We booked a room for three nights as we had never been to Amana and figured it would be a relaxing way to spend a little time. Wrong! Amana is best visited on the way to somewhere else, it really isn't a destination vacation.

That said, we were equally disappointed with this B&B. The "cottage" as it is called is touted as originally built in the 1800's and I don't think it has had much updating since. Our room was very tiny, one small wooden chair a bed and a TV so small you had to sit on the end of the bed to watch it. I should have been tipped off when I pulled back the shower curtain to find two dead bugs laying there. The mattress on our bed was either covered in plastic or made of plastic. And the bed creaked and felt like it would break. It was so loud we woke each other up all night long when we rolled over. There was one small window in the room and when we lowered the blinds a cloud of dust flew off.

The bathroom was seperated by a door in our unit, unlike the other units in the cottage. howver there was no fan so when someone took a shower the whole room steamed up unbearably. There was evidence of water damage and mold on the carpeting and a general odor of mustiness. The funniest part was that there were three nails sticking out of the walls with no pictures like someone had stolen them or something. The room decor left a lot to be desired.

The walls here are very thin, you can hear conversation and TV in adjacent rooms easily. The breakfast was mediocre at best and the coffee very weak. We actually went out for breakfast each morning after being served what passed for breakfast. Our motto after being here was "just because it says locally made does not mean it's good!" There are also not very good common areas for relaxing. The sun room is unbearable hot in the summer and the dining room has one chair and a couch pushed against the walls, not very cozy. We didn't go into the main house beacause we weren't invited to, it seemed like if you were booked in the cottage you stayed there.

We met several other guests while here, most were staying one night and had the same reactions that we did to their rooms. I understand the business is under new operation so maybe they are planning to make some changes. I hope so. But either way we will not be going back.

This was not a comfortable place to stay. The beds are old and uncomfortable, the bedding was old, ugly, and scratchy and there wasn't a single chair in our room. They boast cable tv but the TV is so small, the reception was fuzzy and there wasn't a chair to sit in to watch the TV. If you own a bed and breakfast, you really should focus on the BED! One bed was so squeaky, the other bed was lumpy.

We paid for (2) nights, but only spent one. The room was dusty and the bed
felt like it was going to break. I think we stayed in a converted garage.

We considered ourselves lucky to snag a room in the Amana Colonies just before a holiday weekend. After a restless night at Dusk to Dawn, we revised our thinking.

The positives:
Breakfast: Breakfast was excellent. Served family style, it consisted of a tasty egg casserole, home baked cinnamon rolls and an artfully arranged fruit platter. Also coffee and a variety of teas. We had a very enjoyable meal visiting with the other guests.

Shopping: Middle Amana (where D2D is situated) is just a couple of short miles from Amana, where most of the shops and restaurants are located.

The negatives:
Room: (This applies to the room we stayed in only...we didn’t see the others, hopefully they were better.) There was only seating for one (an outdoor patio chair); the other guest had to sit on the end of the bed. At the head of the bed was an enclosure that housed the building’s water heater. We were treated to the sound of it cycling on and off (right next to our heads) whenever anyone else in the building used hot water.

Bath “area”: Not to be confused with a bathROOM, this was an open toilet, sink and shower stall on one end of the room, separated from the bed and dresser by a short screen in front of the toilet. The screen did nothing to contain the usual bathroom noises and smells. The plastic shower stall was cracked and its floor was a dingy gray. To use the bathroom in the night, one had to either go in the dark or take a flashlight...the only light was the room’s ceiling light and to turn it on would disturb the other sleeper.

Noise: There was obviously no soundproofing between rooms...no trouble at all hearing our neighbors get water, flush, shower, etc. The hot tub (outside, near our window) was operating and I thought the motor would be soothing “white noise”. Unfortunately, it attracted a constant flow of folks who wanted to lift the cover, see what was inside, then slam the cover back down–the hot tub would have been better located away from sleeping quarters. A wooden stairway right outside our window provided plenty of noise from foot traffic clomping up & down.

We love B&Bs and don’t expect everything to be perfect. We do expect to spend the night in a quiet room, not have a water heater in that room and if a private bath is offered, we would certainly prefer it to have its own space, not be part of the bedroom.