We had made arrangements with the Innkeeper to arrive late since we were travelling a long distance and we had planned this as our stopover to relax and rejuvenate on our way home to Seattle and arrived at 1 am.
We selected the Inn because it is advertised as a completely non-smoking facility and we are both very sensitive, but found that our room had been smoked in and the odor permeated everything. We were exhausted from our drive and wanted to try to get some sleep so we tried to stay. We opened a window, tried to run an air conditioner in the room but it was too loud, moved the curtains away from the bed (they had a very strong dust and smoke odor), but when we laid down in the bed, we found that all the bedding also smelled throughout. ( The Inn overall is old, tired and worn, and really very funky. The room that we booked was the Crystal Palace, which advertised a private balcony, but the room was off a very cluttered looking family room up a very narrow staircase, shared with the other two rooms, and the private balcony was off that family room. )
There was just no way we could sleep in this really smelly room so at 3:30 am, gave up and packed up the car and left, leaving the room key in the room as was requested. We did not have the romantic respite that we were hoping for and paid for.
We drove as far as we could with minimal sleep and pulled into a highway rest stop in Utah where we both had 1 1/2 hours sleep. We continued our drive back to Seattle alternating sleep and driving between the two of us.
When we contacted Ruth, the owner to express our concerns and ask for a refund, her reaction was to deny there was any problem, she cleaned the room before and after we came, and there was no smell, so no refund, too bad!!! While she claims to be sensitive to smoke too, she lives in this old house and obviously is immune to the odor if she can't smell it because the odor was throughout the inn.
***Update from 8/3/2011
We received a call from Tara, the business manager of the Valley House after we disputed the charge with American Express and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Tara apologized for what we experienced and offered to refund our charges. We accepted her apology and she did refund us. We were heartened by her response as she did seem to genuinely care that we were not satisfied. We only hope that they take our concerns seriously and make some needed upgrades so that future guests don't experience what we did. We would not return.
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