If you are looking for a luxurious (four-star) place to relax, regenerate, and play with either the family, your best friend(s) or your special someone - then you are in for a treat!
You can get there by car, commercial flights or by private plane to thier airport
Friday around 7 p.m. my boyfriend and I drove from Washington D.C. to the Resort in Pennlsyvania. My first recommendation is: 1) if you are going to drive - take the day off and enjoy it. This way you can see the lovely foilage and sights. We started our drive at 7 p.m. to avoid the evening rush hour (or rather the rush hours around here!). By the time we were in the "mountains" it was dark and we missed the lovely views. The drive wasn't too bad- only three and half hours from D.C. but, by 10:00 p.m. I was ready to get out of the car!
As we wound around the subtly lit and steep curving road to Nemacolin, our anticipation that had waned began to stir. When we rounded the final bend Nemacolin appeared - raised-up and glowing like an European castle beckoning us in out of the chilly night.
Nemacolin did not dissappoint us. Greeted by courteous bell-hops, I stepped out and strechted
my cramped legs. My cranky moans ceased when we proceeded through the grand
foyer and my eyes ran rip-shod over the huge arrangement of fresh flowers, the "come-hither" over-stuffed leather chairs,
the melodic notes from the grand piano, and (not least!) their artwork.
"At last," I sighed,"my week-end retreat."
When we made our room reservations, it was recommended that we make dinner reservations then because they become full quickly. Well, as you might have surmised, we did not to make dinner reservations because we just didn't know when we would be hungry several days in advance. As predicted, we did get hungry for dinner and since we had ordered room service for breakfast (we ate lunch at the pool), we wanted to venture out of our room for dinner. So, we stopped in at the dining room and were met by the restraunt manager who graciously accommodated our reservation request for later that evening. After a nice walk on "the path", as it's called, we strolled to dining room and were greeted by name from the resraunt manager. The resort was booked and from one introduction, the restraunt manager knew us by sight! He made us feel like we had finally made that trip to come visit our old friends. You know, friends you've promise to visit for years and something always came up. And as expected, our old friends were just delighted that we came. If you want to know what superior customer relations are- take a trip and see some "old friends" you didn't know you had at Nemacolin.
We stayed in the Lodge,the original building, which was remolded in the 70's (but not in the garish 70's style). Our suite, furnished with antiques, was plush and spacious. Our room had a small terrace where we ate our early breakfasts and overlooked the Lodge's wooded entrance. We had a large (king size) poster bed, a full-size bath with separate dressing area, a porcelin claw-foot tub and a shower.
Next time we sleep at Chateau Lafayette. The rooms are rumored to be extrodinary.
One of the wonderful things about Nemacolin is its variety of restraunts and activities. If you don't want to dine formally - you can choose from a "50's" ice cream soda shop, a casual sports bar which doubles as a night-club in the evening (with live music), the dinning room, room service and I think there's another restraunt as well (which I didn't go to).
How was the food? The food quality ran from a bland mushrooms stuffed with crab (perhaps because I come from Maryland and the crab is always superb!) to the extremely delicate and delicious from the main dinning room. Over-all above average with excellent service in the dinning room.
Sorry, to say - this is an expensive week-end retreat. For our two-night, three day stay at the Lodge(suite) with spa services which included a massage by a Licensed Massage Therapist and full-body herbal wax (something), and three meals was approx. $700.00. But, as you can tell from my review -it's worth it.
One way to save is to check out the specials that the Resort runs on their web site.
Take a jump over to Nemacolin Woodlands Spa and Resort if you like to find out more information.
I hope you have enjoyed my review and my travel adventures at Nemacolin Woodlands Spa and Resort. If you have been there, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at
anneball@erols.com. I will post your experiences and comments in the future.Happy Traveling! - Anne