Sally Lucia

Review of Kenwood Inn and Spa

We have been visiting the Kenwood Inn and Spa for ...

We have been visiting the Kenwood Inn and Spa for ten years, and remember what a completely elegant place it was. The rooms were lovely, the restaurant was excellent - you could have breakfast and dinner there , and the wine bar was welcoming, well stocked and the perfect prelude to dinner. Notice I said "was". This year was our 10th visit - nobody bothered to tell us that the restaurant was closed or that the amenities would be so scaled back as to seem like no amenities at all. We had invited our children to join us there for dinner and THAT was when we learned that the restaurant was closed. (side note: the previous year when we visited, the restaurant was closed for renovations and due to open in May 2016).
When we spoke to the concierge, the response was "bear with us, this is new". Also, the real killer "we're sorry that you feel that way." In my opinion that means "your problem, not ours". The time to inform us of the new management and change in offerings would have been when we booked our room. Anything else seems unethical. When we booked, nobody informed us of the ownership change and the amenity change. Even the spa was scaled back. We have never minded paying a lot to come to such a beautiful location in wine country, but this was so much less in the way of meeting expectations that we had to speak out. We won't be returning to Kenwood Inn. Maybe it will be a fine b&b, but the problem for us is we remember when it was an exquisite Inn, geared for service to it's patrons.
We are now looking for a different place to stay when we head up to wine country.