Jen L.
Yelp
I saw the White Elephant on a tv show and was dying to go to Nantucket. While booking online I saw the cottages and we really liked the idea of having our own cottage on the water since we have a rowdy almost 2 year old with us. I tried booking a 1BR for $395 (I believe it was, bad memory) but kept coming up with an error. I called and asked about it but was told it was not available. I asked what the price of a 2 BR was, was told $1400. But online it was $495? No thanks, I'll book it myself! That one worked fine, and I'm glad we got the 2 BR cottage because the size was perfect for what we needed. Our son had his own room instead of adding a pack n play to ours.
We are here now writing this review, after some confusion with the shuttle bus guys we were brought to the right place. The cottage is awesome! Full kitchen, living room, dining room, back deck, 2 bedrooms, and the pack n play we requested. Everything is clean and airy, the shower has amazing water pressure, and the little guy has plenty of room to run around. I'd recommend bringing flip flops though, we're all sliding around the hardwoods in socks. The front office staff is beyond friendly and helpful, they really help you get where you need to go. They recommended good restaurants and helped us rent a stroller ($20, so worth it to wheel him around town for the weekend), and provided us with movies, etc. The view from the (dirty, only drawback) windows is very nice, calm water and boats everywhere. Ahhh serenity.
We took a walk around the town, wow I love it here! We'll have to come back when more places are open, it's still the off season so we did a lot of window shopping and searching for an open restaurant. Amazing food by the way at the Centre St Bistro. The cottages are right next to a grocery store, so convenient for picking up some drinks and snacks, don't bother lugging your own over on the ferry. Prices are not jacked up because it's an island, I stocked up for like $13.
This review started off as 5 stars, now as I lay awake at 3am having had zero sleep it has dropped to a 3. It is still off season and there are not a lot of people here so I was expecting for it to be quiet. We went to bed exhausted at 10pm and the jerk next door decided to keep us up till midnight talking loudly with his door open 2 ft away from our bedroom. He was in and out banging the door, smoking, and coughing up a lung. The cottages are so close together that it felt like he was in our room! We could even see his underwear-clad shadow on the door, it was creepy.
Around 12:30 as we finally drift off to sleep, the coffee maker downstairs loudly kicked on. We finally fell back to sleep, then at 2am this obnoxiously loud alarm starts up outside. At 2:30 I call the front desk and he has no idea what I'm talking about. I guarantee this is being heard for miles, it's like a loud fog horn that sounds every 5 seconds. He said it was quiet where he was (up in town). I thought he was going to offer for us to move to a quieter location. Nope!
3 am, it's still going. I am beyond miserable right now, $500 so I can be kept awake all night? I have a very cranky 2 year old on my hands right now, I wish I was home. Review just dropped to a 2.
3:30 am, still going. About to lose my shit.
4 am, another call to the front desk. You'd think they'd offer us a quieter room or something, there goes my day tomorrow. So tired!! (:()
Heard back from the front desk, it is a fog horn as I thought, warning boats that there is land here. He said it will keep going as long as it's foggy and to "try to get some sleep anyway". Thanks pal. It's gonna be a loooong night..
I finally passed out around 4:30, only to be awoken at 5:30 by the ancient smoke alarm needing batteries. Really?!?! Am I being punked right now?!?!
The trusty fog horn is still going but I'm too tired to care, napped on and off until 7 when the alarm clock went off. (No, we did not set the alarm clock!)
We gave up from there, obviously sleeping is not an option here so we got up and packed our stuff. Do not come here if it is foggy, we went from saying we wanted to do this every year to we will never stay here again. Obviously I don't expect the hotel people to stop the noise. The staff was very nice, and me to them, but I think we should have been offered a quieter room. Somewhere. Anywhere. They have a lot of properties here on the island, and it was still off season so I'm sure there were other rooms available.
Upon picking up our luggage after check out the nice front desk girl asked about the noise complaint, I let her know what all happened and she said the manager wanted to contact me for a complimentary night. We let her know that we would definitely return to Nantucket, but we would not be interested to stay on the water again! Too noisy, we don't go away to be kept awake all night. Not very relaxing.