We booked this hotel for 6 nights with high expectations after reading the description on-line and reading the mostly positive “reviews”. I travel a lot to big cities for work, so when traveling with my family I like to go “off the beaten path” to explore small towns. So when we booked our travel for my son’s baseball tournament at Cooperstown Dreams Park, the “Baseball Hotel” in Richfield Springs sounded like perfect place. Upon arrival, it became immediately obvious that the name was chosen to attract baseball families like our own; yet, there was nothing baseball-themed about the property except for five small trophies in the eating area. Calling this the Baseball Hotel is like calling my house the Hamburger Hut because I have a pound of ground beef in the fridge. There was at least one other baseball family there that we met in the parking lot as we pulled in. They’d checked in the day before and I asked the dad how the hotel was. He paused, made a face, and simply said, “Interesting,” in a way that implied it wasn’t what they were expecting. We didn’t let that curb our enthusiasm since we were tired from a long day of travel and happy to be at our resting place. Our room was small, but neat and clean, with quilts on the two queen beds. We didn’t stay long since we needed to get to Cooperstown for opening ceremonies. When we returned that night, we were exhausted and slept fine. The next morning we went down for the continental breakfast. It is standard fare for a low-end hotel chain: Styrofoam, plasticware, a couple types of dry cereal, English muffins, plain bagels, mini-muffins and pastries (the kind you buy frozen by the hundreds) and some fruit. The OJ and milk dispensers were on a table about 12 inches from the coin-operated washing machine guests can use. Not sure if that’s a health code violation in NY, but just a little bizarre. My youngest son and I went on a walk to explore the area after breakfast. We walked down Main Street which is one block from the hotel. While the hotel website makes Richfield Springs sound like a quaint step into yesteryear, the sad reality is that it gives the appearance of an economically depressed town with aging buildings and several vacant storefronts. Two of the four corners of the Main Street intersection are occupied by a liquor store and a bar. The hardware store nearby seemed to be the only thriving business aside from a small diner-type restaurant. The neighborhood near the hotel has old homes with beautiful architecture, but many were dilapidated and at least one appeared condemned. Another review for this hotel referred to it as “ghetto” but I wouldn’t call it quite that bad. According to an online query, the median earnings for this zip code is about $32,000 and the area reflects that. Now I am sympathetic to the many small towns that haven’t recovered from the most recent recession (or earlier ones) and the people that populate them. Most are honest, hard-working citizens with not a lot of options. But, honestly, it’s not the environment I want my family to be in when we’re aiming for a relaxing vacation. The real problems started the third night when we returned to our room from a long day of baseball. For a second straight day, we returned to a room with unmade beds and unemptied trash. To be fair, the first day a cleaning person came by but we were still in the room and told her to come back in 15 minutes after we departed. But they never came back, and no one came at all on the second day. My wife went down and told the woman at the front desk. She apologized and said that was awful and promised it would be cleaned the next morning. Not a huge deal – we’re not high-maintenance people, but disappointing since we were paying $150+ per night to come back to a dirty room. As I prepared for bed later that night, I happened to look up at the bathroom ceiling and noticed several orangish-brown spots all over the ceiling. I had noticed the peeling ceiling paint before, but wrote that off to just being an old building and it didn’t really bother me too much. But I’ve been a homeowner long enough to know when I see spots like that (and peeling paint), you’re likely dealing with a moisture problem. At worst, this could be mildew or mold. It’s at this point, my eyes were opened to other issues that I wouldn’t expect in a $150 room: - Cracked window pane - Water leaking from the base of the toilet onto the bathroom floor - Exposed wires in a corner of a ceiling where I assume an ancient light fixture had been removed - A rusting old light fixture (no bulb) above the toilet that had never been removed But it was the spots on the ceiling that led me to the decision to check out early the next morning and find other accommodations. I do not mess around with anything that could even remotely possibly be mold or mildew. I have a special needs son who has severe allergies that I cannot take the chance of exposing to bad air. At this point, I didn’t even want to entertain the possibility of moving to a different room. My wife told me that when we arrived and the manager showed her our room, he said, “This is my favorite room.” So we booked a hotel room online that night and had a fitful sleep. The next morning we packed the car. I stopped at the front desk and the husband/owner happened to be there (he told me he was usually at the other property). I explained to him we were checking out early due to the issues I’ve noted above and requested a refund for the nights we would not be staying. He immediately said he couldn’t do that and that I should have let him put us in another room since he had “20 other rooms” he could have put us in (yes, the hotel was mostly vacant while we were there – maybe 7 or 8 rooms occupied by my estimate). Truthfully, after what we experienced above, I wanted to get as far away as possible. And in all my years of travel, I couldn’t believe that was his response. No apology. Now owning anything that they came up short on. He simply wrote down the items I listed and said he would check to see “if these things were actually as I described.” Thank you – I enjoy being called a liar by a complete stranger. I offered to show him the pictures I took but he said he would look at the room himself and get back to me after taking my cell phone number. That was a little before 8:00 a.m. I hadn’t heard anything from him by 6:00 p.m. so I called him and asked what the status of things. He said his foreman had looked at the bathroom and saw the peeling paint, but no mold. I said I could send him the pictures. Then he said his foreman was going to take samples from the ceiling. Huh? He had just said he hadn’t seen anything that looked like mold, but now he was going to take a sample of it and “personally drive it to Albany” to his lab. I asked, “You have a lab?” “You bet I do,” he replies. “Is this a recurring problem?” I ask. No reply to that. After pressing him about when I will hear back, he finally said “No later than Monday when the lab results are back.” Do I think I will hear back from him? No. Do I think he is driving to Albany with a sample of something that he claims isn’t mold? No. Do I think I am getting blown off and he has no intention of refunding me the money from the days we didn’t stay? You betcha. And that’s why I’m writing this detailed review and emailing it to the owners to review for accuracy before I post it to all the travel websites and send to Cooperstown Dreams Park. Mind you, I’m not asking for a refund for the days we stayed; some people would, given what I’ve described above. At this point, he’s got my money and all I’ve got is the web to warn people about what this property and surrounding area is actually like and what the owners are like. So I would encourage you to proceed with caution. Read all the five-star reviews and assume at least some are legitimate, but don’t make your purchasing decision based on them. Do your homework. By the way, you may be wondering why I’ve given two stars, not one. Two reasons: One, the wife of this owner-couple seems to be pleasant and reasonable, given the short interaction my wife had with her. I believe (hope) she may have responded to this situation differently. And two, I can tell they are investing some money into this place. There is new woodwork throughout (although some is still unfinished/unstained like the little shelves in our room), the beds appear new and are comfortable, there are new wall heaters in the common areas that are great to come back to after a damp, cold day outside, some new light fixtures and lamps, and the bath towels are thick and soft (unlike many hotel towels) and super-absorbent, which really came in handy to mop up the water leaking from the base of the toilet. I will always give a small business owner the benefit of the doubt when trying to make a living, especially in a case like this when he is trying to restore a historic building to help the local economy. But a good manager knows when he’s blown it, offers a mea culpa and takes measures to improve, not accuse a customer of false accusations in the name of saving a few hundred bucks. Traveler beware.

It is 20+ minutes driving distance from Cooperstown Dreams Park.

We were basically scammed. See above.