My husband and I live in Baltimore but decided to spend 2 evenings downtown, with our dog, and be tourists in our home town. I'll try and review every place we managed to hit:
We've always wanted to stay at the Admiral Fell Inn and took advantage of a groupon special to do so. I felt it was a very good value!
Positive:
History is alive and well here! We enjoyed the admiral's reception where this history was shared with us. All the staff members were very friendly. We had our dog with us and they greeted him each time he passed. Coffee/Tea/Muffins each morning was a nice touch we found only the second day but that muffin was out-of-this-world insanely good. The room was nice, I liked the old furniture and the overall decor. While I found some things to be a bit scruffed, it but me at ease a bit with our pooch (who had no incidents).
Negative:
Our room was right on the corner, streetside, right above the lobby and right off the elevator. My husband and I are one's to stay up late and not light sleepers, so I thought of anyone, we're probably the most ideal candidates for this type of room. We had a REALLY tough time sleeping, especially night one. It wasn't so much "people" and "nightlife" that kept us awake...it was cars and trucks and deliveries. Every car that drove by sounded exceptionally loud, like something was amplifying it. And starting EARLY in the morning, the sound of people making deliveries, opening/closing truck doors, the loading/unloading off stuff, pretty much unbearable (this was a Monday morning). The only thing I could suggest is perhaps some sort of white noise machine that people could request or maybe just have in rooms that are known to be noisier (ours was Jerome Bonaparte). The beds weren't so comfy either.
Surprisingly, our dog didn't react to the outside noises, but he did react (bark) when he heard someone out in the hallway, and being right off the elevator that was frequent and hard to deal with. I don't know how full the hotel was but I think sticking us perhaps further tucked away with our pooch probably would have been the better choice.
We gave our number to the front desk representative when we left the dog in the room alone. We got called 2 of the 3 times, the one time we were actually right in the hotel for the admirals reception and we never heard him at all and frequently kept checking (even trying to purposely make noise to just to test it out). The second time, they had me sign a pet policy and gave me a hang tag for my door which looks as if it should have been given to me at check in. I was given this after midnight of the day we were supposed to check out (so took the dog for a walk in the middle of the night and as I passed back through, they had me stop to fill it out). That felt a bit threatening to me like they had to get me to sign something so that they could charge me a check out for the earlier incidents. There was no additional charge at check out but it left a bad taste in my mouth like I was being punished for I think was a minor incident (they got a noise complaint, called me, and I came right back as I was just around the corner)
While that seems like quite a bit more negative then positive, I loved my time at the Admiral Fell Inn and have already recommended to friends who are considering doing a similar stay-cation. We didn't take advantage of all the extra guests benefits like shuttle and gym, but I think they're definitely impressive!
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