car for you at the valet station. Therefore, we had to go inside and ask if anyone could park or get the car when we got back or wanted to leave. I would’ve rather had the option to self park to save time, especially since the parking is right by the inn. When we arrived, the valet acted disinterested and didn’t help with our bags but did offer to take our bags to the room, which was nice. However, he dropped one of the bags on the sidewalk on the way to the room and didn’t notice. We saw it after we checked in and were walking to the room (across the street from the check in area). There was one valet who was very nice, positive, and accommodating, but some of the others really seemed like they didn’t want to be there. I can somewhat understand that given most of them appear to be college kids and it’s the weekend. However, it made us feel like an inconvenience to ask for any kind of assistance.

We stayed in a petite queen room, which I wouldn’t recommend unless you’re a solo traveler. My big issue with it was that there is a barn style door to the bathroom, which is right by the bed. You virtually have no privacy in the bathroom, especially since the room is, as its name suggests, small. Also, the bathroom was somewhat dirty when we arrived - there was some hair in the bathroom tub.

Lastly, the price of the room was way too expensive for what it was in our opinion. We paid almost $1,600 for a 3 night stay, which seems egregious given the accommodations and overall...

Our stay at Andrew Pinckney Inn was better than anything I could have ever expected. We stayed in room 101 across the street from the main lobby. It was a large king room with high ceilings, old hardwood floors, a chandelier and plantation shutters. We also had the flower boxes outside the windows since our room faced the street, which was a pleasant touch. The bathroom was on the small side but the overall size of the room more than made up for it.

Aaron at the front desk went out of his way to make sure that we were enjoying our stay in the hotel and the city in general. There was a mix up with some champagne we ordered and he was extremely responsive to the situation and we ended up with a second bottle of bubbles. The older gentleman with the black rimmed glasses in the lobby was also very nice and made some amazing restaurant recommendations. Finally, the young African-American valet was very attentive and we never had to wait more than a minute for our car to be pulled out. He also helped us load our luggage into our car when we left.

On Sunday morning during our stay there was a problem with the wifi. I called the front desk to inform them of the issue. Later that evening we went to get some coffee from the lobby and the wifi was still not working. We asked the gentleman behind the desk if there was a known problem with the internet connection. He said that there had been some reports of it being out. We asked if anyone was working on the problem and if there was an estimate of when the service would be back up. He gave a very curt reply that he could call Comcast but that he wasn't working on it, to which I thought they should have called Comcast 8 hours ago. The wifi was back up a few hours later. We weren't there for the wifi but it does help save on our data plans. This was the only slightly unpleasant experience we had, but Aaron more than made up for this other gentleman's shortcomings.

Overall, we would definitely stay at the Inn again and it is our top choice for lodging...