My only B&B experience was in a beautiful, quaint place in New Hampshire. The interviewing college paid for it and went on and on about how much nicer it was than the Marriott.
I felt intensely uncomfortable because the (very nice) but intrusive older couple expected me to eat breakfast with them early in the morning and chat. First, I can’t eat breakfast (never hungry before noon) and I hate, hate, hate chit-chat with strangers, especially when, in this case, I was prepping myself for an all-day interview.
The showers barely spit water and there were no locks on the doors, just namby-pamby doornknob locks like you’d find in a family home. I was worried that someone was going to burst in on me while I was naked in the room.
I was pressured to “c’mon down and join the party” and play boardgames with the other guests and the couple. Yick.
And did I mention that this was during one of the coldest snaps in New England in years? It was -20 overnight and the owners were reluctant to turn up the heat and offered another quilt instead.
Screw picturesque and personal. Give me a big, anonymous chain hotel with freakin’ locks on the doors and no mandatory social participation (and heat!)
BTW, there is a hilarious episode of “The King of Queens” where Doug and Carrie get trapped at a B&B run by an elderly couple. Carrie runs away to the Marriott and Doug gets caught by the couple and is imprisoned.
This is why I like hostels. Best of both worlds, if a little spartan. But there are people around to hang out with and talk to…if you want. And if you don’t, no harm, no foul. There are locals who know the best clubs and parks and shopping…if you ask. And if you don’t want to ask, there’s probably a bulletin board up with local info that’s really local and independent - not those ubiquitous glossy flyers in hotel doorways. There’s always a kitchen where I can cook my own food and hungry cute guys around who’ll help me eat it if I make extra! And most hostels don’t care what hours you keep, 'cause they cater to all ages. (But do check first - some of them do have hours when they lock the doors.)
But, given the two choices in the OP, I’ll take a hotel over a B&B, for exactly the reasons listed.
I love staying in both. Bad hotels and bad B & Bs are equally awful. There are B & Bs here where you wouldn’t find a chain hotel. I think it depends on exactly what sort of a stay you want whether chain hotel or B & B will suit.
I don’t think I have every stayed in an actual B&B, but have stayed in a few small, quaint inns that I found charming. They have the benefits of B&B, quaint rooms, a good breakfast (usually served in an attached resturant) without the forced intimacy. My favorite one actually has its own bar which serves their own beers. But that is probably not what the OP means.
Hotels have their benefits, as mentioned above, but after staying in a bunch while traveling for work, they all start to blur.
I totally agree with this. This kind of place is my favorite. Plus, you usually have the advantage of being able to talk to true local people if you need some information or advice.
In general, however, I do prefer a standard hotel to a B&B. If I need to stay in a hotel, I’m generally more interested in whatever it is that I am in the area to do than I am in where I’m staying. And I don’t like forced social interaction either.
And in a regular hotel, you know what to expect. You know how things work. The bathroom? It’s right there. Need ice? There’s an ice machine. Need more pillows? Call the desk. You don’t have to wonder which door to knock on or if you might be disturbing someone.
Yeah, kinda’. I’ve stayed at B&Bs when they’ve been real convenient, for instance, being located in the middle of a dense, walkable urban neighborhood while the chains are in a dead downtown and the 'burbs.
My qualms, though:
Sometimes lacking basic amenities (telephone, television, clock radio, Wi-Fi, etc.)
Privacy: if I’m with my girlfriend and we’re feeling … uhh, romantic … at a normal hotel, those in adjacent rooms might hear nothing or else quiet muffled noises. At a B&B, with thinner walls, and residential HVAC which often has registers or cold air returns that can connect two rooms, someone in the next room would hear everything.
It’s hard to find a B&B where the rooms aren’t all foo-fooed and frillied-up like my (late) grandmother’s bedroom.
Quirks: antique door locks that you have to use just the right pressure to unlock, toilets that you might have to jiggle, and so on.
For a romantic getaway to a place that suits it a B&B might be a nice change of pace, but in most circumstances I prefer a hotel. Especially for business travel. It’s a place to sleep and shower and eat and I want reliability and privacy.
The few bed and breakfasts I have stayed in have been fabulous, quite luxurious and I never felt that I had to interact with the owners. I also have stayed in some nice hotels that were fabulous as well. So I guess it is a tossup. My favorite quarters away from home have been rental houses.
My parents often pay for my brother and I to fly somwhere to meet them for Christmas or other vacation time and pay for a place for us to stay while they stay in their RV. I figured out a few years ago that the cost of two hotel rooms was more than the rental on a beach house (I love the beach). So we have done that the last few years.
So I choose option 3.
Oh ok. I go for the place I am fairly assured of getting clean sheets and a functioning bathroom ad no one tying to organize my time. So hotels it is.
I’ve never been interested in staying at a B&B. It just doesn’t sound like my thing. I’ll take a hotel, thanks.
Doesn’t have to be a chain hotel, however. The absolute best hotel I’ve ever stayed in was a quirky little place in a big old townhouse in the center of Barcelona. Nothing chain about it, it may have been the best of both worlds: small and friendly like a B&B, but with hotel-type privacy and amenities. And no valuable antiques or foofy bedspreads to worry about messing up, just comfortable and practical modern furniture.
The only drawback was that the alley beside our bedroom turned out to be a popular singles bar for the local pigeon population…
And that’s another thing. Give me mass produced generic furniture any day. I might be gay but I’m not Nellie Oleson or Scarlett O’Hara; NOTHING with ruffles or canopies or damask (whatever the hell damask is- sounds like either a city famed for being the site of Muhammad’s prom or something that would make you itch).
I have definitely had the little hotels mentioned above that are the best of both worlds. They can be risky (because sometimes ‘historic’ is code for ‘old and run down’), but they can be great.
A couple you’ve never heard of unless you’ve traveled in the small town south but that I’d totally recommend are
Hotel Talisi in Tallassee, AL- a 1920s hotel that was restored a few years back. The rooms are small compared to most chains, but they’re not cramped and they have all the modern stuff like wi-fi and satellite TV, they’re furnished with beds and furnitures meant to look retro but that accomodate modern mattresses, they do wake-up calls and 24 hour access and all that, and the “country cookin’” restaurant is slap yo mama good. The Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia- the first time I passed through that town I almost had a wreck from the “damn!” head turning at seeing something you just don’t expect to see in a town of 20,000 people in Georgia. It’s an old Victorian monstrosity that just completely dominates the town. If Stephen King wrote Southern Gothic it’d take place here- all the towers and turrets and creaking boards, but the rooms, while again small by modern standards [other than the suites], are comfortable and modern and any “antique like furnishings” are retro. There’s a fantastic buffet at lunch that weaves country with international (they made butterbeans sauteed in the hull in curry- sounds horrible, but great), more upscale dining at night, a bar, room service, all that, but at the same time you really are staying in an old Gothic monstrosity whose guests have included Mark Twain, John Dillinger, FDR, etc… (Main reason you’d go to Americus would either be for Habitat for Humanity [which has its international HQ there], the small college there, to hear Jimmy Carter preach in Plains about 10 miles away in one direction or to visit Andersonville [the POW camp site and, more importantly, an excellent museum dedicated to POWs of all American wars] 10 miles away in the other direction.)
Damask is that stuff that granny’s tablecloth was made of. You know–the tablecloth that you were scared to eat on because everybody was terrified that you’d get a spot on it. So, yeah, it is something that makes you itch, but in a figurative way.
You’re still not sure? If you’re a man and you prefer sausage to tacos, then you might just be gay. If you’re a man and you’d rather spend a weekend shopping with a lady friend than watching a ball game with your buddies, then you might be gay. If you’re a man and you have more pairs of shoes than pairs of dirty underwear, then you might be gay. If you’re a man and you don’t think Selma Hayak is really, really hot, then you might be gay. If you’re a man and can’t understand why Bill Clinton cheats on Hillary, then you might be gay. If you’re a man and you think Sen. Craig’s toe tapping in bathrooms and courtrooms is disgusting, then you just might be a Democrat. If you’re a man and think having another man’s penis up your butt or in your mouth is cool, then you just might be gay. But if you don’t think that having another man’s penis up your butt or in your mouth makes you gay, then you just might be a Republican. That’s just my humble opinion. But I kid. I used to think that Brad Pitt was hot. Does that make me gay?
Anyway, I’ll go for a Motel 6 over a B&B for price and convenience. I like my own bathroom, not having to make conversation with the owners and standard furniture. Plus I get to hear the neighbors going at it. I get to come and go as I like 24 hours. And on business, I prefer a Motel 6 to a fancy hotel for pretty much the same reasons.
I’m another B&B hater. Another thing about them which may have been mentioned, but I missed:
Sometimes they have a big communal “party room” onto which all the rooms open. If you want to go to bed early and everyone else wants to stay up wine-tasting and yapping, good luck on getting any sleep.
Oh, and potpourri smell. Talk about gag me!
Give me a Mariott any day. Thick walls, A/C, cable TV, internet connection, and firm beds are all my brain and body need.
You all are staying at some bad B&Bs. I’ll take a hotel over a bad B&B any day; but I’ll take a good B&B over a chain hotel.
By “good B&B” I mean:
no obligation to be social with other guests and/or the owners
no obligation to eat breakfast if you don’t want. I often don’t eat breakfast at B&Bs.
professional owners
nice rooms that include a bathroom. No ruffles/damask/knickknacks. Oftentimes larger and better appointed than a hotel room.
owners with brains who can help you plan what you want to do for that day, make dinner reservations, etc.
pretty grounds. I do like gardens.
common areas without a gazillion people where you can find a nice nook to have a glass of wine or read a book
a decent chance of having good coffee in the morning instead of weak Folger’s
afternoon happy hour
I’m the last person to want to be social with strangers. Heck, I don’t even want to talk to Mr. Athena before I have my first cup of coffee in the morning. In a decent B&B, I don’t get any of the stuff you fellow misanthropes talk about in this thread.
BAD B&Bs, though… oh they’re horrible. I’ve had my share of people who are offended if you don’t want their breakfast (“But my Granola! It’s won awards! You MUST try it!” “uh, no, Lady, I’m hung over and all I want is greasy Denny’s food. See ya.”) or put precious things in their rooms and then go nutso if something gets broken. We stayed in one place where one of the questions we asked before we checked in was “do you have a place outside where we can make a simple dinner of cheese & cold meat and drink a bottle of wine?” They assured us they did. When we got to the room, we were pleased to find wine glasses there. We used them, and then brought them back to the room. Mr. Athena put his on the nightstand, and later that night it got knocked over and broken.
The next day, while checking out, we mentioned the broken glass and apologized. The lady threw a fit, told us that they were a precious gift from her daughter and that she saw us using them and didn’t mention it but was not happy we were using them. Um… huh? Why were they in the room if they weren’t meant to be used? And thanks a lot for handing us a load of shit.
So yeah, I understand what people are talking about when they say they don’t like B&Bs. But really, there’s a lot of them out there that are wonderful, and just as private as a hotel.