Boston Harbor Hotel

To be clear, this is not a bad hotel. That said, this is not a truly dog friendly resort type hotel either and not one we will return to. First, the good. Our junior suite room was very nicely appointed with a great view. Bed was comfortable. Bathroom was clean. Now for the griping. For a luxury hotel room, set up is little bit odd. There’s no refrigerator in the room. You have to have the minibar unlocked. There is no ice location on the floor or in the room. All of these (pretty standard) amenities require a service call. Not a huge issue for sure…but still struck us as odd in a luxury “vacation” location. We travel with our small dog a lot for pleasure and try to stay in higher-end resorts and hotels where available and cost effective. Typically these hotels at $1000 plus price point per night are extremely dog friendly and have numerous shared hotel spaces such as lobbies and bars allowing patrons to enjoy the amenities, socialize or grab a bite and a drink accompanied by their pets. Sometimes it’s a patio setting; sometimes seating areas adjacent to bars or lobbies but there is usually some accommodation to assure pet parents can enjoy the hotel’s offerings. Where hotels are more restrictive about where pets can/cannot be, they allow owners to leave pets in rooms with appropriate signage and customer notification options if the pet is disruptive. This luxury hotel does neither. No pets unaccompanied in your room and no pet friendly amenities in the hotel or outside on the patio. The “shared spaces” are minimal with a “meh” lobby, a (reportedly) good restaurant and the Dark bar(which was indeed dark, jammed with business people and incredibly loud). Know if you stay at the Boston Harbor Hotel with your dog you are paying for a room and room service if you need to eat or drink….that’s it…unless you opt for a Dog sitter (minimum 3 hours) which we were not comfortable doing. Otherwise your entertainment must be elsewhere. It appears, after our scouting while there for an alternate location for our next trip (this is a fun city and one we will return to a lot),the most dog friendly options for higher end vacation type hotels, shared visiting spaces, eating, strolling and sight seeing are on the north end of the harbor. To summarize, this location on the wharf appears ideal for business clientele but we would absolutely not recommend as a higher end vacation location traveling with or without a pet. IMO they should reconsider selling themselves as such. Interesting note: At no time were we asked for feedback about our stay by any one from the hotel…even at check out. I-Prefer however did send a survey about our booking experience with I-Prefer.