Mansion House Inn on Martha's Vineyard — Hotel in Tisbury

My husband and I were completely shocked at how unreasonable the management and the owners of Mansion House were regarding our unique situation. This was meant to be a very special trip with my husband and his elderly, disabled parents. We had saved and planned for many months for this. |I booked our reservation for 2 rooms for May 19-21 in February. However, when I looked through my emails the week prior to leaving for the booking confirmation, I did not find it. Therefore, I called and I told the reservationist that I “thought I had made a reservation already but didn’t see it”. She did not offer or ask to investigate this. She should’ve seen that there was already an existing reservation for the same dates and the same people once I alerted her to my concern. She allowed me to proceed with booking another reservation for the exact same dates, same people, and for two rooms again, thereby duplicating what had been done in Feb. When I realized 3 days later what had happened after locating the initial confirmation in my junk email, and called looking for resolution, we were met with an unyielding attitude toward the “2 week cancellation policy”. Brian, the assistant GM, informed us that because of this policy, and regardless of our erroneous circumstance, they refused to refund us in full for the two extra rooms. We were told we had 2 options, had to decide within a few hours without being permitted to speak directly with the ownership or the head GM, or both options would be revoked. It was egregious and neither option was acceptable. My husband then called back and spoke to Brian again to no avail. These were our “options”: |1. Change dates for the two “extra” rooms to use some other time, which would be set in stone and unable to be changed or canceled for any reason. This was not an acceptable resolution as we live in Texas and are traveling with my elderly disabled in laws. We had no idea when or if any of us could possibly make it back to Martha’s Vineyard. |2. They’d cancel the “extra” reservation I had made 3 days ago, but only refund 1 of the 2 extra rooms (approximately $700 out of the $1400 total), and we would just have to eat the other $700. The logic being their policy requires 2 weeks notice. Again, I understand policies, but clearly this is a very obvious circumstance where a double reservation was made in error, which they also did not catch on their end. Plus, we’d still be using the original booking/staying there. We were not “trying to get out of something” like due to weather, or other people not joining us. When my husband spoke to Brian, he informed him that they are unable to look up existing reservations in their current system. What??!! That is ridiculous in 2025. He was unwilling to take any responsibility for the fact that when I called in saying I could not locate the booking I thought I had made, that they simply allowed me to make the duplicate reservation rather than trying to figure out if I already had one (antiquated system or not). | We’re BEYOND disappointed that the Mansion House would be so close minded and frankly unkind in refusing to refund the FULL amount of the duplicate booking. The day we were leaving, my MIL spoke directly to Josh, the adult son of the owners, and he would only say “it’s your daughter in law’s fault”. He had an attitude and disregard that was palpable. There was also NO consideration given to the potential financial hardship this created. What has happened to common sense & decency? This trip was likely the last we will be able to take with my in laws given their declining health and mobility issues. It is so unfortunate that the horrendous lack of customer care and service from the Mansion House grossly overshadowed...

Poor Customer Service from Ownership: My wife and I had planned a trip for my elderly disabled parents for almost a year. We had to change plans multiple times due to my father’s health. My dad was in the service and was stationed in Norfolk 55 yrs ago. We started our trip there and worked our way up the east coast to culminate at my mom’s dream destination, Martha’s Vineyard. She has always wanted to go there and this is likely the last trip we will ever take with them. My wife had booked our rooms at the Mansion House months before the trip. As the date for our trip approached, my wife could not find that we had ever received a confirmation. Worried that we had somehow forgotten to book the hotel, she called the hotel. She explained her concern to the person on the phone at the Mansion and they gladly booked the rooms. At no point did the person at the hotel tell us that they had no ability to look up current reservations/bookings. Less than 36 hours later and almost 10 days before our scheduled stay, my wife found the original confirmation email in her email trash. She promptly called the hotel back and explained that we were double booked and what had occurred. Long story short, after multiple rounds of talking to the assistant manager, Brian, we were told that hotel ownership would not refund the double booking. We were told that the rooms could be cancelled for what came to just over $750, and that we had a couple hours to make that decision or the full $1,500 double booking would be charged. Alternatively we were offered an option to book for a future date that could not be refunded. We are from TX and will never return to Martha’s Vineyard so this was not feasible. We were left with no option but to pay the $750+ cancellation. Upon arriving we found that the hotel had plenty of rooms available and we spoke with the owners son, Josh. Josh informed us again of their “2 week cancellation policy”, and stated that the double booking was our fault, and therefore they would not do anything. There was no acknowledgment that their employee should have been able to look up current reservations, nor that they failed to mention they could not do so when they double booked our stay. We realize we are equally at fault for “assuming” the staff would be competent in this regard and that ownership would be reasonable when faced with this situation. I would even understand if the hotel was fully booked and we cost them a potential customer, but neither were the case. They were simply unreasonable. I have traveled for 30 years with my job and I have never experienced something like this. Most hotels are reasonable and will allow cancellation, especially in the case of an accidental double bookings. I think ownership of The Mansion is very removed from what normal/decent people and businesses do when faced with opportunities to do the right thing. They simply don’t care and demonstrated that via their staff, and when confronted in person. They truly put a damper on what was intended to be a wonderful experience for my family with an unyielding attitude, and with zero regard to the added financial hardship their lack of...

This all started on a Monday when I got off early for work and was going to treat myself to some spa time. I went to the Mansion House spa (which is a separate entity from the hotel) to have my eyebrows waxed and lip waxed. Afterwards, I noticed tingling and asked about it and was told it’s a natural wax. I wasn’t given a mirror and thought that was odd. But I followed the woman’s to the massage room and had my 50 minute massage. After getting dressed, my eyebrow was really hurting. I mentioned it on my way out and she said it was a bruise. I said it felt like a burn, then I looked in the mirror and saw a burn (see picture). She kept reassuring me it was a bruise. I kept arguing it was burned and the skin was ripped off. The owner of the spa came over and gave me ointment and said it would be fine. I went home and showed my friend (who is also a nurse practitioner) and she said it was definitely a burn and the skin had been stripped away. Well, I woke up to the eyebrow throbbing, so I emailed first thing the next morning with a picture just to let them know something was wrong. Whether it was the hot wax or improper handling of the strips, they should try to take steps to prevent this from happening again. I went to work (as a salesperson in a retail shop) and customers were more worried about my eye than the product I was trying to sell... I waited for a whole day with no response, then went to the spa the following day (my only day off) to show them what happened. I said I had emailed her yesterday morning and she said she didn’t get it. I let her know I could resend it, but then she said she found it. The owner asked me what I wanted her to do about it. I let her know i was worried about scarring and infection and if she could refer me to someone. She said she would look into it. Later that day, I finally got a response, but it was too late to get into anywhere. I stopped by the main office to complain Thursday and left a message for someone at the hotel to call me. Instead, the spa owner called me to apologize profusely (first time she had apologized) and said she tried calling me Wednesday, but my voicemail was full. I let her know it wasn’t full. Then she called me back later and said that she had tried calling the wrong number. I would recommend staying away from the spa only. And the reason I didn’t go to the emergency room right away is that my health insurance doesn’t cover this state. I wish I had the money to cover a visit immediately, but with them denying that it was their fault, I was afraid they wouldn’t pay for the visit. Also, I would have had to take time off work. As this island is very busy in the summer, I had to work. And as a responsible worker, I didn’t want to leave the rest of the staff short handed. The hotel gym itself is very nice, and the hotel staff is very courteous...