Postcard Cabins Shenandoah, Outdoor Collection by Marriott Bonvoy — Hotel in Elkton

My family of 3 and I just finished staying here over Thanksgiving weekend 2019. When we arrived, we were greeted by a swarm of 10ish fruit flies (?) inside the cabin, which was odd — since we specifically picked a time of year (late fall/early winter) where there were no bugs outside. Each cabin really needs some sort of UV bug catcher inside that guests can turn on.

We knew the weather was going to rain the entire time, so we spent almost all our time inside the cabin. There was a AC/heater that worked well, but even with the lowest heat setting, it made the cabin too hot to sleep. So we turned it off completely and woke up frigid the following mornings. We probably could have left some/all the windows open with the heater on continuously, but that felt like such a waste.

The beds and configuration looked nice and big, until we realized the mattresses appeared to be all foam-based. There is probably a good reason why they chose this, but don’t expect a good nights sleep if you are expecting hotel quality beds.

The bathroom/shower is tiny, which is expected. But when you are entering a tiny room, usually the door to the room opens outward. However, in this case the door opens inward. This means to get into the bathroom or shower, you have to literally sit on the toilet to close the door. Also, there is no mirror in the bathroom. They could easily fix this by mounting a mirror on the bathroom door.

Most of the utensils provided in the kitchen were mounted on a magnetic strip next to the sink (including a large cutting knife). Unfortunately, the strip is right next to the door to the bathroom. If you are not careful, you can easily cut your arm as you exit the bathroom. Thankfully, it only cut our clothing by accident.

Surprisingly, the water pressure was great, but the amount of hot water you get will be enough for either one 15-minute shower or three 5-minute showers. After that, you’ll be left with cold water. Think of it like living on a small boat. It would be great if we had some sort of visual indicator to let us know how much hot water is left before it becomes icy cold.

Ironically, we were able to get about 2 bars of 4G LTE service inside the cabin. This was probably because the leaves on all the trees had mostly fallen off, making cell reception much easier. I suspect that during the spring and summer cell service probably gets spotty (which is expected). Before we knew this, we did use the built in phone in the cabin to call the support team for a question, and they were able to help us out just fine. However, the quality of the physical phone line was pretty bad, so we had to repeat our question multiple times for the support agent to understand.

For those looking to eat out, there are actually quite a number of good restaurants nearby within about 10-15 minutes away.

Summary for management: Family of 3 stayed in the Haydee cabin over Thanksgiving weekend 2019. Too many fruit flies (~10) upon entering the unit; the unit needs some sort of UV bug zapper. Heater doesn’t have a true low setting; lowest possible still feels like a sauna. Door to bathroom/shower needs to open outward not inward. Need to mount a mirror on that door somewhere. Magnetic strip for kitchen knife too close to bathroom door — the knife should have some sort safety cover in case you accidentally hit it as you exit or enter the bathroom. Hot water runs out too quickly for family of 3. You will have to aggressively conserve hot water to make it last. Phone support was great! Physical phone line quality was pretty bad; had to repeat my questions multiple...

Sorry for this lengthy post lol. My fiancé and I decided to do a Valentines weekend getaway in the woods. This was our second time there (the first time we stayed in “Cookie”). We stayed in the cabin “Connie” this past weekend. The location of it wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t like that it had its own parking lot across the street instead of parking next to the cabin like we did last time. There were several back and forth trips to get our stuff in and out. We didn’t feel as secluded this time around as we could see our neighbors walking back and forth to their cars as well as two other cabins in the distance. We could even see into the bedroom through their big window from sitting at our fire pit. We had cell service which was surprising as last time we didn’t have any. The sound of cows mooing also didn’t happen this time around.. instead we got aggressively sounding barking dogs all day lol.

The cabins Cookie and Connie had basically the same exact layout from what I remember, but there were some differences that I noticed. Last time they left us doggie treats for my pup, but didn’t leave anything this time. The fridge in Cookie never got cold and kept everything cool whereas the fridge in Connie kept our food and drinks ice cold. The lighters in Cookie never worked, but Connie’s worked great. We brought our own assuming theirs wouldn’t work again lol. The bed this time around also wasn’t comfortable. My fiancé had issues sleeping comfortably and for the price.. I feel like the bed should be better.

Our cabin had two stinkbugs that kept buzzing around until my fiancé caught them and took them out, but besides that - no other issues with bugs. I was very afraid after reading a review that said their cabin was infested.

Overall, we had a good time. It didn’t feel as relaxing or as fun as the first time we went though. We felt more tired after getting home than we did before we left lol. And two days later after checking out - I’m annoyed.

We overpacked on food, drinks, wood because I didn’t want to spend extra money on the provisions. Last time, we had to buy three bags of their logs so this time, we came more prepared. It’s honestly cheaper to bring everything yourselves and we’re on a budget. They have free pots, pans, cups, utensils, etc for you to use in the cabin, but the coffee, tea, s’mores kit cost money as well as the stuff in the box outside. Coffee and tea are $2 each and $5 for the s’mores kit.

Now to why I’m annoyed - I got an email from Getaway for my provisions receipt. Says we drank 2 coffees so they charged me $4. Now I know $4 isn’t much, but why am I paying for something I didn’t drink, hence even like. I hate coffee. My fiancé likes coffee, but he drank wine, caprisuns, and water all weekend. Not once did he make coffee. When companies try to take advantage of you is when I get annoyed. It’s bad business practice to do that. Hopefully whoever cleaned the cabin miscounted or they never refilled from the previous guest before us.

Update: I replied back to them regarding my receipt and they refunded so I do appreciate that, but I’m still hoping it was an...

This was my fiancé and my second time staying at this Getaway location. The first time was in January of 2021 and it was a great time but this time was not a good experience. I really wanted to give one star but gave two since our previous encounter was not bad. This time we stayed here Christmas Eve 2021 and through the weekend. We wanted to be alone and enjoy the break with just us two. When we got there the code to the door that we were given did not work and we had to call to have them reset it, which was easy enough.

Once inside, we found two stink bugs which we didn’t think too much of as we were in nature and we were bound to come across one or two. However, over the next four days we came across at least 60 stink bugs throughout our entire stay. We reached out to customer service the second day, once we realized they kept coming and coming, to see if there was anything that could be done and they came several hours later, vacuumed up only two of the five stink bugs that we pointed out to them and told us there was nothing they could really do. They said that it was possible the bugs were coming in through the front door from opening and closing the door (we explained we had not opened the door since we got there, we were not in and out of the cabin). Then they said that they were likely coming through the vent for the A/C and Heat and said that what they could do is put additional mesh on the outside of the cabin to block the bugs from coming in. They left and never returned to put mesh on the vent outside and never checked on us again.

We then continued to encounter stink bug after stink bug. We were not able to sleep well and continuously woke up through the nights to check the room and rid the cabin of the stink bugs. They were coming through both the vent that customer service had described and where the smoke detector was attached (there must be an opening atop the cabin as well where the detector is located).

Needless to say, this was not at all the weekend Christmas getaway we had hoped for. If we did not live so far, we would’ve left early. There were also a few beetles that made their way in somehow as well.

We also encountered many dirty dishes that we had to re-wash and white dog hair on the bed they transferred to our clothing and hair (we don’t have a dog) so it was obvious the place was not cleaned throughly before us coming. With COVID, this is a real concern as well.

Sadly my experience this time had tarnished my view of the Getaway house. It seems their customer service and cleanliness has taken a turn from our last visit. As this is marketed as a place to getaway and relax, we were definitely not able to really do so which is super unfortunate because it isn’t cheap to stay here.

In choosing to spend our holiday here, we were very...