Shalom Acres — Hotel in Troy

I would NOT RECOMMEND THIS VENUE TO ANYONE! We rented the 2nd floor of their barn from 4 - 9pm for our Christmas family gathering this past weekend. First, we were not allowed to get inside any earlier to set up the food and had to use our party time that we paid an hourly rate for to set up and then clean up later. Then the owners immediately met us inside to go over the bathroom and clean up rules. There was no running water so they had put in camping potties and told us we could only go #1 in them (yuck) and we would have to go next door to their Bed & Breakfast to go # 2. There were 3 copies of these bathroom rules on each of our party tables! They were very worried about the Christmas Village and train set she had put up and warned all the kids to be careful. (Why put it up if you're that worried about it?) Then when 2 young girls went over to the B&B to use their restrooms, they were told "there are cameras everywhere so they better not steal anything" (they are 10 and 12 years old). We quickly found out that the room we rented also had two-way cameras in several places and they were monitoring us. We could actually hear them complaining over the cameras about our party guests standing outside smoking a cigarette. They also told us "over the cameras", that anybody under 16 would now have to have an adult with them to use the B&B bathroom as the kids were to noisy. We were also told that we would have to clean everything up prior to our 9pm end of rental time. We were required to remove all table decorations the owners had decorated with, table cloths, clean, sweep and mop the entire floor (owner made sure we knew there was a swiffer mop since we couldn't use water), take out all trash bags at the end of the party and be out of the barn by 9pm. My questions are, if you're renting this place, why would we have to do all the cleaning up during the time we paid them to rent the room for our party? Why do they have cameras everywhere in the Barn and the B&B to spy on the renters? My family are all respectful people and they made us all feel uncomfortable by spying on us throughout the...

Finally with deposit in hand I can warn you all about this nightmare of a venue. There is so much to say but I don't have the characters to explain how horrible this experience really was.

This woman tried to rope us into paying double by withholding our contract until we forced her to get it to us. We had to remind her every couple of weeks for almost 3-4 months! She only even got us the contract when we threatened to go elsewhere and that was 6 and a half months prior to the wedding. Upon receiving the contract she expected full payment within 3 days of me getting the contract! Well things didn't work out and it was postponed until a week later but she wanted it all in cash. This was never mentioned ANYWHERE!!! We even paid our deposit in check. She only told us that in order to guarantee 2023 pricing we had to get her the payment before end of year but payment was due before end of year. So no problem right? Wrong. She refused to accept any other payment form that wasn't cash or we had to pay double even though a few text msgs prior she said a cashier's check was fine! She also tried to guilt trip me by implying I was lying about how bank withdrawals work. When we originally met with her she did mention her 2024 prices would increase but she only mentioned that they were DOUBLING when we couldn't pay cash and suddenly had to pay the new year's price. Super unprofessional, she even had to be reminded to send my deposit back and lied saying she sent it when she actually forgot it in her purse!!!

RUN do not walk away from this stress inducing nightmare of a venue. Do not make the same mistake we almost did by working with...

I started planning our family Christmas party about 3 months prior to our event. Teresa was nothing but helpful in making sure everything was just the way I wanted it. The decorating was outstanding. The night was just how it was planned. Teresa and her crew met with me as much as I felt needed to make sure everything was to my liking. They were kind, courteous, respectful and very much paid attention to detail and was just as excited as I was with our upcoming family event. I have attended other events at Shalom Acres and they were also pleasant experiences. I would be delighted to recommend Shalom Acres to anyone for their upcoming events. Thanks,...