Looking for a place to stay in the week between Christmas and New Year's is usually a pain. So many people are on vacation, and because of that, room rates are through the roof in most places, and most of the less expensive ones got terrible reviews as even the shoddy ones are able to jack up prices that week. I spent a lot of time trying to find a good combination of location, room rates, and room quality / amenities, and looked up bed & breakfasts in Lake Placid when I didn't find what I was looking for with the hotels and inns in the area for the week I was there. I came across Brooks Sunshine Cottage, and we stayed in the Southern Comfort room for 4 days at a very reasonable price ($105 a night). I was attracted to the location (just off the intersection of Main Street and Saranac Ave) -- a 10 to 15 minute walk from everything we wanted to go to on Main Street, the amount of light that comes into the room judging by the size of its windows, and that there was a kitchen / microwave / fridge in the room.
Our train from New York City ended up getting delayed by 3 hours, and the shuttle from Westport was about 45 minutes (making the trip a grand total of 9 hours...), so we were completely exhausted by the time we got there. Joe, the owner / manager, was there after office hours, gave us maps of Lake Placid, and showed us his recommended places to eat and visit during our time there, which was a huge help. Like the B&B itself, the restaurants that Joe recommended are "hidden gems", and we didn't have to wait 30 minutes to an hour and a half for seating (not to mention pay ridiculous prices for mediocre food!)
The room we stayed in was comfortable. If you're looking for a larger, more "modern" room, though (i.e. with a flat screen TV, larger nicer bathroom), I would suggest paying the additional $15-25 a night for one of the other rooms -- Southwestern or Adirondack. We were happy with the quality of our room, as we were just 2 people and weren't looking for anything super-fancy. The Southern Comfort room has a tube TV (which we didn't use since we weren't going all the way to Lake Placid to watch TV), a couch, small bathroom (shower stall only, no bathtub), kitchen w/ stove, fridge, and microwave. The stove was handy for making tea or hot chocolate after a long day, and for making eggs in the morning. The kitchen came with a set of bowls, pots, and utensils -- though 2 or 3 of them weren't clean (there's a sign saying the dishes are only hand-washed, not disinfected). There is detergent provided, but there were plenty of clean bowls / mugs too.
There is a maid that comes to do dishes that are left in the sink (so if you find dirty dishes, leave them in the sink...) She seemed upset that we were still in the room since we slept in the morning after that horribly long trip and told her we didn't need housekeeping that day, but when we got back to the room the next few days, everything was washed and placed on a clean towel to dry.
Stuff that's good to know: the breakfast in the morning is cereal, baked goods (danishes and bagels), coffee -- nothing elaborate like the waffles and pancakes of some other B&Bs I checked out before arriving (but which were far enough from Main St. to require a car or taxi). There are places in town for breakfasts (including a creperie that's usually packed) and a nice little organic coffee shop on the way to Main St / Saranac Ave. In any case, the breakfast Brooks B&B served worked well to get us started on our day -- we just grabbed bagels and cream cheese on the day we were skiing, and ate them on the shuttle there.
The location really can't be beat. You might have to tell your Westport shuttle driver where it's near (say it's near High Peaks Resort just off Hillcrest Ave), but really easy in terms of walking to Main Street -- maybe 2-3 minutes.
Restaurants: Try not to eat on Main Street a lot during the week between Christmas and New Year's. The atmosphere at those places is more like your traditional restaurant / bar, so it might be more fun with a bunch of friends. You would need to make reservations (some places don't even take reservations because they're so packed) or be prepared to wait at least 30 minutes to get seating. A lot of Joe's recommendations were on Saranac Ave. We found a nice Mexican / Irish restaurant/bar called Desperados, right across from the Howard Johnson's restaurant that Joe recommended. A bit more of a hike though -- I'd say 15-20 minute walk in the snow, but that's still less than the time it'd take you to walk to a crowded restaurant on Main St and try to get seated. The Saranac Ave restaurants tend to be smaller and close earlier -- typically by 9pm, so on New Year's Eve we just ate on Main Street.
Finally, there are two kinds of shuttles going through Lake Placid that were relevant to our trip. One is the shuttle to Whiteface for skiing, which is on time and reliable, and the other is a free local shuttle that we never saw once in our 3+ days there though it's supposed to run every half hour, and after talking to a bunch of Lake Placid natives, we decided that it was mythical. Main St. itself is very walkable -- I would say 20 minutes from beginning to end, so we got everywhere we wanted to go without the mythical local shuttle. If you want to go to the ski jumps / sports complex, take a taxi (call ahead of time -- ask the lobby at High Peaks to call one for you), but if you want to get anywhere beyond Main St. on New Year's Eve, it's better to carpool with people esp. starting 8pm, as the taxi companies are swamped and unless you're extremely lucky, you could be stuck waiting a while.
All in all, I'm glad we chose to stay at Brooks' B&B. The village of Lake Placid is very much a get-up-early-morning type of place, as it starts to get dark after 4pm in the winter, so the more time you can save going where you need to go, the more you can get out of your trip. There are a bunch of hotels on Main St, but their rates were up to 2-3x what we got at Brooks during that week, and their proximity to Main St. attractions wasn't that much better than that of Brooks. It was also nice and quiet at Brooks, with a backyard where you can go sledding, and a playground -- like staying with a nice family, without having to deal with the family hassles!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
