The Kate Shepard House

Hot prepared breakfast host on premise

We asked whether the fruit and cheese in the refrigerator were for us. We were told we could take anything from the refrigerator, but guests had left deli platters, fried chicken, carry out boxes, things that clearly weren't for us. Stuff just kept accumulating for the four days we were there until the refrigerator was full. It would be best if each room had a refrigerator. Any milk or fruit in the refrigerator should be clearly marked for the use of all guests. Breakfast consists of sugary cereals. Two guests need two luggage racks and more than three coat hangers. The bathtub does not have a shower curtain and the shower spray is attached at the edge of the tub. I could see this in the pictures; looks pretty, but I didn't realize how inconvenient it would be.

The parking is pretty limited.

I was looking to use the extra blanket in the room and found that the last occupant had left some dirty clothes behind that no one had cleaned out of the cabinet. I reached out to the hosts via text and email- using the number they gave in their welcome email. I just wanted a clean blanket. No one ever answered me… I’m not ok paying these rates for a hostless property with no service whatsoever. Thank goodness I had no trouble getting in. The kitchen was also a bit disappointing in the morning as the only tea available was a sun bleached box of white tea and the hot water dispenser was broken. But honestly, the main problem is that no one was responsive to me.

The bed was too soft for us. Never met the host which lacks a personal touch.

Not really

We had to change rooms to downstairs due to air conditioning issues. We moved to the boat room which was large and roomy. It was a bit too bright when sleeping due to outside light reflections.

I would suggest broadening the breakfast offerings to include items that work for folks watching their sugar levels.

Did not see the owner. I think you need to greet and welcome all of your guests!

The bed in the Catherine room was too firm for my personal taste. I also found the room to be too cold, but the easily accessible extra blankets provided a solution to that. I don’t know about the rest of the house, but the WiFi signal was very weak in the Catherine room. My phone couldn’t even find the network sometimes. I also had my Chromebook with me and had trouble loading webpages.

The only ghosts were the owners/host. There was no personal contact with anyone else living from check in to check out.
Remember this is a byob stay. That's Bring Your Own Breakfast. The the instant oatmeal was stuck inside the packages and the grain bars undated. The instant expresso maker did work well tho. But this is not the place for the true B-N-B experience. Not a value for the nightly price. Overall, would not stay here again.

Location

Arrived in the evening, we couldn't get into the room with the code we got, but i reached out to the caretaker and she helped us from afar.
We had to figure out ourselves, how to pay when we wanted to check out. (because there was no staff on site)
But these were only minor things, we had an amazing stay :)

The parking is tight. Be careful if you have a full size truck, but it’s so great and we just used Uber so not a big deal