Willoughvale Inn

This was our first visit to the Northeast Kingdom. While planning our trip, we found Lake Willoughby first, then immediately found the WilloughVale Inn. It looked great in photos. It is even nicer in person. The staff is fantastic. The rooms are bigger and scrubbed clean. The bed was so incredibly comfortable. Having access to the private beach area, dock, and kayaks was awesome. The VIEW WAS OUT OF THIS WORLD! Book now, you’ll be so glad you did!

My wife and I recently stayed at the WilloughVale Inn and must say it was a fantastic experience from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. Our room was spacious, had fantastic views of Lake Willoughby, and was extremely clean and comfortable. The rustic "log" themed furniture really added to the lake and cabin feel of Northern Vermont and was an unexpected but quite appropriate touch. The included continental breakfast was just wonderful with a great selection of foods with endless coffee.................they even provided Gluten free bread and muffins for my wife! The Inn also has several places outside where friends and family can gather and relax. The staff was very helpful, gracious, and attentive. I'd return in a heartbeat!

The WilloughVale Inn and Cottages were incredible. Our family stayed in three cottages, The Robert Frost, The Songadeewin and The Twilight Cottage. Having traveled from NJ, we took full advantage of the cabins having all plates, silverware, pots and pans and appliances necessary. Our family used the kayaks, canoes, fire pit, and grounds throughout our stay. The staff was so friendly and accommodating. We have NO suggestions to improve our stay and highly recommend Willoughvale to anyone looking for a beautiful scenic place to relax and have fun. Thank you Willoughvale - we WILL be back!

When we first started staying at the Willoughvale decades ago, guests were welcomed to the inn in the afternoon by the enticing aroma of fresh-baked cookies, which were served with tea in the sitting room. Such niceties and amenities have certainly waned over the years. The cookies are gone, along with hot offerings at breakfast. The restaurant and bar have both closed, with no sign that they will reopen; the front desk is staffed only for about 8 hours a day; and the suites are no longer available for guest accommodation. But the rooms are clean and comfortable, as always. Looking on the bright side, protein has returned to the continental breakfast offerings this year (in the form of yogurt and hard-boiled eggs), the view of Lake Willoughby from the upstairs rooms is better than it was from the first-floor suite we used to stay in, and we have discovered many terrific places to eat within half an hour's drive of the inn. If your vision of a Vermont inn is shaped by Bob Newhart's Stratford Inn, this is not the place for you. If you're looking for accommodation convenient to beautiful Lake Willoughby and come with a willingness to explore this interesting area of the state, you could do worse than the Willoughvale (we have :-)

The Inn is quite nice and the person at the front desk friendly and helpful. I have no complaints about the place itself. But our stay was disappointing nonetheless for two reasons. First, though we were warned that the Inn had decided to close it’s restaurant for the season (we chose WilloughVale in part because it had a restaurant on site), we weren’t able to make other lodging arrangements at that point. Unfortunately, we assumed that it would be easy to find alternatives places to eat close by. It wasn’t. When we arrived Tuesday afternoon we were given a list of restaurants in the area, some 20-30 minutes drive each way, with a note that many were closed on Tuesday - our day at the Inn. To complicate matters, there is no cell phone reception (something else were weren’t made aware of), that made it impossible to contact restaurants to confirm if they were open. And since the front desk closed at 5PM, we had no one to consult with. This turned out to matter. After having driven to a market we found that closed to. We ended up having lunch and dinner at a pizza place 20 minutes away, which while quite pleasant was not what we had imagined. We suggest the proprietor do a better job of communicating with guests. We would have made different choices if he/she had.

This was our second visit to the Inn. This time, we got the Lupine room, and we could not ask for more. The other one last time was fine, but much smaller. The service was great, and even though the restaurant was closed (again, as it was 2 years ago), the continental breakfast was very good, and very much appreciated (great coffee). And there were several dining options open this time around: The Gap (Lake Willoughby), the Carriage House Cafe and Grill (Orleans) and the Busy Bee diner (Glover) were all excellent. We went back to the Carriage House for dinner on Friday. Love this area.