1 Year Anniversary… 2 months late

Well we finally got to celebrate our 1 year anniversary on November 7th. You may recall that I was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic right before our actual anniversary. We had reservations to stay at Landoll’s Mohican Castle that I had made last October. Luckily they allowed us to change the reservation to this past weekend even though we didn’t cancel until like the day before. Overall it was very nice, especially to get away from the kids and have time to ourselves. There were a few complaints however.

We stayed in the Landoll Suite. Upon arrival the place made quite an impression. It is a very nice building both on the outside and the inside. Our room was nicely appointed and was pretty much as it was described on the web site. It was well appointed with nice furnishing and a lot of custom wood work. It even had it’s own private turret that we could climb up in to look around, whereas everyone else had to share a common turret. The only issue was that while it was cool having our own turret, there really wasn’t anything to look at. The leaves were off the trees so you could see a few things, nothing of real interest though. If the leaves were there, I’m not quite sure what you would look at. The room featured its own sink, microwave, and mini-fridge, which was nice because we stopped at Heini’s Cheese House and Troyer’s Cheese on our way, so that we would have some snacks for evening time.

The bathroom was very nice with marble tile, a nice shower and a jacuzzi tub. The tile floor was heated. I initially thought this was pretty gimmicky. Who cares if the tile is heated, but it was actually very nice. It made the bathroom that much more comfortable. My only real complaint with the bathroom was that it wasn’t lit all that great. There were a few light bulbs that were burnt out, which turned out to be an ongoing problem throughout the room, as well as the complex. It seems that they just don’t pay that much attention to details such as changing light bulbs.

Overall we were very pleased with the room. The rest of the place had something to be desired, however. We went to the pool, and while it was a decent pool, it wasn’t maintained very well. It had a cool “grotto” cave like thing that had a water fall built in, but the water fall wasn’t running, and the pipes for it were all corroded. The inside of the grotto was dirty and there were cigarette butts within the rocks. The hot tub was very nice. It was stainless steel, but it had a layer of film on the bottom like it hadn’t been cleaned recently. There was another water feature by the hot tub that would have been cool if it was actually running, but it wasn’t. Again, there were more cigarette butts in that water feature as well. The entire pool building seemed like it was built to be fancy, but the money wasn’t spent on it to keep up the illusion. The lights were all rusty from the humidity and there were a lot of materials used in the building that were not supposed to be used in a high humidity area, that were and weren’t holding up very well.

We ate at their restaurant. The old one burned down, and this one was built in it’s place. Apparently the old one was very fancy, as in you had to dress up for dinner. The new one tries to be fancy, but again, it seems to have been done very cheaply. You aren’t required to dress up for dinner any more, but the lights are kept dim and the tables all have candles on them (one would think that would be a bad idea after the first restaurant burnt down). The food and service were excellent. I had crab cakes and April had chicken Alfredo, and both were very good. Dessert was good as well, but it was hard getting over the fact that they wanted you to feel fancy (to justify the costs I suppose), but it just wasn’t that fancy.

Overall the stay was fairly enjoyable. The staff was nice, and we did enjoy our room. It seems like it could easily go from a good concept to a great one if some attention to detail, like the weathering finish on the exterior wood, and the water stains inside the tower on the way to our room, were given. The castle is nice and its secluded location is just that, secluded. There isn’t much to do there other than hike the trails, but the whole reason we went there was just to relax, and that is exactly what we did.

I would probably stay there again, but I definitely wouldn’t pay full price again. It seems that they are always running deals, especially now, and if the right deal came along, I would probably go back.