Burr Oak Lodge & Conference Center — Hotel in The Plains

Today 06/17/24 is the next day after checking out. When I was checking out, the receptionist asked me how my stay was and acted as if she was personally offended I said it was horrible. Her demeanor immediately changed towards me. I was told yesterday 06/16/24 that I was going to receive a phone call back by the end of that day. I did not. I could tell that receptionist had ZERO intention on making sure that happened by her body language. She kept putting emphasis on the fact that I received the Hero discount when I asked for some sort of compensation. I’m a veteran, and rightfully earned that discount and doesn’t change the fact that I paid a lot of money for a horrible experience at Burr Oaks fault. Even if they were to refund me for the s’mores package I would have been satisfied. When the s’mores package had cheap bamboo sticks you can get for a package at Walmart for $2. 2 small bundles of wood. Not even name brand graham crackers that practically crumbles if you look at it and it was one small package out of a box of graham crackers at that. There was cheap marshmallows and because they had no firestarter the receptions went and grabbed one of those cheap clear 0.99 BIC lighters and handed it to me. The only thing in that s’mores bundle that was quality was the chocolate. I was impressed it was actually Hersheys brand, maybe they couldn’t find anything cheaper. For as much as that bundle costs everything in that package should have been high quality items but it looked like they went to family dollar and quickly put a bundle together from the clearance section and put it in a brown paper bag to top it off. I’m looking at this brown paper bag with cheap items and was thinking this really cost me $75?! Everything in that bundle was at most $15-$20 including the wood and I’m being generous. I stayed June 14-16 and the stay was horrible. The cabin was dirty. Dirty dishes, cob webs hanging from the cabinets, cob webs on the bottom of the fridge, finger prints on the glass sliding door. Dog scratches on the main door. I checked in at 4pm but had to wait 20 minutes for the maintenance man to come to give us new keys at the cabin because according to him “they didn’t activate them right”. I was VERY wrong to think that was the only thing that was going to happen. At about 11:45-11:50 on the first night the fire alarms started going off. It took several minutes and multiple calls for someone to answer any of the calls. The maintenance man didn’t remedy the issue until about 12:20. We were woken up out of our sleep. So I’m hoping all is figured out. NO, on our last night the fire alarms went off AGAIN at about 9pm maintenance man came rather quickly and changed the batteries and left. 9:40 rolls around, the fire alarms are going off AGAIN!! Every single night we were there there was something going on because of them. Not to mention in my reservation it says check out is before 11 am. Then when we get there they gave us a sheet that says check out is at 10am. When I called the front desk about the discrepancy, they said that time only applies to the lodge and not the cabins. When NOWHERE in my reservation does it say that. If the cabins and the lodges have two different check out times that should be in writing on the website. Not a general before 11am. That’s VERY misleading. But the sheer audacity these people have to leave an envelope to “tip” housekeeping when I had to clean the entire cabin BEFORE we were able to really use it shows they don’t even clean those cabins. On the sheet they have so many housekeeping duties that needs to be completed by the renter even down to setting the temperature to 72 degrees. I wouldn’t be surprised if all they do is “change” the bedding and replenish the towels. I wish I could upload videos to really show the full context of how crappy the stay was. If I could give them zero stars I would. The money I payed is NOT...

We went here with a family with an infant and for a relaxed work cum vacation sojourn, and we had a pretty bad experience. We stayed at a cottage thinking that we get the kitchen as this is useful for preparing some food for baby. But for us this was partly a work trip and we needed to access internet for several office meetings. But from the time we reached we were treated pretty poorly and denied a lot of basic services we thought are natural for a "deluxe lodge":

There is no Internet in the cottages, it is not mentioned anywhere in their website. THIS IS A BASIC NECESSITY FOR A CONFERENCE HOTEL. There website says that there is Internet in the lodges and cottages are booked via the lodge website it is virtually impossible for anyone to know that cottages are not a part of the lodge. They are a separate entity, and managed separately. This made our trip quite miserable with two kids as we had to spend a lot of time in the main lodge negating the very advantage of taking the cottage.

We were told that WE NEED TO WASH DISHES, DRY THEM, and clean the house as otherwise there will be an extra charge. This is the first time I am hearing this and in hotel we had stayed we had to do this. This is not a hostel! This is more surprising as they call themselves a "deluxe". THEY DO NOT PROVIDE ANY ACCESSORIES or dishwashers other than just the soap. What are we supposed to do? Clean dishes with hand? Or drive 15 miles to Gloucester with an infant to buy all cleaning supplies towels and brushes just for three days?

Same for trash, we were told that we need to take out our own trash otherwise there is an extra charge. We did take out diapers which we get. But others? What are we supposed to do now? Buy a vacuum cleaner?

We booked a deluxe cottage with a view, and paid for the view, but we were given cottage number 30 with not much view of the lake. We seemed to get a short end here.

THERE IS NO SHAMPOO OR CONDITIONER or lotion in the cottages and the lodge does not provide them. We were required to drive to Gloucester to buy them. This is a very basic offering of any conference hotel and we were seriously surprised that they cannot provide the most basic of offerings.

Some of these need to be disclosed clearly at booking, not when a guest has already arrived, or checking out, as we were helpless and cannot make any changes at that point.

There was not much help from the staff either, when we asked about it all we got was a snub the front desk staff which made us more irritated.

The good things are restaurant staff is friendly, food is good, common grounds are well maintained and the pool is very nice.

Overall, I signed up for a relaxed upscale, but it was quite a bad experience. WE DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR A CAMPING TRIP WHERE WE HAD TO GO TO STORES ALL THE TIME TO BUY BASIC ITEMS LIKE SOAP, SHAMPOO, TOWELS, AND GO ELSEWHERE FOR INTERNET. Next time you think to come here for vacation with work and need internet, and book a cottage with small kids or infants, or for work...

The lodge is quite beautiful, the cabins are quite nice and newly renovated which is a plus the beds are comfortable (stayed in a pet friendly cabin which was cabin 20) which is up on a huge hill with several steps that are very awkward to climb my partner is legally blind and it was not without difficulty to get him up the steps it’s very under-lit hard to see the numbers on the cabins when checking in during the evening and the stay times need to be fixed to 3pm check in and 11am check out I feel that 10am is way too early…. The first night there was alright went to the dining room for dinner partner ordered the seafood platter which consisted of all frozen types of fish, shrimp and hush puppies (more than likely from Sysco) had very little flavor!! I ordered the New York strip steak with onions and mushrooms, green beans and mashed potatoes the steak was absolutely terrible anyone who likes red meat will tell you that any good steak shouldn’t need steak sauce I had to smother mine in steak sauce to get it down it had no seasoning whatsoever the mushrooms and onions were practically raw the green beans had no flavor and were very crispy with no seasoning either it was like eating raw green beans, the mashed potatoes were the best thing on the plate and they weren’t great and then the waitress my god after she got our drinks and order she was no where to be found I had to ask another waitress to get her because I wanted to change my order, the waitress came back out and said “sorry the chef said your steak is already on the fly. It’s too late to change your mind” so I said that’s fine and still never seen my waitress until our food was coming out she never checked on us I had to literally grab another waitress walking by to get me A1 sauce, no re-fills on our drinks!! So I don’t recommend eating in their dining room instead there is a little restaurant in glouster called kaslers country kitchen that had fabulous staff, service, and food and was very very reasonably priced! So take notes to stay at Burr Oak and Eat at Kaslers in glouster that way you don’t have “a chef in name only” telling you that you can’t change your mind about what you’re eating it was very worth going to Burr Oak just to be able to take our whole family meaning our fur babies also if you stay in a cabin be prepared to keep the heat set on 80 just to have a comfortable temp because the floors stay very cold and the bathroom as well… but other than that we will be back in the future and have our routine of how to do things and where to go eat the towns people in glouster are amazing kind and helpful!!! The man at the front desk was very professional and nice at check in at check out we told the lady working she apologized profusely and made notes about the treatment we received at their dining room and was very helpful...