Island Guest House Bed & Breakfast Inn

This place is terrible. It calls itself a B&B. Really it is a rundown old boarding house renting out rooms. We were charged $ 200 per night for a room without a bathroom or even a closet. The room was tiny. The table and chairs in the room were plastic outdoor furniture. The place is dilapidated. The shower in the communal bathroom is dirty. We left after the first night to stay in a nearby motel — which was a huge improvement.
Don’t stay here. Be warned. It is a complete ripoff.

My husband and I would give this B and B a 1, only because of of the central location. We were able to bring our dog with us, which was great, but I was told they only had two rooms available. We got the tiniest room I have ever seen in a B and B and had to make the bed in the Am so we could put our things on it to make up for no closet or space to put luggage. We had to put 2 useless chairs in the bathroom to make room for our dog at night and didn’t have room to walk by each other since the bed took up most of the room? We were told they had a great dog beach, but there was poop all over it even though they had poop bags to clean up after your dog! The owner said this wasn’t his fault, but since this was a big reason for us going to LBI I would think a recommendation to a beach should be something he should have checked it out. One wouldn’t recommend a restaurant without trying it’s food, right? Upon arrival, we were told that we were the only people staying there, so I was very confused why we got the smallest room in the place. The airconditioner in the window was loud, so I opened the other windows to let in some breeze, but there were no screens and we were on the second floor. Safety is always an issue and I was surprised the the codes in LBI would allow this. The owner Joanne was very sweet and gave us a fan, but it was so dusty and dirty I started coughing and had to turn it off. The walls are thin and every sound can be heard on the stairs, but the church group they had over that night were very quiet and I did enjoy the young kids that came by to visit our dog. I think that was the highlight of our stay. There were two lights in the room, but no small light to read by, so it was necessary to leave the room in order to read at night. We decided to leave a night early due to the claustrophobic nature of the room and we couldn’t find the owners, There were people checking in, but again the owners weren’t around. When I called an hour later, the owner didn’t know who I was and thought we were calling to check in early. Now, don’t forget we were the only people the first night and the only people who had a dog with us, but he didn’t have a clue who I was. I found this a bit disappointing. As I said, Joanne was sweet and tried her best, but her husband was not the approachable type. For someone in the hospitality business, that’s very sad. The expense, the claustrophobic room, no place to put toiletries, not having clean washcloths or the trash emptied (we did try to conserve by reusing our large towels,) but one of the worst issues was that the new «water heater» was something you had to run for 10 minutes and still got no hot water, how does that conserve? As a final note, please get rid of the huge fake fern that takes up half the dresser space, very tacky.

The previous reviews for Island Guest House were from several years ago, so I chose to not place much weight on them and instead relied on the reviews on other sites that were more recent.
I shouldn’t have.
The reviews here, despite their age, are much more representative of our experience.
1. The place is not child friendly. At all. It’s very small, not safe and needs repair. They knew that we had children and their ages. Apparently they have some rule that all children must be «well behaved». I’m not sure what definition they were using, but in my experience, no person, adult or child is perfect 100% of the time. Overall our children were fine. We were gone most of the time. Our daughter who is normally very quiet, unfortunately cried a few times one night. We did our best to soothe her. But, children are not robots. They cannot be «turned off».
Given their intolerance for any noise whatsoever, they should not allow ANY children.
2. The rooms are super small. They should not have rented a room that could barely fit a queen sized bed and a single pullout to a family of 4.
3. The private patio were were promised and sold on was not truly private. The furniture was dilapidated and the umbrella broken. We reported the broken umbrella as we wanted to sit outside and eat lunch with some shade. The owners didn’t address it. Also, another guest/​resident was using the «private patio» the entire time we were there — smoking, too! I did not want my children around cigarette smoke. I told the owners. They didn’t address it.
3. No hot water. Ever. We had cold showers the entire time. This was miserable for us as adults and horrible for our children. We told the owners. They insisted that we should have hot water. We ran the water in the sink and shower for 10+ minutes to now avail.
4. We paid top dollar. Over $ 300/​night. This is what we’d pay for luxury accommodations. These were nowhere near luxury.
5. We left a day early due to the lack of hot water, the smoking on the «private patio» and the overwhelming unwelcome attitude towards us and our children.
6. The only good thing was the Inn’s close proximity to the beach and to the other island activities.
7. Before you stay at this B&B, google the Inn and the owners in particular. I wish I had. I would not have stayed there.
Buyer Beware.

This B&B was a huge disappointment. For what we paid per night, we really expected a much better experience.
Our room was tiny and completely overwhelmed by the queen-​sized bed and large dresser. No closet, just some pegs on the wall and on the door, with three hangers provided. The path around the bed — literally the only open space in the room — was so narrow that my husband or I had to flatten against the wall in order to let the other one get by. There were luggage racks for suitcases, but if we used them, we wouldn’t have been able to get in the bed or to the equally tiny bathroom. One of us could fit in the bathroom at a time, and ladies, good luck if you want to shave your legs in the shower. There was barely room to turn around, much less bend over to reach your ankle.
Speaking of the shower, it took a good 10 minutes for even a hint of hot water to appear, and then it was gone again before I was finished my short shower — since I didn’t have the room to shave, I was barely in there for 10 minutes. At 10:30 at night. And since we were there for a wedding weekend (the house was fully occupied by wedding guests) and had left an evening event early so I could shower (precisely because I was worried about the hot water situation — I had heard complaints from earlier in the day), I knew no one else had just used up all the hot water.
Besides the smallness of our room, there were other disappointments as well. Our main light, over the dresser, not only didn’t work, but had one of the glass lampshades precariously hanging off of it and leaning on the top of the mirror frame connected to the dresser. I was worried shutting one of the dresser drawers too hard would cause it to come crashing down on my head. The floral wreath decoration above our bed was hanging on two large, ugly, exposed nails, that were clearly too big for the wall as pieces of plaster were missing around them. Not a detriment to our stay, but ugly to look at when you are paying as much as you do for a B&B. Our windows didn’t open, which made the room feel very stuffy. Our room was advertised as having a TV, and it did — an old 15″ tube TV mounted in the corner near the ceiling. And the walls must be paper thin, because we could have heard a mouse walking by or above our room. Considering the house was full of people and not mice, our stay was VERY loud and not peaceful at all. And it wasn’t because the other guests were being loud or obnoxious — sound just carried through the house as if there were no walls at all. Lastly, our mattress was saggy, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the quilt and shams hadn’t been washed… ever.
The breakfast food was ok. Nothing spectacular but nothing to complain about either — except the bagels certainly could have been fresher. The coffee, on the other hand, was terrible. It’s available ²⁴⁄₇ in the kind of machine you might find at a convenience store, and the weakest I think I’ve ever had the displeasure of drinking. Again, for the money you pay for a B&B, I would think a couple of fresh pots of coffee is not too much to ask.
The owner seemed nice enough, and was very adamant that we could call her cell phone at any time for anything. However, we witnessed friends trying to check-​in just after we had arrived, and she was nowhere to be found. At check-​in time. When the house is fully booked. They called and she said she’d be right over, but it took her longer than we were willing to hang out and wait with them to arrive. Her morning kitchen «assistant» spouted religious talk at us in the morning, completely unprovoked. I don’t want to feel like I have to avoid a zealot while I’m trying to serve myself breakfast and haven’t even had a decent cup of coffee yet.
Oh, and if you want to pay by credit card (since it’s 2013 after all) you’ll be charged an extra 4% for the convenience. In 2013 I find that completely ridiculous.
Good things: The location is only two short blocks to the beach, and one block the other way to various shops and places to get a good cup of coffee. The house itself is charming, and has free WIFI. There are beach cruisers available to borrow for free if you want to take a bike ride. The owner was friendly when she was around. And the bathroom did appear to at least be clean.
I wish we had better things to say, since we were there for a wedding and it should have been a wonderful weekend (and it was, when we weren’t at the B&B). But our stay at the Island Guest House was definitely the lowlight of our trip.

We stayed in the sunflower room post sandy renovations. The inn was sweet and the rooms were definitely small. Our «upgrade» was agreed upon beforehand and we were given three options. We were greeted by a glass of wine and some cookies when we arrived from a long drive which was wonderful. Joanne was friendly and attentive and followed through on our requests, she even offered to drive us places if we thought it was too far or felt we had too much to drink. There was some construction going on, though it seemed that it was minor and other construction was on surrounding homes and businesses. Food was decent though very welcomed on an island where costs can skyrocket. There were choices for breakfast even among the theme of waffles, bagels or omelets depending on the day. Family was sometimes around and babysitting was definitely going on, though surprisingly very quiet. The only drawbacks were the draftiness of the bedroom which made it uncomfortable at night, and the thin walls which didn’t do a great job of masking the couple next door. Overall, a great Inn with wonderful people. If I had occasion to return to LBI, I’d definitely stay again, especially in the sunflower room!

The Island Guest House in Beach Haven was a major disappointment. The initial outrage occurred at check-​in. We had booked a two night stay in a particular room on-​line, choosing the room carefully to celebrate our wedding anniversary. When we checked in we were shown to a different room — not at all like the one we had booked. We were told this was an «upgrade». It was shabby, above the noisy garden area with an even noisier room air conditioner and with no ambience whatsoever. When we expressed our shock at not being given the room we had booked, the innkeeper could not understand why we were not happy with the «upgrade» and had no explanation as to why we had not been given the reserved room. Eventually, she let us know that we had been thrown under the bus in order for her to accommodate a longer reservation request. That is, someone booked our room for a week, and their last night overlapped with our first night. So even though we had a confirmed reservation, she just assigned us to a different room and called it an upgrade. She told us we could change to the booked room for our second night, but our option for the first night was to «take the upgrade or leave» (on a Friday night in August when there were absolutely no vacancies elsewhere on the island — and she snidely let us know this). She also told us she had a waiting list of people to call who would take the room, so we had to decide whether to stay or not. She offered no apologies for the room switch, When we pressed her that this was unacceptable, she spoke to her husband and reluctantly agreed to either refund us $ 50 in order to «make us happy» or give us a voucher for a free night during the off-​season.
There were other disappointments besides check-​in. There was no nice sitting area to use when you were inside. The rooms were very small. Don’t know where the library was that was mentioned on their webpage. The only spots for sitting were the front porch and two inside tables which were adjacent to the check-​in desk. There was constant noise, bustle, ringing cell phones, etc. They also had some construction going on and, unbelievably, Saturday afternoon was deemed the perfect time to do it. So not only was there noise inside from the phones, voices, etc., but you couldn’t sit in the garden area either because of the loud saws and hammering. The breakfasts were very ordinary, nothing gourmet — not as good as I fix at home. One day it was scrambled eggs and sausage, the next waffles. Afternoon snacks consisted of one choice each day — brownies on day one and pound cake on day two. Again, very basic.
Another negative: While beach chairs are available, they are very uncomfortable. The backs are short and they are not adjustable.
The only real positive we can give is the location.
Needless to say, we declined the free off-​season voucher and had $ 50 taken off our bill for the room switch fiasco. We’d never go back to this B&B.