The Ansonborough — Hotel in Charleston

Where do I start? We ADORED the Ansonborough Inn!

Location! The location was great! We easily walked everywhere that we wanted to go in downtown Charleston (The Market, Church Street, The Battery, The French Quarter, Waterfront Park, The Aquarium, and Liberty Square for the Ft. Sumter boat tour). The rooftop deck has awesome views of Charleston and the iconic Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge. The neighborhood feels safe; it's surrounded by gorgeous well-kept historic mansions with super- friendly residents. Finding the Inn (just a couple of turns off the interstate), check-in (quick, friendly with spaces in the back to unload), and parking (the Inn's lot is just across a quiet neighborhood street) were all super-easy. Also across this quiet street is a Harris Teeter grocery store, which is so convenient.

Hospitality! The staff was the friendliest I've ever met. The servers in the hospitality suite were fabulous and really went above and beyond to take care of us. We've never stayed in a hotel with employees who treated us so well. The breakfast (included) was huge and included things like omelets, delicious Charleston-style grits, waffles, breakfast meats, fruit, yogurt, cereal, a variety of milks, breakfast breads, pastries, various juices, sweet tea, coffee and hot tea. The evening wine and cheese reception (also included) had delicious red and white wine, homemade pimento cheese, chips and salsa, and a few other appetizer-type foods like meatballs and spring rolls. Yummy homemade cookies, chocolate mints, coffee, hot tea, water and sweet tea were available all day in the hospitality suite. We really enjoyed the fact that we could choose to eat in their spacious dining area, on the big roof-top deck, or in our rooms. They even provided trays, which is so helpful when you are carrying food for a family.

Accommodations! We loved our room, most of all. We had the double luxury suite. It was the very best choice in downtown Charleston for a family of five. The bedroom area was incredibly spacious. We had two KING-sized beads in our room with two large closets and a very large TV that could easily be seen from all parts of the room. The bedroom door shut to separate from the entryway and living areas. This was great for us when the kids were sleeping and we wanted to be awake in the sitting area. The sitting area had a large and cool-looking vintage couch, a small dining table beside louvered windows that overlooked the historic homes surrounding the inn. There was also a nice-sized coat closet in the sitting area along with a giant writing desk, which would be great if you needed to work from the hotel. The TV in the sitting area was also large. There’s a perfect small microwave//fridge/wet-bar in the living area in case you need to keep a couple of boxes of leftovers from a meal out.

Charm! The entire Inn had lovely historic decor. Our rooms were filled with impressionist-style paintings of coastal and wetland scenes. The rest of the hotel also had beautiful high-end historic furniture pieces as well as ornately framed paintings throughout. It gave the Inn a very unique and pleasing charm. The hotel has lots of beautiful original wood and beams in many parts of it, which are beautifully restored. Our room also had a lovely painted original-brick accent wall and large quality furniture pieces. Although the Inn was so beautifully decorated, I did not feel that anything was particularly delicate. This is important to us because our autistic son has been known to accidentally break things in other hotels. All furnishings in our room were beautiful but also quite sturdy.

Will Return Whenever I return to Charleston, I absolutely plan to stay at the Ansonborough Inn again. I will recommend it to everyone I know who...

My family does a trip to the Outer Banks every year around this time and this year, my fiancé and I decided to include an overnight stop in Charleston as part of our plans to drive from Florida to North Carolina. We were really excited as he's never been, so I booked a night's stay.

We were planning to leave on Friday but, unfortunately, my fiancé had a medical emergency Tuesday morning and had to be rushed to the ER where, after surgery, he stayed until Friday morning. Most of my family was already out of town so I spent those days going back and forth between the hospital and our home from 9am - 9pm to take care of our dog and our house, while working a full time job.

On Wednesday, once I knew my fiancé would get surgery, I realized I needed to begin changing our travel plans. When I called to cancel our stay, the agent was incredibly abrupt and immediately notified me I'd be charged since we were within the cancellation period - no, "hope he gets better soon," "sorry to hear that," etc. I worked in hotels/hospitality for years and we always made exception for medical emergencies. We also always made sure to show some sense of compassion and understanding to guests who were clearly on distress, because customer service is a thing. I had to cancel several appointments and reservations this week and this was the only time I was met with shortness rather than some sort of well wish and assurance it wasn't a problem to cancel.

I was just very unimpressed with the lack of courtesy and focus on policies that are unrealistic to expect a person to be more focused on when their loved one is in the hospital. I sent an email that day explaining the situation and asking if there were other options than waiting for Friday night to pass to see if they sold the room to get a refund, or disputing the charge with my credit card. No answer. I sent an email to the hotel manager. Still no answer. So, card dispute it is.

When I did finally hear back from the manager a week later, I was surprised to discover that was who I spoke to on the phone. She doubled down on not offering a refund but did at least "regret" that she "came across as insensitive" on the phone and say she hoped he felt better. I understand running a small hotel means you have to be strict with cancellations, but I don't think one whole night for one room is going to bankrupt them - had she offered at least a legitimate apology for the abrupt conversation and/or some sort of very small, nominal credit I'd have not written this review. I guess customer service and courtesy aren't values that are apart of their hotel.

So, if you plan to stay here even for a night make sure that, God forbid you have a medical emergency you be sure to have it more than 72-hours before your check-in. And, if you do, make sure you tell your family to call the Ansonborough Inn to cancel your stay before you have them drive you to...

1st, the staff was Great: Sussie , Eric, Christopher ,Finn and Renny. My wife went there for 4-5 days for our anniversary, Which I informed them, not even an acknowledgment. No wine in the room, or a small box of chocolates or flowers or even a card. I feel the hotel being smaller and not as many amenities as bigger hotels; they need to try harder. Nice place , clean room, but there try to make money off you any way they can. They charge $25 night for parking, there Free Continental breakfast is a joke, a brown box with 2 day old pastry you can't pick, a small yogurt (no spoon), small oj, nothing hot, and feels like a 7th-grade box lunch, I have had better at Bestwestern, days inn. No grits, no eggs, no meat.no bagel cream cheese, no English muffin with jam, very sad, not classy . they need to do better , they have breakfast sandwiches, To buy extra $10 they use too have a much better spread before the construction. The Free wine and cheese is out, they now have a bar and they want you to buy your wine and drinks. They don't offer free bottle water for the room, it's $3 per bottle. They have raised prices for the room because " they have upgraded" the hotel is not in the French Quarter, still have to walk 3-4 blocks to get to the city market. The main entrance is across the side of a supermarket and you can smell the dumpster in the back. I think my stay was okay, but I will look for a hotel that has real free amenities. They need to do better, try harder to go the extra mile for guests, Offer free parking, other hotels don't, and acknowledge guest's special events in their lives, birthdays, anniversaries, ect. better breakfast local hot grits, country ham, let the guest pick , not here's your box . Again nice hotel , clean room, great staff all helpful. The room has no microwave, you have to ask, the rooms with a "full kitchen" no plates or silverware to use . The tv has no channel guide, so your jets flipping through. nice place but still need...