Blackwell Hotel — Hotel in Coeur d'Alene

A memorable stay...

The Blackwell lived up to it's reviews on our stay this weekend and I'm very happy we chose to stay here. The character and charm of this downtown historical home are wonderful.

A 4 star review is probably more in order if all things are taken into consideration, but due to the charm and the last minute handling of an item we left behind, 5 star it is. To be fair though, I'll share some of the highlights and challenges below so that the hotel can work out the kinks.

HOUSE ITSELF (Rating 5.0) The house is clean and well maintained and the artwork, woodwork and the decor is beautiful.

SERVICE (Rating 4.0) Everyone was extremely nice to us and helpful. It is run as a "hotel" however. The feel of the house is "Bed & Breakfast" and usually you get to know the proprietors. But this is a "hotel" so don't set that expectation. We interacted with about 4 different young ladies working at the house at different times throughout our long weekend and they were all very sweet.

FOOD (Rating 3) The coffee in the rooms is GREAT! We tried the breakfast the first morning. (Saturday) The yogurt and fruit were wonderful. They offered pastries and bagels which were fine. The quiche was cold however and the sausage should not have been served IMO. We went down at about 9:30am. Maybe it was too close to the cutoff at 10am? We went out to breakfast the other mornings due to this experience and to try local restaurants as there are many. They have drinks in the fridge and you can grab one any time and they'll add it to your bill which is nice.

HEATING (Rating 2) Some of the issues below just come from it being a old house. For instance heating. The entire main house uses a single thermostat I think. But the entire house is not the same temperature and it goes up and down all night. During the winter the swings in temperature can be huge.

I also went out to the hot tub and found that it was cold. Bummer.

ROOM 2 (Rating 3) We stayed in room 2 the first night and room 3 the following nights. Room two is in the main house at the top of both sets of stairs. (From Living Room and Kitchen) It doesn't have an in-suite bathroom. The bathroom is located across the hall and there are two other entrances to bedrooms across from it as well. So plan on getting dressed to go to the bathroom or take showers. The bathroom is yours however and you do get to lock the bathroom which is nice.

This room has an amazing little sitting area with two leather recliners that are AWESOME!

One problem I didn't see in any other reviews with Room 2 is that it is directly above the heat pump. If you're like me (from another part of the country where heat pumps are not used), and don't know what a heat pump is.. it's a very loud Air Conditioning Unit that runs backwards creating heat during the winter. Add to this that the home uses very small holes that the heat comes into the rooms creating a low whistling noise and sleeping becomes difficult unless you enjoy a harmony of noises while you sleep. I don't.

The room has a sleep number bed. And while bed comfort is a subjective topic, I didn't find the bed comfortable at all on any setting. I'm spoiled with regards to mattresses though.

ROOM3 (Rating 4.25) Room 3 was MUCH better than Room 2 even though you can still hear the Heat Pump and whistling vents. It's a little further towards the back of the house and it has an in-suite bathroom and a fireplace. The bathroom is beautiful with dual shower heads. The fireplace heats the room in about 2.5 seconds. Due to this, keeping it on is almost impossible unless you open the windows or turn it down extremely low.

It has a very large closet and a small seating area with two chairs.

The bed is extremely comfortable and very high! So high that you can't see the fireplace when laying in bed.

The room is extremely bright which was nice as it has four windows, two sets on two sides of room.

I'd stay here...

Overall accommodations were fairly comfortable, and everything was very clean. My biggest issue is that it is very overpriced for what you get. We stayed in a brand new room outside of the main house for our honeymoon. No one congratulated us or acknowledged our big day. Not enough pillows to fill the gap between the headboard and the mattress on the bed. Large window in the door looked into the bedroom and had no curtain for privacy. Front window to the bedroom had a thin curtain but no blinds or blackout curtains to keep the morning sun out, so sleeping in after our big day was nearly impossible. Bathroom was small and had no tub, only a small shower. Shower was poorly designed so that you would trip in the drain area, and water would leak out all over the floor. Cleaning staff hung the soaking wet bath mat up to dry rather than replacing it for us. It never dried, so we used towels on the floor. The room had no closet in it, and only a couple of hangers were provided to hang clothing. I was disappointed that there were not enough places to hang the formal clothes I brought with me to keep them from getting wrinkled. There was no iron in the room either. Breakfast was a joke. A little fresh fruit, which was nice, but it was basically a continental breakfast - no home cooked meals. Check-in process was disappointing. There is no late check-in, so they told us we could come a day early to pick up our keys. Upon arrival, after driving nearly an hour to get there, we were told that there were no extra keys and that they would just hide one for us. That trip was a huge waste of time on the day before our wedding, as they could have relayed that message over the phone. Parking is street parking only, but it's tight, and they never mentioned that to us until we parked in the driveway and were unsympathetically told to move our car. After we checked out, we realized that we forgot my wedding bouquet in the room. I called the next day and arranged for a friend in the area to pick it up. It was nice of the staff to save the flowers; however, when I get them back, they were in a different and much cheaper vase than the one they had originally been in, and I am upset about losing that vase. I'm not sure if the staff broke it or just decided they wanted to keep it because it was nicer than the one they had. We paid about $200 per night for two nights. If management reads this and wants to refund us AT LEAST $100 for the disappointment we had, we would probably feel...

Not impressed. Got the confirmation our room was ready later than I expected.  We arrived at 2pm and was told staff would be there till 4 pm. We never saw anyone our entire visit. The most disappointing part was the bed and BREAKFAST did not serve breakfast???  Huh? Really? That would have been nice to know prior to booking/arriving/trying to eat breakfast. Text message we received said to read the sheet in the room for breakfast details. Sheet said breakfast started at 8 am and was buffet style with grab and go options available. We came down at 8 and it was a ghost town with literally no one around. We called their number and no one answered. Realizing something was off, we looked at the voucher provided in our room. I typed in the name on the card and realized we got a $10 gift card to a different business a mile down the street. Ok, fine, not the end of the world. Reluctantly, we drove there feeling like our hands were tied. How many options do you think we're available for a drink (not water) and food? None that I would have picked. And, none of which would have been the quality I would have expected from a bed and breakfast.

I feel like I was lied to. If they were up front about what they were offering, I would have been fine. I can imagine the response I may or may not get... "You came in the off season... We told you in the confirmation on line 72 of the agreement..." Awesome, thanks for the heads up... If this was how things are run, be forthcoming and make it very clear. Ensure we fully understand that the bed and breakfast isn't serving breakfast for our visit or time frame. Let us have the option of where we want to eat instead of choosing for us... when factoring the cost of the room, food provided is part of our total price. We may have picked a different hotel/location if we understood what was being offered!

Oh and the room. It was what you'd expect. Clean, standard, no issues. I can say, our room faced the main street. Windows were a little breezy and loud, but it is an old historic building. As the night got later, traffic dissipated and the sound went away. It was nice that they e provided a fan, I personally love that!

Would I come back? Considering this was our anniversary trip and was the one thing we looked forward to for months leading up to our stay... maybe. The price better be right and I want my danm breakfast. You know the whole bed and...