O'Casey's Boutique Inn - Bed & Breakfast San Antonio — Hotel in San Antonio

I first found this listing on Airbnb but had an issue with dates, so I Googled the phone number and called Tarin personally. so glad I did! When I told her the room I was calling about she inquired who would be traveling and what the occasion would be. I told her my husband and I we're on a trip for my birthday, so she advised that there was a different room that might be better for us. I'm so glad we listened to her!|| ||She set us up in the Casey Cottage in the Carriage House out back. It was romantic, comfy and an all-around great room for our little Excursion. Tarin has thought of everything you could need to have a comfortable retreat, from the bug spray & Flashlight for outside to the books in the little reading Nook and the bottle of water inside. The bed was large and comfy and it was nice having a ceiling fan and a table fan, I like to have a breeze when I sleep. ||||I was disappointed there wasn't a bathtub, but the shower was large and nice. The towels for big and fluffy. There was plenty of storage for all of our bathroom needs. ||||The main house is beautiful!! A well built, well decorated old mansion that has lost none of its charm. The rooms are decorated with period furniture that felt like you were back in the day when the house was lived in by a family. ||||The grounds are beautiful!! There are several outdoor seating areas, an outdoor fireplace and a laundry room. We are in a dry period so the flower looked a little dry, but that's too be expected at this time of year with numerous days of 100+ degree weather. ||||Breakfast was delivered to our room everyday and all of the baskets were yummy. In one of the baskets there was an empanada of which my husband had never heard of, when Terin explained it was a meat filled pastry my husband said oh like a hot - pocket? So he re-coined the name a hot-pock-itenada. Another day was an oversized Cinnamon roll. All of the baskets had juice and fruit along with the pastries ||||Check-in was easy, she sends you a text message with the key code and to the right of the door you will find your keys. Terin has several properties she manages and several more she is developing, so she's not on property, but she'll be there if you ask her to be and always answers her phone. When we saw her in person we were a little shocked at how young she is, because she runs this business as someone who's been in the business for decades. She truly cares about her guests and wants to make sure everyone has a comfortable and memorable experience with...

I first found this listing on Airbnb but had an issue with dates, so I Googled the phone number and called Tarin personally. so glad I did! When I told her the room I was calling about she inquired who would be traveling and what the occasion would be. I told her my husband and I we're on a trip for my birthday, so she advised that there was a different room that might be better for us. I'm so glad we listened to her!|| ||She set us up in the Casey Cottage in the Carriage House out back. It was romantic, comfy and an all-around great room for our little Excursion. Tarin has thought of everything you could need to have a comfortable retreat, from the bug spray & Flashlight for outside to the books in the little reading Nook and the bottle of water inside. The bed was large and comfy and it was nice having a ceiling fan and a table fan, I like to have a breeze when I sleep. ||||I was disappointed there wasn't a bathtub, but the shower was large and nice. The towels for big and fluffy. There was plenty of storage for all of our bathroom needs. ||||The main house is beautiful!! A well built, well decorated old mansion that has lost none of its charm. The rooms are decorated with period furniture that felt like you were back in the day when the house was lived in by a family. ||||The grounds are beautiful!! There are several outdoor seating areas, an outdoor fireplace and a laundry room. We are in a dry period so the flower looked a little dry, but that's too be expected at this time of year with numerous days of 100+ degree weather. ||||Breakfast was delivered to our room everyday and all of the baskets were yummy. In one of the baskets there was an empanada of which my husband had never heard of, when Terin explained it was a meat filled pastry my husband said oh like a hot - pocket? So he re-coined the name a hot-pock-itenada. Another day was an oversized Cinnamon roll. All of the baskets had juice and fruit along with the pastries ||||Check-in was easy, she sends you a text message with the key code and to the right of the door you will find your keys. Terin has several properties she manages and several more she is developing, so she's not on property, but she'll be there if you ask her to be and always answers her phone. When we saw her in person we were a little shocked at how young she is, because she runs this business as someone who's been in the business for decades. She truly cares about her guests and wants to make sure everyone has a comfortable and memorable experience with...

In short: An impressive converted house, well situated, but severely let down by the hands-off, remotely managed model. Measured in the key categories* it scored just a 3.7 average.||||The long story: O'Casey's is, in reality, a large posh house, located in a nice leafy residential neighbourhood, that's been converted into B&B rooms.||||However, it's one of those professionally managed, unattended operations where you never see/meet the owners/operators at any time between check-in and check-out; everything is done remotely. I have stayed in places that did this to some degree, but never to this extreme, and there are significant downsides to this approach (or at least, how it's been executed at O'Casey's): although this posh house has lovely public rooms, you feel weird and awkward wondering about what is essentially a ghost house; no one is onsite regularly tending to the outside furniture, and they are so dusty that you cannot sit to enjoy the lovely gardens; breakfast is delivered to your door as a "picnic" but everything is pre-packed and/or single-serve and very impersonal and, quite frankly, pretty cheap and nasty.||||The accommodation itself was fine - was stayed in the Clare Cottage around the back - and so it was lovely, peaceful, quiet, comfortable, and quite private. All nice, but let down by the management model. We actually stayed in June 2018, but I've been delayed in getting my reviews posted...||||The acid test (that is, would I return): No; I found the lack of personal contact off-putting and the breakfast was pretty cheap.||||*Key Categories||Accommodation = comfort, ambiance, sleep quality, facilities: 4.0||Breakfast/Dining = quality, choice, appropriateness: 3.5||Staff = helpfulness, efficiency, politeness: 3.0||Meeting Expectations = how close to meeting the expectations they set: 3.8||Value-for-Money = taking everything into consideration and measuring this against...