3lastnamesblog

I originally wanted to name my blog “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” because stuff like this only happens to me. But now lucky Owen is along for the ride too.

You may have seen the pictures on Facebook from our recent vacation to Upstate NY then on to Niagra Falls, Canada. We started the trip in a quaint small town called Cazenovia. Owen was participating in a triathlon nearby. He had participated in this one before; he lived in a neighboring town for over 20 years.

Our first night we checked into the Brewster Inn. The woman at the front desk asked Owen, “Do you have identification?”.  He said, “Yes,” but he thought she said,  “Are you on vacation?”. So the two of them stared at each other for what seemed an eternity and she finally said, “WELL?”. So Owen said, “Well what?”. And she said “DO YOU HAVE IDENTIFICATION?”. Owen and I giggled thinking it was a funny miscommunication, the lady at the desk—not so much. She shot us a look and we tried to refrain from laughing, which only made us want to laugh more. But we held back as much as we could for fear of getting sent to the principal’s office. This unfriendly attitude seemed to set the tone for our stay. 

We got the key (a real key, not a card that you swipe) and walked the one flight up to our room. We had a great deal of trouble getting the key to work, but that’s part of the charm of these old inns, right? The room was poorly lit so we opened the black-out shades. We realized immediately we only had two choices— a dark room, or everyone in the parking lot looking into our room. We chose the dark room. 

After being in the car for hours, I had to use the bathroom. The toilet didn’t flush and I couldn’t get out of the bathroom. I literally couldn’t open the door. I banged on the door and yelled  “OWEN!!!! I CAN’T GET THE DOOR OPEN!!” Owen, in his best German accent,  says, “Vhat’s the secret passvord, Frauline?” I have to say, it made me laugh. More importantly, he got the door open and fixed the handle on the toilet. And by the way, the bathroom was so dark Helen Keller could do a better job putting on her make-up.

The hotel had a beautiful adjoining restaurant set on a picturesque lake. The food was delicious and despite the somewhat off-putting attitude of the waitress, we had a delightful meal. Our vacation was off to a great start! 

We turned in early because we were getting up at 4:30AM for the triathlon. It was a cool night so we wanted to open the windows but one of the windows didn’t have a screen so we put on the air conditioner instead. It seemed to be working when we fell asleep but in the middle night we woke up SWEATING.  I fiddled with the air conditioner, but the fan was clearly broken.Eventually we just opened the one window with the screen, but there wasn’t enough cross ventilation. By the time we figured it all out it was 4:30 AM. We missed almost an entire night’s sleep. Imagine how exhausted I was watching Owen swim a half mile, bike 12 miles, and run 3 miles! We decided we would say something when we got back to the hotel. At this point  “charming” inn now stood for “old and run down” inn.

When we got back to the hotel I  was too exhausted to deal with it, so I went back to the room while Owen went to the front desk. I had to get the maid to help me get into my room because that damn key wouldn’t work. She literally was kicking the door to get it to open. Only a few minutes later Owen returned to the room. Now, it’s not easy to ruffle Owen’s feathers but he was obviously upset. He had spoken to one of the co-owners who said she needed to “assess the situation”. I’m not sure what that meant, but he suggested I go speak with her, perhaps I would have better luck.Turns out what he really was thinking was,“Wait till this chick gets a load of a Jewish woman from Long Island.” I set out on my mission with the same philosophy I taught my daughters —BE NICE FIRST! 

A few minutes later I returned to the room, “ Well, we’ve been kicked out of the hotel!”

 Now, all this owner had to say to me was “ I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well, let me look into it and see what I can do for you”. Just validate my feelings! But instead this amazon of a woman was unapologetic, rude, condescending,  spoke over me, and made me feel like we were lying just to get money off our bill! My final words to her were, “Who’s above you that I can speak to?” and when she told me “nobody’ I said, “Well that explains why this hotel is in such shit condition!”  and I started to walk up the stairs. As I was walking up the steps she yelled over to me that we’re no longer welcome there, our reservation is no longer valid and we needed to get out. It was the old “You cant fire me, I quit” routine. In other words, before we could decide on our own to leave, she was kicking us out.

(Hang in, I haven’t even gotten to the good part of the story yet!!)

I had no intention of leaving. We had tickets for a boat ride in Skaneateles and a dinner reservation for prime rib. I was NOT going to let that woman ruin my plans! So we left for Skaneateles. On the way there, Owen gets a call from this BEOTCH. I can hear her screaming and she didn’t let him get a word in edgewise. The bottom line is, we decided to go back and pack our things. This woman is unhinged. So we turned around and on our way back we quickly made a reservation in a different hotel.

 Now for the good part: when we got back to our room there were at least 5 people in there (including the owner) packing up our things, throwing them into plastic bags, clothes crumpled up, etc. The owner said I THREATENED HER LIFE, and we needed to leave immediately. Yeah right, I’m going to sic my posse of retired teacher friends on you, better watch your back!! At this point she and Owen were inches apart and she was egging him on to hit her (which of course he would never do). By now, most of our things had already been thrown into the lobby. I asked if I could just check the room to make sure they had packed my medication and the door was literally slammed in my face. We went to the lobby to get our stuff and get the hell out of there. That’s when we saw a policeman pull up, which THE OWNER had called! Owen told me to get in the truck and stay there, this is a small town and this guy might have free breakfast at this Inn everyday. I took his advice. I was already imagining spending the night in jail or even worse having to call my daughters and ask them to bail me out. Fortunately the officer was a nice man and actually felt sorry for the white-haired 66 year old man and retired school teacher who just got kicked out of their hotel. 

However,  because they had swooped up all our stuff so quickly, we were still able to make the boat ride! If it wasn’t for the one picture a nice lady took of us, I would have no recollection of it. The entire time all we talked about was how we were going to take this lady down and her establishment along with her! But we eventually calmed down— nothing a good pear martini couldn’t fix.

For the most part we were able to let it go for the rest of the trip and at one point we even laughed hysterically over it. When we were crossing into Canada we were kidding about how we were going to be detained at the border for questioning about our incident at the Brewster Inn. We were fugitives on the run! We did feel validated, though, when we read many reviews by customers who found the owner to be as vile as we did. I’ve attached one such review below. And remember— for every one bad review there are ten more, people just don’t write about it. I wrote a review but this woman is so unbalanced I’m afraid to post it.

Let this be a lesson to all— you never know who you’re dealing with, so approach with caution! Ultimately we weren’t charged for the night we spent there. We got the room for free, but boy did it cost us.

A Review From the Brewster Inn Facebook Page:

Sherie Kennedy Dates   doesn’t recommend The Brewster Inn

My boyfriend and I stayed here Friday night for a friends wedding. The food and service staff were wonderful. The chef and sous chef are creating incredible dishes. During the reception the front desk staff realized they made an error and put us into the wrong guest room. They decided to move us to another room in the main building of the hotel and came to let me know after the fact. I asked why they didn’t let us know before moving us, but assured them that it was no trouble, as everyone makes mistakes. The following morning as were packing to leave, we realized that my boyfriend’s wallet didn’t make the trip to our new room. In a panic I went to the front desk and let the desk clerk know. She seemed slightly irritated and said she would send a housekeeper over to the other room to see if the new occupants had discovered it. An hour had passed and it was approaching check out so I went back to the desk to see if anything had turned up since we didn’t receive a call. She said that nothing had been found. I asked her what the next step would be and explained that his whole life is in his wallet. Including licenses he needs to perform his job that aren’t easily replaceable. Again she appeared uninterested and irritated. She said please wait,  the manager is on her way here. The manager (who I just found out is actually a co-owner) was extremely rude and treated us like we were trying to get something out of the establishment for free. She even said “let me guess, your wallet also has thousands of dollars in it” and rolled her eyes.  After a few high conflict moments she agreed to let us go look for ourselves. The wallet was exactly where we described it in the room. We received No apologies, no offer of anything to make it right for us.  I’m extremely disappointed that an establishment of this caliber could be managed by someone that would treat her guests that way. Especially when she and her team were at fault. We will not be returning and will be sure to let our friends and family know how we were treated. The management team should have been very concerned for us and offered solutions. Instead they thought it would be appropriate to belittle us and be condescending. How disappointing.