I have such mixed feelings about Olema House, but I'll start with the positives, because while our experience wasn't perfect, there was still a lot to like about the hotel.
To preface, I booked a three-night stay in one of the Drake suites as a post-engagement surprise for my fiancée. The room itself was clean, quiet and charming. The grounds were peaceful and beautifully maintained. My fiancée and I enjoyed our complimentary bottle of wine while watching the sunset from the Adirondacks in the garden. The food at the restaurant next door was fantastic. Location - one of my biggest reasons for booking here - was perfect. You're a five minute drive from Point Reyes Station, 15 minutes from the popular Limantour Beach and maybe 45 minutes from the Point Reyes lighthouse.
As for the negatives, they're largely all related to guest services. Before booking, I emailed four different hotels in the Point Reyes/Tomales Bay area to ask what they could do to make the experience truly special for myself and my fiancée. Olema House was the only one to never respond to my inquiry, nor did they respond to a follow-up message I sent to their Facebook page. I wasn't blown away with the other hotels' offerings and had heard good things about Olema House - and like I said, the location was perfect - so I took a chance, booked and then gave them a follow-up call. I must've gotten lucky because one of the managers picked up the phone and could not sound more excited for us and eager to make our stay special. When we arrived, we had a chilled bottle of champagne in the room waiting for us, as promised. So far, so good.
It was all a bunch of little stuff after this that kept rubbing me the wrong way. My future mother in law arrived ahead of us to decorate our room, and talking with one of the front desk employees about it later in the trip, they made some odd 'joking' comments about how she was basically a pain in the ass to deal with. Look, I totally get it - mother in laws, am I right? Still, it was off putting to have a hotel employee basically make fun of one of my family members for just trying to make our engagement special. Clearly, they couldn't give less of a damn.
Moving on, while the room was nice, it was very pricey and lacked some basic accommodations you'd expect to find in a suite (only one A/C unit in the upstairs bedroom, no kitchenette, no closets). The skylight, while a beautiful feature, could not be shuttered, even though it appeared there were remote-controlled blinds attached to it. We played front desk tag with two different employees trying to get an answer for how to shut that at night and never got one.
As for the restaurant, we made a reservation at the front desk and told them we were celebrating an engagement. When we got to the restaurant, it was like we'd walked in off the street. No glasses of champagne, no special table reserved for us - not even a congrats from the hostess - just a two-seater on the less-than-charming, front parking lot patio. To be clear, I wasn't expecting them to roll out the red carpet, but I also wasn't expecting nothing.
After our stay, the fun continued. I was charged up front for the first night of our stay, plus fees/taxes, knowing they'd charge the rest afterwards. We checked out, returned home from our trip, and two weeks passed before I noticed that I'd never received an invoice and never been charged the remaining balance. Shortly after that, I got an email from their manager asking me to call to resolve an issue they'd had closing out my stay. I called back within half an hour and found out that somehow they'd lost my credit card info and needed me to give it to them again so they could bill me the remaining cost. I gave them the card number, they closed out my stay and I moved on with my life. Checking my statement three days later, I noticed I'd been charged the remaining balance twice. While it ended up just being a bank hold and has since fallen off, two separate emails to the same manager asking to clarify the charges went unanswered, and I only got a call back after leaving a message with the front desk. Considering all they ended up telling me was that it was a bank hold and not their problem - to their credit, they were correct - what would've been so difficult about just emailing me that the first time I asked? Why make a guest keep after you like that? Again, not the biggest issue in the world, but definitely not the guest service experience you'd expect from a place charging these kinds of prices.
Overall, it's a bummer, because we both would've loved to make a yearly tradition of this trip, but I just can't see myself giving Olema House another go when I know without a doubt that I could get a better value elsewhere. If you're not celebrating anything special, it could be perfect. Just don't book here if you're looking to be dazzled, because this ain't the place. read more