The White House Inn — Hotel in Nauvoo

BACKROUND: I had previously stayed here with my parents in 2004 and had slept in the upstairs room. It was a pretty good experience as far as I can remember, which is why I decided to book it this time with my husband and kids.||||NOW: We just arrived home from a trip to Nauvoo to visit family. I booked the Young Room (two queen beds) in this Inn about five months in advance. For four nights the stay is a reasonable price (came out to about $400 total) and is right in town. It is definitely convenient to walk to get food and such, and is only a few blocks from the Nauvoo Temple.||||We flew in to St. Louis, drove three hours to Nauvoo, and grabbed our keys to head into our room. It was pretty obvious right away that the room hadn't been cleaned at all since the last tenant. There was kiddie snack food all over the floor, trash in trash cans, dirty hand towels laying around the bathroom, an unflushed toilet, HAIR on the SHEETS (and other such things on the sheets), etc. It was not a great scene. I immediately called the bakery looking for Carol (the manager), who wasn't there. I told the girl on the phone that we had just arrived at our room and that it had NOT been cleaned. She ran across the street and apologized up and down and felt so bad, but didn't have a reason behind it. She called Carol to come over, which she did. Upon walking in, Carol basically walked right past us with disgruntled look on her face and said that they would now clean our room. She didn't apologize at that moment at all and just started stripping the beds' sheets. And I must note that we never once heard from anyone else from the Inn to check in and see how things were after that. We were never offered any kind of formal apology or any kind of compensation for the mess we experienced. They all just made excuses about who was supposed to clean the room and that they "didn't know." There are very clear miscommunication problems.||||Also, the "owner", whoever that is, was supposed to clean it apparently, but didn't. This same owner was trying to get in the front door when we dropped by to grab something from our room. She couldn't find her key to the front door of the house, and just followed my husband in (weird/sketchy). Later that night (around 11pm) we checked that back doors to the house, which were totally unlocked. I just never felt very secure in this place, small town or not.||||To say the least I'm disappointed and disgusted with the way things were handled. I wrote an email to Carol expressing my concerns once we got home, and she barely apologized, and just made excuses for the lack of communication and such things. No offers of reconciliation were made...

For a family of 8, this was the best place to stay economically and location wise. It is an old house and we've remodeled an old home so we understand how difficult it is to modernize an old house in small spaces. We went in Mid May and the crowds were minimal, temperatures were perfect and the home was to ourselves! ||||Good qualities: its right down town and the yard is excellent for children as just behind the house a small distance away it has a playground. There is a hot tub my children enjoyed and we loved having a barbecue available. It was so economical for a family of 8, where we watch expenditures because it is always more expensive with large groups. I appreciated that accommodation. They refill the cookie jar daily. They have a kitchen, which also saves quite a bit of money on food and there are not many places to eat in Nauvoo, surprisingly. I appreciated staying in an old home to get more of a Nauvoo experience. ||||Room for improvements: you get what you pay for. It may not be as nice as b&bs with three times the cost per night. There are things that need to be updated. The bedding is one of those. The sheets were so thin and they just felt old and unsanitary. I personally am just picky about sleeping in public beds. The beds were really hard. The kitchen was extreemly old. We fortunately had the home to ourselves, but if we had to share it it would have been stressful trying to stay quiet with those thin walls as sound travels easily. ||||Overall, I would recommend staying here with a large family. It is so much more economical and I feel the purpose in staying in Nauvoo is more about learning the history and building testimonies through that abundant sweet spirit than about the place you sleep. If it were just my husband and I, I probably wouldn't stay here. We recommend as a way of saving money in a...

I'm not sure what happened with the experience that the reviewer from Northern CA had. But we had a great experience! Okay, so there was no host to greet us, but we didn't expect that and it was fine. The key was left for us in the mailbox as was explained to us, along with a note with our room location. We understood that the pancake mix was provided for us to make our own breakfast but that wasn't a big deal to us. We were told everything to expect and things exceeded our expectations. ||||We loved staying in an older building with decor from over a century ago. The ceiling was a 12 foot ceiling which made the room a bit grand. The bakery even provided sourghum cookies every afternoon. They had a person clean every couple of days or so with new towels available. The location was better than we could have expected - just a few blocks north of the Temple and the whole Nauvoo experience. The beds were comfortable and the Inn was clean. The A/C works great and kept the place cool. Since we shared it with others, it got a bit cold for my wife but they had blankets ;-)...||||They had a guest book for anyone who stayed there to sign and we saw nothing but positive remarks from the last dozen or so people who stayed. The kitchen is a shared kitchen and we made some great friends with the other 2 families that were staying there. We are contemplating going back to Nauvoo in the next couple of years and will hopefully be able to stay at the White House Inn again!! ||||Was it luxurious - not really, but it was clean, comfortable, a great location, and I would...