My husband and I recently stayed in Cape Girardeau for the first time and were unfortunately disappointed by this business and partly by the town. The event we attended was great fun and probably would return in the future if other such events returned, but certainly will be staying at a local hotel in the future.

There are primarily two reasons why I am leaving this review; first, I have consistently used Tripadvisor to guide me on places to stay numerous times and have never been let-down, until now. I am perplexed by the great reviews thus far for this property. The only explanation I can provide, which only partly covers the issues below, is that the owner and chef were out of town this weekend and other staff filled in. This leads to the second purpose of this post, in that I wanted to provide as much detail as possible for the owners so they can understand our experience. We love staying at B&Bs as we believe it is important to support local business members wherever we travel. It is absolutely appropriate and necessary for operators of such businesses to take needed vacations, but I caution that if you plan to keep the business open that you have staff present that you can trust to uphold the same respect and value for your business that you carry every day. The main staff member was helpful and assisted where she could, but she is currently struggling with a medical condition that limits her ability to climb all of the stairs. A teenager thus apparently was responsible for the cleanliness and assembly of our room, which I’m sure played a role in some of the issues below. Again, if one cannot completely trust in the abilities of staff in their absence, it would have been best if they had chosen to close their business during this time.

Positives: I’d like to highlight a few positive aspects of this B&B. They were nice enough to check us in about 45 minutes early which helped get us to our event in an appropriate amount of time. We peaked our heads in to the room across from the hall called the Radiance room and it looked clean, smelled clean, and was much nicer albeit smaller than ours with a little fireplace, flat screen TV, and Jacuzzi. The wireless internet did work well in our room. Again, the main staff member was helpful as much as possible.

Negatives: I’ll first focus on the room, expand to the Inn in general, and then the city.

1. We stayed in the Medallion Suite, or as we were told at check-in is sometimes referred to as the Bridal Suite. Please avoid this room at all costs. To start, the room had a smell that we could never truly identify, it was just repugnant.

2. The room was dirty in multiple ways. In photo 1, you’ll notice the bedspread had stains. Unfortunately, that was the only blanket system to the bed, so we just had a sheet to sleep under. You also don’t have a thermostat in the room to adjust, so in the middle of the night it was quite cold (and it’s winter!).

3. I picked up the remote as we got in the room and noticed something brown spilled on it. I took a wet washcloth to it to try to clean the outside and then hit the remote against the towel to make sure no residual water was left, and all of this brown stuff started to come out as is shown in Photo 2. Ever stop to think if anyone ever cleans those things in guest rooms?

4. There is an enclosed sunroom off the room that you’d think would be great with an electric heater/fireplace. The carpet looked gross, and as I walked around and playing with the heater, I jumped as I saw this huge spider in the corner. I moved the lamp to see if it was alive at all, and the thing was beyond stiff, who knows how long it has been there or even how long since anyone actually vacuumed/cleaned out there.

5. The bathtub is your standard bathtub, which is generally too short of anyone of average height or taller. Transitioned to shower and the mat to put down so you don’t slip was so dirty I could not bring myself to touch or place it in the shower, as seen in Photo 3. Common places such as bathtubs/showers need to be scrubbed after each guest and this along with the shower curtain liner obviously has not been addressed in a long time.

6. The bed looks elegant, until you lay in it. You can see cobwebs in the upper corners above your head, and the dust caked on the ceiling fan. Great way to get an idea of what your guests will experience is to lie in the beds and look up. I like a firm mattress sometimes, but this was crazy. Hard mattress, no blanket, dust around, really comfortable night sleep.

7. The website and the room binder speaks of a fridge stocked with drinks and snacks. Couple cans of coke and walmart brand tea packets left much to be desired, as seen in Photos 4 and 5. The main staff member did try to rectify this by bringing up more sodas when the error was identified and some biscottis, but still this is not a feature I would advertise until better food amenities were provided. Best thing to do is place some brewing system (Keurig, etc.) out on the hall table along with some homemade cookies or something that indicated you wanted your guests to be comfortable during their stay.

8. When we found out the cleaner room was taken for the night, the main staff member showed us the hot tub on site that we could use. You have to go outside, around the building, and then enter the little sauna that holds the Jacuzzi. I wished I could have grabbed a photo of this as well, part of the cover was broken and hanging in the water and the water just looked gross. Not exactly something you want to go do as it is the middle of winter having to walk back to the building wet.

9. The home is on a busy street, so all you hear is traffic and you get the lovely glow of the street lights shining in all night to then follow with the sunrise as the drapes do not block out light.

10. Bed and Breakfast. Well, the bed was uncomfortable as stated above, and the breakfast was nothing like what was advertised. Again, the owner/chef were out of town, but if you plan to keep your business in operation then you need to find ways to uphold the same amenities in your absence. Our breakfast consisted of a few sausage links, scrambled eggs, and toast. I was holding out that maybe the breakfast could redeem even a part of our stay. Very disappointed.

11. Cape Girardeau. I thought this may be an interesting town to visit outside of our event. A few blocks from the Inn you start to notice that you are not in the nicest/possibly safest of neighborhoods. Unfortunately, Cape Girardeau has fallen to the typical fate of appearing to be a dying river town. The downtown consists mostly of antique shops and bars. You don’t actually get a restaurant with a view of the Mississippi due to the flood wall. The mall is an average mall. When I realized what little there was to see in this town, with all of the above, I became even more appalled at the price of our room. It was the “nicest” of the building at $175 per night. Does any of the above fit that price? What is even more saddening is that this was my Christmas present from my husband. I don’t care where you are financially, $175 a night is very steep for any place, but especially this situation and area. We have a B&B that we love at the Lake of the Ozarks and it is very nice, clean, and comes nowhere near as expensive as this property.

Again, I know there is nothing much that can be done to redeem the weekend trip that was lost on this place, but I hope I have provided enough detail for future guests to have an informed decision as well as provide our perspective on what went wrong and could possibly be improved to the owners/staff. I feel bad and embarrassed for the owners after our stay, I would never allow one of my guests to stay in such conditions (and I’m your typical person who finds everything else to do than clean the house every week!).