Harriet's House — Hotel in Put-in-Bay Township

I write this review acknowledging it is difficult to separate our stay at Harriet's House from our overall experience in P-i-B. Both, however, were fairly disappointing! |We traveled to South Bass Island for our 45th wedding anniversary. It had been 30 years since we had been there, when we camped, and my husband wanted to be on the islands again. We should have skipped P-i-B and just gone to Kelley's, truthfully. ||We chose Harriet's House as it appeared to be centrally located, economical, and had high ratings. We chose the "romantic basement bungalow for 2." Well, it definitely was in the basement and only had room for 2. Was it romantic or a bungalow? NO!! It was basically a dorm room - a very clean dorm room granted, but that's about it. Definitely in the basement, as we were given the room at the far end of the basement corridor, in the corner that had no outside light and a dim window only onto the corridor. In fact, the one night we came back after dark, we had to use our phones to make our way down that corridor, as no outside lights were available. (This was corrected by the next evening). Watch out for the unexpected step - almost turned an ankle there! ||Realize there really is not a chair in the room - doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize the only place to sit is the bed. We had a small fridge - but there is NO ice available on the campus - which in August was kind of a big deal for us. No place to keep it in the room though, either. Also, it took us till the last afternoon to find the one soda fountain in PIB - at the Subway right down the block, hidden in the middle of the block. We could have at least gotten some ice there. ||We discovered the pillows in our room were like pancakes, which was major for my husband. The TV had gotten messed up, and no instructions were available to us. Unfortunately after 9 p.m. no one is available to "fix" such things. The next morning I also found out we had no coffee in the room. Also, not sure where the pool is that is in the photo associated with the site, we never did figure it out. ||Positives - the complex IS very neat and clean. We came on our bikes, and they easily accommodated these. The place was difficult to find - but primarily because apparently street signs are rare in PIB. The staff very quickly responded to our difficulties and concerns, which was certainly an unexpected plus. My husband's rear bike tire kept going flat, and they very nicely helped us deal with that issue before we left. ||Will we return - NO! But not so much because of our experience at Harriet's House as our overall disappointment with PIB. We are not drinkers, boaters nor crowd people, but were more interested in exploring the natural areas of the island. We should have gone to one of the...

My husband and I have been to Put in Bay a dozen times, stayed at Harriet House twice before. Each time was decent. Nice place. Decent rooms. We came to the island on Tuesday June 4th, 2024. At around 5:30pm, we decided to stay the night and rent a room. (Last minute, we know, but we didn't want to leave at 7pm.) We looked at available options, and Harriet House popped up on Expedia. Cool. $150 for the night, book it! 📖 Booked it, got a confirmation email with a number. We get over to Harriet House, no one is in the office,(even though your sign states 9am-9pm on the office window.........) anyhoo... we call the number, and a lady answers, says she has no idea about our reservation, she will call me back. Calls back, she then proceeds to tell me they do not take american express and we would need another form of payment. My husband's paycheck was getting deposited in the bank the next day, and all we had was the American express. Why would you give us a confirmation number?? Why just tell Expedia to take American express off as a payment? We stayed on the island and missed the ferry because the reservation was confirmed. The "owner" was extremely rude and never came to talk to us in person about this, told us, "you'll find somewhere else to stay" and also suggested we take the jet express home, when we were parked at the miller ferry. My husband runs and owns a business, and if he ran his business the way y'all performed, he would be jobless. Thankfully, after having to go to 3 other places, trying to check in at 7:30pm at this point.. we finally found a place. Y'all need to go to the Ashley Island House, and take notes on how hospitality is supose to be ran. Your tone and how you handled the situation was garbage. We will never stay with y'all again, and I promise, I'll make sure no one else patronizes your business. From the reviews above, it seems like we weren't the only ones you were rude to.. 👋🏾✌🏾 Plenty of places to stay on the island, and I would sleep on a golf cart in the middle of the woods, before I ever gave you the time of day.

Also, if you're "truly sorry" how about you get that type of payment offline.... You would certainly save other guests time and headache. Ps... incase anyone was wondering.... Ashley's island House accepts...

This was a very clean place to stay and great location to down town however I will not be coming back. The owners are older and I felt like we were being babysat the entire time. We went up with a group of over 30 year old business women who are all very responsible. On Saturday night we sat outside listed to music and had a few cocktails. We were talking to people as they walked down the street and on numerous occasions they came over and told us that nobody was allowed to stop and talk to us unless they were on the rental agreement. Now I do understand that they do not want a party at their house or in their house however nobody went inside and everyone was on their best behavior. We were on an island on vacation and just trying to enjoy ourselves. Later in the evening we were sitting on the porch talking with our neighbors, the only other group in our building, and he came by and told us that we needed to go to bed. Our entire building was awake and being respectful but he thought we should be in bed. Personally I feel that they want to live a retired life and don't want to deal with being landlord's/owners anymore. I feel like we spent a lot of money (2K for 2 night stay) and we should have never been treated like that. I am sure that others in the past have caused them to react this way to their guests but we were not and should not have been treated that way. At one point we were outside cooking on the girl with our group and the owners came over with hot dogs and asked us to throw them on for them. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue but it did bother me as they were in our business the entire stay. Like I said it wouldn't have been an issue if they weren't constantly telling us what we could and couldn't do. It was ok for them to intrude on our dinner but not for us to talk to anyone outside of our group. We couldn't even grill out without having them there. Most people that go to the island go to get away, have a few drinks and be social. You CAN"T...