"Boutique" hotels & bed-and-breakfasts may not be for everyone

A few days before Rosh Chodesh Av, we decided to sneak out of town for our first overnight trip since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, now that we're both double-vaxxed and doubled-boosted.  Taken aback by current hotel prices, we decided to try a boutique hotel to save money.  Little did we know that we were in for some unpleasant surprises.

We arrived in Newport, Rhode Island looking forward to seeing the Touro Synagogue but not knowing how to get to our hotel, and I gave them a call while my husband--our "designated driver" since I've had four rounds of eye surgery--handled the wheel.  Boy, was I surprised when my call went straight to voice mail.  That's never happened to me before.  And they never called back, either.  Since neither of us has ever gotten around to installing a GPS app on our phones, we just checked a few maps until we were able to figure out how to get there.

It gets worse, folks.

When we pulled up to our hotel at roughly 5:45 PM, there was not a single staff member on duty.  All we found, lying on a table at the entrance, was an envelope with our name on it, which contained a note stating our room number and telling us that the key was inside our room.  We looked around and realized that this beautiful old mansion had no elevator.  So my poor husband, who's been spared two broken wrists, ended up bumping our suitcase up two flights of stairs, and carrying it down again the next morning.  This is not a job for an 80-year-old.   At least the staff member who was on duty in the morning got our suitcase down the porch stairs and across the parking lot to our rented car.

Mind you, this was a beautiful place, well stocked with toiletries and absolutely spotless.  But a place like that is not for older people and/or people with health problems and/or disabilities.  This is just a fair warning that you get what you pay for.  It's worth the extra $100 for us to stay in a "real" hotel that offers an elevator and actual service.