Blue Heron Inn — Hotel in La Porte

"Blue Heron / Red Herring" "NIGHTMARE ON LAKESIDE STREET!"

With out a doubt the worst experience in a business in my life in an industry that is supposed to be based on hospitality. Thank God, the unstable, volatile owner doesn't work for the Post Office if you know what I mean!

The owner's ranting and verbal assault left my daughter shaking and crying uncontrollably as she was afraid that "he was going to come into the rooms and hurt our family" after he stated that he had come into the room earlier and that the dogs went nuts. My daughter was so intimidated by the owner's actions she went to the car as she was too afraid to come back into the hotel. There was no way we could stay there so we packed up our belongings and drove an hour and a half back to Chicago.

We arrived 7/3/2014 and the desk clerk was very professional and friendly, so far so good. We went into the 2 rooms we had rented and there was a strong odor reminiscent of spoiled milk, so we opened the windows and figured it would mellow out, which by the way it did not. But we decided to stay anyway because we came in from Chicago and planned on spending the 4th of July on a pontoon boat we had reserved to rent for the day from the resort and go to dinner in their restaurant that evening. Food and service was adequate.

My wife was relaxing outside on the deck outside the smelly room (211 on the first floor?) with our two dogs. A really obnoxious drunk resident (Larry) came by with his two dogs and started hitting on my wife while I was walking on the docks with the kids. I had to go and save her from him. As I walked back with the kids Larry says "So this is your husband?" to our 16 year old son! Apparently Larry had been staggering around the hotel being inappropriate with the female staff and other guests leaving the a fore mentioned desk clerk in tears. Wow what a jerk!

We have 2 small under 10# dogs that we decided to bring along at the last minute as they are "DOG FRIENDLY" Apparently the dogs were barking in the room which we were of course not aware of. We had fed and walked the dogs and waited until they were settled in and sleeping before we went to the restaurant at 9:00 pm.

As respectful and courteous people we would never have left the dogs alone if we had any notion that they would be barking in the room as we have frequented the Palmer House Hilton Hotel downtown Chicago with them in the past with no problems .

Barking dogs in a strange place and the uber aggressive, angry owner bursts into the room REALLY? What the hell do you expect?

All he had to do is call us on our cell phone (which we had on us at dinner) and one of us would have immediately have returned to the room to resolve the situation like normal people do.

Shame on the red faced, hot headed lunatic owner who verbally assaulted my entire family shouting and acting in a very violent and threatening manner as we came out of their restaurant at 10:00 pm after dropping $200.00 for dinner. The owners wife tried to get him under control and calm him down to no avail. She was sincerely apologetic for his inappropriate behavior that destroyed what was intended to be our little family getaway.

"The Bates Motel" might be the better option over the Blue Heron as both are equally terrifying!

Thanks for NOTHING "Red Heron"

Happy...

Booked this hotel for the Michigan City boat racing weekend after the B & B down the road canceled our reservation due to going out of business. Based our selection of this hotel on previous reviews. We had a park view spa room on the second floor.||First of all, the one older lady at the front desk (I say older lady due to the fact that most times there were what looked like teenagers staffing the front desk) was very nice. We didn't use the pool as it was small and young kids were in it the couple times we saw it. The outside bar area is nice for a drink, but be aware that smoking is allowed at it. We didn't eat at T-Bone's this time, but did last year while staying at another hotel in the area and it was very good. The lobby area is nice and the breakfast is more than adequate.||Now for the not so good:||Very limited parking, which gets taken by the restaurant & outside bar patrons. When it's full, you'll have to park at the adjacent little park's parking lot.||There are no carts for carrying luggage to/from your room. If you're on the second floor (rooms are numbered in the 300s there and 200s on the first floor...??) a cart wouldn't do you any good anyway as there's no elevator. So only the 1st floor is handicap accessible.||The bed was good enough for a couple nights, but wouldn't want to sleep on it much longer. It isn't that comfortable, especially when compared to what's now in most Hampton Inns, Comfort Inns, etc. The bed also had a fitted plastic liner under the normal fitted sheet. It was very noisy and was immediately taken off the bed. I've never seen that before; do they have issues with people peeing the bed here??||The bathroom tiles had several areas of grout missing, the corner shower was small and the shower head was very high, which is normally good, but in this small shower the lowest it could be pointed was about my chest (I'm 5'11"). So smaller people would have it hitting them in the face or shooting over the shower enclosure. The shower enclosure and fixtures all look like they've been there for many, many years as they're seriously showing their age. I will say the hot water was quick and plentiful though. There was only one roll of toilet paper, but I'm not sure where they would've put another roll as there's no storage area in the bathroom.||The A/C unit was pretty loud. Thank goodness I had earplugs as, otherwise, it would've been like trying to sleep next to an idling '69 Chevy SS!||Had to unplug either the lamp or the clock next to the bed to have an outlet for charging a cell phone.||Fireplace in room always has at least a small flame and a little heat coming from it...was told that's just the way it is.||Room did have a hair dryer, microwave, fridge and a small balcony with 2 chairs.||Overall, I wouldn't tell someone NOT to stay here, but I would tell them not to have more than average expectations. Whomever owns this hotel really needs to spend some money to update what obviously hasn't been changed in a...

UPDATE: went back to the hotel for another stay. The room we had was the same one from the time before. This time it was less dusty and spider webs no longer existed on the balcony. Amazing job.

Staff was very friendly and it was a easy check in. We did find out that the hotel has been taken over by new owners. So I am sure they will be changing something’s. I hope they do not change to much. The nostalgia of this hotel is what makes it. It doesn’t have all the modern features that you would get in a corporate hotel but that is what makes the place. We will be coming back in June so it will be interesting to see the changes that have been made.

The brass fixtures are in need are cleaning/replacing due to the hard water. And the mini- fridge where the gasket is could be cleaned better. Besides that once again an amazing stay.

We did our reservation online, after I got a message asking what time we would be arriving. When we arrived the room was read and the staff was very friendly. Over all the room was clean, cloud use a good dusting would not pass a white glove for sure but as far as bed sheets, bathroom and floors it was clean. We had a suite with a lake view. The jet tub was amazing personally my favorite after a 8 hour road trip. It was very relaxing and clean.

The view from the room balcony was relaxing. The only down fall was there were a lot of spiders on the balcony. Besides that it was nice to sit outside and relax. When it comes to sleeping the bed was soft I loved it but my fiancé didn’t. But he still slept good. Very cute and not a lot of noise at night. Breakfast was good and check is at noon. We come up often to La porte and have stayed at almost all the hotels in the area and by far this is the best one. We are planning to come up in Dec and already booked a room here.

I will note it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles like the newer hotels across the street but for us it was well...