The review would probably be four or five stars for the restaurant by itself, and maybe two stars for the Inn.
I stayed at the Longwood Country Inn with my spouse for her birthday weekend. Let me heartily recommend the restaurant at Longwood to anyone staying in the area. The food was inventive, carefully prepared, with fresh ingredients. We ate there three times, including their brunch on Sunday, which we almost never do, it was so good. Moreover, the service -- both in the restaurant and at the Inn generally -- was fantastic. Everyone at the Longwood was incredibly friendly, kind, and helpful. You really couldn't ask for more.
Unfortunately, you could ask for more when it came to the rooms. A lot more. We stayed in the Benjamin Franklin Suite, supposedly the most luxurious room at the Inn. And I suppose it was a spacious room with a fireplace, jacuzzi and private porch. Unfortunately, the fireplace was turned off (we never really got an explanation as to why) and the door to the front porch was stuck closed (it was an old door, and the wood had swelled in the humidity), and no one was able to open it. We weren't offered a discount on either score, though two relatively significant features of the room were unusable.
Moreover, when you're paying over $300 a night, certain amenities should just be standard. I expect things like a hair dryer, and a luggage stand, and bathrobes, and a fairly wide array of bath products. There were none of the first three, and the bath products were limited to a single bar of soap and a single small bottle of shampoo. That's ridiculous. You'd be more pampered at the Holiday Inn. And there's no excuse for it, since those things are uniformly cheap and easy to provide. Breakfast was of the type you'd get at the local motel -- no hot entrees, just some muffins and fruit.
The room itself looked different from the picture on the web site. There was an enormous flat-screen TV in the place of some of the furnishings, another chair had been replaced by a pretty pedestrian sofa that looked as though it belonged in someone's rec room, and the period-looking wall sconces above the bed had been removed. In all, the changes actually made the room colder, more modern, and less attractive. The sprinkler system was installed by hacking a hole in the ceiling and then leaving the hole there, unfinished. In short, there was just a sense of carelessness about the room and its details that was disappointing given that it was fairly expensive.
We had a good time, and as I said, thought everyone at the Inn was incredibly friendly and helpful. We'd totally eat at the restaurant again if we were in the area, but we wouldn't actually stay at the Inn again, and couldn't in good conscience recommend it to anyone else unless they cut their prices by about half.
- Country Inn Woodbury
- Woodbury Country Inn
