Boyette's Resort — Hotel in New Madrid

I am giving this 3 stars because of the excellent customer service attempt by the owner.

I booked a package deal with Boyette's Resort for 3 days and to get a boat each day from Bo's Landing to fish. If you'd like the long story, see my review for Bo's Landing. On day 2 without being able to use a boat into our 3 day trip, I went to the resort to ask if we could just cancel the boat from the package and bank fish, since that's what we had to do the day before on account of the boat not being ready. She said that the boat not being ready was news to her, since in her agreement with Bo's Landing they should ALWAYS have a boat ready for her guests for the day, regardless of when they showed up. She called the other business, but they weren't willing to give a refund, and lied about the boat not being ready the day before when we went to get it. The owner was willing to give us a rain-check on our trip, but wasn't willing to give a refund on the boat since she had to pay full price herself. We politely declined and left the afternoon of the second day. Explained below:

Aside from the boat, the package ended up being a little over $800 for the 3 days for 2 people. We weren't refunded any. You're supposed to get a cabin, ice, bait, and a boat. I wasn't given a boat for the first 2 days. We decided to leave after the first night. The cabin (cabin 8) was very dirty. Attached to my review is the ceiling of the bathroom. There was no smoke detector, only a place where one used to be, and there was an extension cord hooked up to a burnt receptacle for the refrigerator that was snaked around a doorway. We unplugged everything we weren't using to be safe. The lamp in the front room had a broken switch, so you had to plug and unplug the lamp from the wall to turn it on and off.

The "internet" was likely a network extender attached to the main house with too big of a job to work correctly. The WiFi was WEP encrypted. For anyone not tech savvy, that's basically like doing your banking on a Mcdonald's WiFi network. You shouldn't be using WEP encryption in 2009, let alone today. I was able to get a network speed test to run (2mbps, not usable), but never got a website to load. Once I realized the network wasn't encrypted I didn't use it again (but couldn't even if I wanted to).

If you don't book a package deal for a boat, the cabins are around $90 a night. They can sleep up to 5 people, so for that price it's reasonable for what you're getting. I wouldn't recommend the package deal at all. If you must have internet for work and can't get it on your phone, this resort isn't your best option. The owner was very...

Stayed in a 2 bedroom cabin and got a boat rental package. There are not enough pictures of the lodging at all. When you enter the cabin, you are in the first bedroom. Walk through the next doorway (no knob on the door) and you're in the second bedroom, which is also the living room, dining room, and kitchenette. I can be fine with having a small cabin, but don't call it 2 bedrooms. Cabin was clean enough but the bathroom and kitchenette were extremely cramped. The shower would be fine for a child, we are both adult men and had to squat to wash our faces and heads. The kitchenette is also not very well furnished with utensils or cookware. Again, some more pictures would have been great to know what we would be getting into before booking. At the time of our arrival, the ice machine was out of ice as were several nearby vendors.

As far as the boat rental package goes, Boyette's does not rent boats themselves and there is no mention of that on their website. They partner with Bo's Landing about a quarter mile down the road (I wrote a separate review for Bo's). We arrived shortly before 6PM on our first day, under the assumption we would be able to take our boat out until at least sundown. The owner, Judy, said that Bo's closes at 6 and we could not get out on the water after calling them to verify. When asked if we could get any money back for the unused day since there was no mention of the boating curfew, Judy said "that's on you". This all happened right when we arrived of course so we had a bad taste in our mouths for Boyette's from the second we arrived. The cabin was just icing on the cake. The rest of the stay was fine, at least there was cable TV to wind down at the end of the day. Wifi...

Ok it was clean. Judy gets 5 stars for the hostess with the mostest!|The window A/C unit was adequate. My favorite part. There were a couple of frying pans under the counter and I used one to make toast. No toaster. The room was clean and there were plenty of towels. Old dark cypress boards as paneling in the ceilings and walls were interesting. Bed was a bit on the saggy side but this had been a tiny cabin used for many years and is actually in good repair even today. Not the Hampton inn and we were lucky to have light bulbs! Miss Judy said so! Good for a Base camp while we scoped out the Reelfoot Lake area as a first time visitor but it was a box to check off and we did. Choosing between a tent or a camper I would appreciate being out of the weather and inside this 18x18 cabin. The bathroom was 9x6 and the kitchen was 9x6. They came around next morning about 10 am in a side by side to exchange the towels and that was interesting too. I will only say this in closing. If I had dropped a ball and it rolled under the bed I would not have gone after it. Don’t look under there! What you don’t see...