This review will be rather lengthy, I am going to use my time to first, give a straight review of our personal experience, but second, I want to address some of the other reviews I have read on this site about this inn. If you are only interested in the review, our experience, I’ll note when I change over so you can stop reading where you wish. You may find it useful to continue though. I’ll leave that to you.
My husband and I went to Wilmington to celebrate our anniversary together. We have stayed in 2 other Bed and breakfasts in Wilmington on 2 other occasions and The Front Street Inn quickly became our favorite. Wilmington is an easy weekend getaway for us, so we love to go for a night or 2 during the year and The Front Street Inn may become our more regular stop.
The Inn itself: Its unique and eclectic in its décor, it has a quiet, romantic charm, the owners themselves, and their son, are quite friendly and enjoyable. They have a wonderful seating area where they do breakfasts in the morning and they also do snacks, baked cookies and wine/beer and coffee each evening. Breakfast is absolutely delicious and surprisingly generous for a B&B. Polly’s homemade quiches are delish! The fruit is very fresh. They have baked goods, cereal and yogurts with granola. Also, the coffee was quite good, and I’m a harsh coffee critic. The bar setup in this area works on the honor system which we found to be a wonderful touch. You feel completely at home as no part is off limits. If it’s 2AM and you want to go get a bottle of water or a bottle of wine for that matter, you just let yourself into the bar area, take what you want, and write it down. Prices were very reasonable. It was so nice to feel so at home. It felt just as a B&B should.
Now, I have to admit, I normally take all reviews with a grain of salt as I find there are some people so hard to please, but, that being said, we originally were booked in The Georgia O’Keefe room and after reading the previous persons post, we decided to switch. Not b/c of DVD’s and TV’s, etc, when we go to a B&B for a romantic weekend, we could care less about those things, if we wanted full technology, we’d go to a hotel set up for that. Anyhow, the one thing that swayed us was the description of the bed. My husband and I both tend to have back issues, so we did not want to take the chance. That being said, after seeing what the whole inn is like and even getting to peak into a few rooms, I think we would have loved that room too! The bed was probably fine!
Our room: “The Bistro Suite”. Ohhhh, what a room! Very nice size, great little area with fridge, wonderful outside sink area for bathroom as well as sink in bathroom. Plenty of space. Loved the wood floors! Loved the Jacuzzi tub…and a great little view of the Cape Fear River too! Thought the decorations were just charming and delightful. Bed was very comfortable and the back porch has great views of the garden. It was so peaceful, so pleasant. We enjoyed reading on that porch during parts of the day with some wine, cheese and olives picked up at the italian market down the street!
We agree with all the other posters on here about the location, you could not ask for better. We always like to stay close in the Historic area and walk, this allowed us to do just that and it was fabulous.
That’s it for my personal post, now I want to take a moment for those who are not familiar with the Wilmington area and how things work. Before some of the reviews here make you nervous, you should know:
1. In Wilmington, they don’t really have a season. People go there all year long. The prices of inns and hotels don’t drop dramatically, especially in the Historic Downtown location. You are paying for location. Those that said the inn was not worth the price, well, first, it was worth it, but second, if they had checked the prices on some of the other downtown B&B’s, they would have found them to be as high and some, quite higher. You pay for location in this area.
2. Those that found the honor system bar unreasonable? I just hope your complaints don’t ruin it for the rest of us. We think it’s a great option. In the morning, you get so much included in your price. In the evening, you get cookies and snacks and hot beverages. They only thing you are required to pay for is alcohol/sodas and a few candy bars if you want them. I don’t think this is a big deal. You’re on vacation at a romantic B&B…enjoy!