Travel Date: June 30, 2023
My wife and I recently stayed at the Wauwinet for three nights on our first trip to Nantucket, and we had a very positive experience. The Wauwinet is a small luxury inn that really impressed us with its good sense of place, warm and thoughtful service, and generally lovely décor...
My wife and I recently stayed at the Wauwinet for three nights on our first trip to Nantucket, and we had a very positive experience. The Wauwinet is a small luxury inn that really impressed us with its good sense of place, warm and thoughtful service, and generally lovely décor and views. Although it is isolated from most of Nantucket, staying at the Wauwinet is tranquil and upscale.
Location:
We’ve wanted to visit Nantucket for many years, and a lot of the information I read pointed to the Wauwinet as being one of the most luxurious hotels on the island, with the only con being its location 9 miles from town on narrow, winding roads (an approximately 20-minute drive). The hotel really is out on its own at the very end of the paved road, and we received advice not to stay there for our first trip to Nantucket. Despite this, as we looked at hotels, we just never quite found another hotel that we liked as much as the Wauwinet. It ultimately was a good choice, but I do certainly see the benefit of staying in town, especially on a first trip to the island. You simply can’t beat the convenience of walking right out of your hotel and having all of the dining and shopping at your fingertips. However, for a more serene experience with grounds overlooking the water and its own beaches, you can’t really beat the Wauwinet.
I did appreciate that the hotel does its best to minimize difficulty caused by its location, such as by offering a free shuttle to town, which drops off and picks up guests outside the tourist information office. The shuttle also stops closer to the ferry docks as well. The shuttle leaves the hotel half past the hour starting at 9:30 am, and then leaves to return to the hotel at the top of every hour, with 11:00 pm being the last trip back from town. The shuttle was comfortable and the drivers were wonderful and friendly every time we used it.
We took the shuttle when we could, but the timing didn’t always quite work for us, particularly when trying to get to town for specific meal reservation times. In my ideal world, the shuttle would depart the hotel every half hour to be the most useful. We ended up choosing to Uber instead when the times didn’t quite work, or when we wanted to go elsewhere on the island. I also believe there is a boat transfer into town, but it was too early in the season for that to be offered when we visited in early June.
Ubers are pretty reliable on Nantucket, but they can take a while to get to the hotel since it’s isolated, and we had a couple of issues where drivers would cancel once they realized where we were located. We found that Ubers were usually around $30 each way to town or the airport, and slightly less to Sconset.
Another transportation option the hotel offers that isn’t well publicized is a complimentary BMW X5 that guests can check out for a half-day period. We never saw anything about this before our stay, but the staff mentioned it at check-in. My understanding is that the car can’t be reserved before arrival, but it’s able to be reserved once you’re at the hotel, with two time slots per day (9am-2pm and 2pm to the end of the evening). The only other limit seemed to be that each party could only reserve one slot per day, so we went ahead and reserved the X5 for one slot every day of our trip. The car was great, and it was especially helpful to have the evening slot to drive to dinner and come back at our leisure. Using it did make us realize that we’d ideally have our own car if staying at the Wauwinet again.
Pre-Arrival Experience:
Prior to our stay, I reached out to the pre-arrival concierge to get more information about things like dining and activity/attraction recommendations. The concierge team is shared across the various White Elephant properties on the island, and I found them to be responsive and pleasant, but not the most helpful. Their responses about things to do and restaurants on the island were incredibly basic, to the point that they just sent links to generic Nantucket tourism websites and just provided a general list of basically every restaurant on Nantucket, rather than a more curated list to narrow down the options. Overall, the email exchanges I had with the concierge were fine, but simply weren’t that helpful.
Arrival:
We arrived at the hotel on a Sunday morning before 9:00 am, since we had a very early fight into Nantucket. The hotel is not permitted to offer any airport transportation, so we just called an Uber and it was easy to get to the hotel.
We had a bit of an odd arrival, since the hotel had been closed to the public for a wedding buyout the night before. Since we got there so early, the wedding events were clearly still going, including signs outside noting that the hotel was closed for the event, along with a post-wedding breakfast and general clean-up from the wedding. Since the hotel is a small inn, it felt a little odd to be coming in while the wedding events were still wrapping up, but I was really impressed that the staff didn’t miss a beat and treated us really well. We weren’t made to feel unwelcome or that we had arrived an inconvenient time, and had a very in-depth check-in with every detail of the hotel provided to us. A glass of sparkling wine is also offered at check-in. Since our room wasn’t ready, they offered to expedite room cleaning, and in the meantime got us set up with the hotel’s BMW to use to explore the island. The front desk staff provided helpful recommendations on where to go and what to do while driving around the island, and remembered and asked about our day when we returned. The doormen were also very friendly and helpful, which continued throughout our stay.
Room:
The hotel has 32 guest rooms in the main inn building, and then some separate cottages/houses a few steps away that mostly contain suites. We booked a Superior King Room in the main building. We found it a bit hard to find a king bed in many of the hotels in Nantucket, so we appreciated that we could get one at the Wauwinet. We ended up really loving our room. We were on the ground level in room 102 right off of the library, which serves as the main relaxation/lobby area with an inviting fireplace. Especially since the library area was always very quiet, we never heard any noise while in our room. We could sometimes smell the fire that was right on the other side of our wall in the library fireplace, but it didn’t bother us.
The room itself was surprisingly large for a historic building, with a restful sort of beach chic décor. It was clear that there have been renovations at some point in the recent past, and we liked the large four-poster bed and comfy extra chairs for reading. There was a lot of storage available through multiple dressers, plus an armoire with lots of drawers and hanging space.
It was also a wonderful surprise that the room had a private outdoor deck, which added a lot of usable space that we enjoyed. The deck had two chairs with ottomans and an umbrella in a quiet area on the side of the hotel, which even had some glimpses of a harbor view.
The bathroom was also very nicely appointed and functional, with a vanity area with a good amount of storage, nicely updated gray and white tile, and a large walk-in shower with good water pressure and L’Occitane bath products in wall-mounted dispensers.
Daily room cleaning and turndown service are offered, and both were done very well. It was a nice touch that turndown always included chocolate on the nightstands and a weather report for the next day. The only minor comment I have was that housekeeping was inconsistent in replacing the water bottles in the room once we drank them.
We had told the hotel in advance of our stay that we were celebrating our anniversary, and it was very nice that a handwritten card and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries was left in our room on the first night.
Our only minor comments related to the room would be:
-Lighting: It was generally pretty dark in the room, and more lamps would have been helpful.
-Pillows: Although the bed was generally comfortable with nice linens, the pillow quality could be improved. Only half the pillows on the bed were nicer down pillows, while all of the others were really cheap ones I’d expect at a much lower level hotel. I’m sure we could have asked for more of the better pillows, but I’d expect them all to be better from the start.
-Furniture: Although the key furniture pieces, such as the bed and chairs, appeared to be relatively new and were nice, the wood furniture (nightstands, dressers, armoire) was old and just didn’t feel very upscale. The armoire in particular was falling over/falling apart, and the other furniture was so simple that it didn’t really fit with the other décor.
Dining & Bars:
The restaurant at the Wauwinet is Topper’s, which has a small bar attached. The food from Topper’s is also available through room service, or to be served on the chaise lounges on the hotel lawn facing the harbor. Those are an especially great place to relax and enjoy the views from the hotel along with full food and drink service.
Since the hotel provides complimentary coffee, tea, and pastries in the Topper’s Bar each morning, we usually ended up getting that as a light breakfast and never made it to Topper’s for a full breakfast. We also didn’t try lunch there, but did get drinks and dinner on our first night. Overall, our experience at Topper’s was a little bit mixed.
We definitely enjoyed the bar. It’s small and a bit dated, but it has a cozy and inviting feel, and the bartender made us excellent pre-dinner martinis. After that, we made our way to the restaurant for dinner, which was ultimately nice, but not a meal we loved. For one, it’s not clear at all before you arrive that there are basically two separate dining experiences offered. The indoor portion of the restaurant, which is more formal, features a tasting menu, with the option to order the items on that menu a la carte as well. Alternatively, the outdoor portion of the restaurant is on a covered deck and is less formal, with its own “deck menu” of more accessible food. When you book a table online, it’s not clear that they’re very different experiences, as it simply asks you to select from an indoor table or an outdoor table. The menus on the hotel website are also not clear, as the one marked as “lunch/dinner” is actually the outdoor section’s menu, and was not offered to us in the indoor section.
We just wanted a relatively simple dinner at our hotel, so we were surprised when our server showed us the tasting menu and it was nothing like what we had expected or wanted. I heard another table near us ask their server if they could order from the outdoor menu, and their server was happy to accommodate the request. We did the same, since we didn’t want a full tasting meal or the more complex dishes it featured. However, our server acted odd about the request, but ultimately let us do so. We ended up ordering appetizers and dessert from the deck menu and entrées from the inside a la carte menu. This worked out fine, and the food was generally all good. My lobster entrée from the indoor tasting menu was the worst thing I tried, and was just very bland and disappointing. Everything else was great. Service was also generally good, with a lot of assistants helping with the small details. We ordered a half bottle of wine, and the sommelier was also wonderful. Even though we weren’t ordering a particularly expensive or noteworthy bottle, I really appreciated that he still spent time talking with us about it, which many somms wouldn’t bother doing.
All in all, our experience at Topper’s was just ok overall, even though the food was pretty good. The odd menu situation for indoor versus outdoor dining just needs to be made clearer. As the night went on, we actually saw more tables around us ask for food from the less formal menu, so there’s clearly a preference for simpler food. We also thought the formality of the restaurant was a bit tiresome. For example, most men in there were wearing a jacket, and that’s just not what I’m looking for in a beach/coastal vacation destination. Although there’s nothing wrong with Topper’s, I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to go back.
Activities/Amenities:
One of the things we really loved about the Wauwinet was that it felt like a lot was included in our room rate, making the expensive stay a better value than expected. In addition to some of the previously mentioned items like the transportation and light breakfast each morning, there was also an afternoon port and cheese hour every afternoon in the library, which included a thoughtfully-made cheese board and self-serve bottles of port. We were told that if we ever just wanted a snack in our room, to call the front desk and ask for complimentary popcorn. We never did this, but it was nice to have the option.
Another thing we really appreciated are the various complimentary tours/excursions that the hotel offers. There’s a schedule of various activities (typically one or two per day, which rotate), and you can sign up for any of them at check-in. These include a tour out to Great Point, a harbor cruise, a tour of Sconset, and a culinary or drink-making experience at the hotel. We emailed the concierge for the exact schedule during our dates in advance.
We only ended up doing the Great Point tour, and it was well worth taking the time. “Captain Rob” leads all of the tours off-property, and he is a local who has a wealth of knowledge about the island and its history. Truly, if you want to meet someone who knows just about anything about Nantucket and will go into great detail, take one of his tours. Our tour was in an SUV to drive out on the beach just past the hotel to Great Point Lighthouse, which is only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle. It’s remote and scenic, with lots of wildlife, such as seals on the beach that you can see up close. The tour was scheduled to be 2.5 hours long, but the road to the beach was unexpectedly closed due to rain earlier in the day. It re-opened later that afternoon, and we were able to have the full tour, but in the meantime, Rob took us on a drive around the area of the island near the Wauwinet and pivoted to show us other things. By the end, the tour had gotten a bit long for our taste and we were glad to be back, but we also did appreciate all of the dedication Rob had to giving us the full experience. We also appreciated that the tour was complimentary, since going to Great Point on our own would have involved a much more expensive endeavor of renting a jeep or paying a guide.
Lots of other little things are available, such as bikes to ride around the island (although there aren’t good bike paths right by the hotel), beach gear to use the hotel’s beaches, and various games and books in the library.
Service:
The service at the Wauwinet was ultimately one thing that really impressed us about the hotel. The staff was almost universally friendly and attentive in an approachable way. The front desk staff members were always very helpful and nice with any small request we made. I was impressed that virtually every time we walked into the hotel, including later at night after dinners, a staff member would always run over and open the door and welcome us in. Many large five-star hotels with lots of staff don’t even get that right.
They were also just good at anticipating needs in small ways. For example, on our check-out day, we wanted to go into town on the shuttle for a little shopping and lunch, but then needed to get our luggage to go to the airport for our flight home. It was going to be a little annoying to make the trip back from town just to get our luggage and immediately depart for the airport. I was impressed that when the shuttle driver asked us what our plans were for the day, he didn’t miss a beat in offering to bring us our luggage on a later shuttle to town so that we didn’t need to come all the way back to the hotel just to get it. It was simple, but his anticipation of our needs made our day so much easier.
The hotel just also did a good job of having appropriate staff presence. For example, when they had things like the breakfast pastries or port and cheese set up, there was always a staff member actually coming by and checking on it frequently. They didn’t just leave guests to fend for themselves.
There were really just a couple things we thought could have been better on the service side, but they were minor. First, we were a little annoyed that the hotel did not have the chaise lounges set-up on the lawn for the first two out of our three nights. They are one of the key amenities of the hotel, and featured heavily in their marketing, so we were eager to lay out on the lawn and enjoy the view with drinks. However, the chairs had been removed before our stay since there was a wedding, and it seemed like the staff just didn’t bother to set them back up for two days because it was chilly. We did get to enjoy time out there on our final day, and it was very nice. I just didn’t like that the option wasn’t even offered before that. I’d rather be the one to decide it’s too cold to lay out there, rather than the hotel deciding for me.
On our last day, we also had a couple weird experiences related to wine. We love wine and had heard multiple times that the hotel has an amazing wine cellar. We inquired at the front desk to see if we could go and quickly see the cellar at some point that day. We were told that there is a tour offered once a week on Thursdays (a day we weren’t there), but that they’d check with the somm to see if they could take us at some point to see it. We never heard back, which was sort of disappointing, since it didn’t feel like a difficult request.
Later that day, when we were relaxing outside on the chaise lounges, the server was very nice and helpful. When we said we were interested in ordering a bottle of wine, he proactively said he wanted to get a somm to take the order and answer any questions. We didn’t necessarily need a somm’s help to pick a bottle, but we were ok with it, particularly since the somm at Topper’s a couple nights prior had been great. However, it ended up being a poor experience. It took over half an hour for the somm to come out and talk to us (he was different from the somm at dinner the other night). This was the middle of the afternoon, definitely not a busy time in the restaurant, so it felt like he really didn’t want to help us. It also didn’t seem like he actually had much knowledge of the wine list, producers, etc., and only spoke in broad strokes that weren’t helpful. Although Burgundies on their wine list can go up to thousands of dollars a bottle, I specifically said we wanted to get a red Burgundy on the lower end price-wise, and he still started by recommending $500 and $600 bottles. I thought that was tacky and tone deaf when we’re just sitting outside looking for a couple glasses of wine. We ended up not taking his overpriced recommendations and just ordered something a little cheaper that we knew we’d like.
Again, these couple negative service experiences were very minor, and were in the context of many more positive experiences that strongly outweighed them.
Overall:
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at the Wauwinet. We were really impressed by the lovely hotel itself, which was only made better by the various amenities and inclusions that are offered. Although it was expensive to stay there, we felt that it was worth it. I would consider staying elsewhere in Nantucket in the future solely to try somewhere right in town. However, I don’t doubt that we’d also come back to the Wauwinet, which makes up for its isolation by having a gorgeous setting and great experience that was memorable for all the right reasons.
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