The Hotel Marblehead — Hotel in Marblehead

I'll do the good, the bad, the ugly for this review. The good: The Hotel Marblehead was cute and offered some charm. It was clean. The shower was very large, had good hot water, and water pressure. The bad: You can hear everything going on in everyone's room. Doors were poorly hung leaving large gaps. Limited privacy due to sheer blinds on the windows leading out to walk ways. They give a "just put a bandaid on it" vibe in that there are broken windows, holes in walls, trash left from previous occupants. In our room, we had a previously used kcup left in the coffee pot, an unsecured shower rod that fell on my husband, and leftover party things stuck on the wall. The heat was auto set to 75 degrees, no matter how many times we tried to reset it to 70 or turn it off. At one point we tried the AC but it was dirty and dust flew everywhere. The breakfast was super cheap and very limited. We had two days with some mixed fruit, small costco pastry, and hardboiled eggs. One day, mixed fruit, a slice of bread, and yogurt. When they say small plate, they mean a small saucer. The shower shows signs of leaking, as the cabinets are all messed up and there were bubbles of fluid lining the top ceiling of the shower. Every night, we heard a constant dripping or tapping noise. The light in the bathroom flickered all the time. And the overhead light with the fan was burnt out. The couch is so sunk in, that it's terrible seating. The middle feels like it's going to cave in and the cushions were flat so you felt the metal bar of the pull out bed. They don't leave out any hot tea, creamer, or coffee cups overnight downstairs, and in our room, we had 1 decaf kcup and 1 herbal tea bag. The ugly: We requested no down items, as my husband is allergic. We understand that since we booked through a 3rd party, they didn't pass on the information but how The Hotel Marblehead responded when we found down pillows was horrific. We arrived late, so we were not checked in by anyone, they simply put our key in their mailbox with my husband's name on it. We get to the room and quickly realize that the pillows are down. My hubby calls the urgent line where Debbie 1st argues and says they aren't down. We undo the bedding to read the tag, which says "all new material consisting of white duck down". Then she tells us they have no other pillow options. She states she has to talk to her manager and gives a very "oh well" attitude. She calls us back and informs us that she can buy pillows in bulk, but it won't happen until the next evening. So for the first night we were essentially told we are SOL. We decided to go the 11 minutes down the road to Target, grab 4 pillows out of their limited selection (we grabbed the last 4 pillows they had), and called Debbie to let her know we had grabbed some. That was it. They didn't check us in the next day, they didn't check up on us, didn't stop by to make sure hubby was okay, didn't vacuum the floor, so we still found feathers and it made our stay terrible. They did absolutely nothing to try to fix any issue. Things were so bad, we left our stay 2 nights early. The clerk at the front desk said he would talk to management about refunding us something because we had to buy the pillows, but it's been over 24 hours and not a peep. Don't waste your money. This place was NOT worth the $419 a...

Upon check-in, we informed the staff that our remote did not adjust the volume and the TV was extremely loud. She told us we could use the TV on mute if it was too loud for us. When my husband refused to accept that solution, she came back with a new remote and set it up. So clearly, they knew it was an issue, knew there was a check-in, and just decided they didn't want to deal with it.|There is no clock, coffee maker, or microwave in the room. There was a coffee maker directly outside the room where we could listen to everyone get their morning coffee. |The room was also right next to reception and the front door, so we were able to listen to anyone in the lobby or coming in in the middle of the night. There was a pocket door inside the room that helped muffle some of the noise.|Aside from one very friendly employee, they would not even look up from their phones or whatever they were doing to say hello or acknowledge you in any way unless you spoke to them first.|On our last day while we were showering and dressing before check-out (11AM), at just before 10AM, an employee used a key to let herself into our room, despite the "do not disturb" sign on the door and without knocking or explanation as to why she was entering our room before check out.|To add insult to injury, we were charged $60 over the total we were given from Booking.com. Booking.com is useless, and the hotel refuses to honor the total price we were given from booking.com. Their excuse is that the tax rate changed. We were never informed of the change of given the opportunity to cancel our reservation based on the fact they knew they weren't going to honor the price we were quoted. I've begun a dispute with my CC company. |In addition, the hotel is not close to anything, and parking is scarce...

Meh. Overpriced and not very special. We stayed for 2 nights, lured by the description of a romantic, charming, and personal place to stay in a restored Victorian house in Marblehead. It was a Victorian house. But the rest it was not.

Pros: Clean Quiet Bed comfortable Air conditioner worked Good location (although on a main street) Ample parking

Cons: Costs too much ($289/night) for value provided. I should have realized that something that was fishy when we had to deposit 1/2 of the cost with the reservation and the other half when we checked in. Innacurate description on website and brochure of promised amenities (i.e., no afternoon tea, no local chocolates, no plush towels, stingy with toiletries). Little things count. When we complained, we were told twice that “there was a new owner”. As if that were a sufficient explanation No closet in deluxe room Ceiling light buzzed because it was incompatible with the dimmer. Turned it off. Awful “small plate” breakfast-- cold “egg muffins”, tiny croissants, fruit cup and OJ. No butter or jam, no cereal. Inexcusable in a town like Marblehead, with so many food sources. So bad and inadequate that we had a second breakfast in town on Day 1, and skipped breakfast entirely on Day 2. Impersonal welcome. Mismatch of midcentury modern furniture (from IKEA?) in otherwise lovely Victorian house, where key details where painted over. Instead of art on the walls there were stencils of the same compass rose in different colors. Very sterile. Uninviting, tiny “common space”.

I’ve traveled all over the world and stayed in many charming places. This wasn’t...