Name: The Garlands
Address: 117 Old Wharf Road, Dennis Port, Dennis Port, Dennis Port, MA 02639, United States of America
Rating: 6

Smoking areas

Smoke-free property

Heating

Outdoor furniture

General

Non-smoking rooms

Room service

Family room

Rooms

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Picnic area

Sun Deck

Recreation

Offsite parking reservations required

Parking

Beach facilities

Private beach

Next to the beach

Pool and beach

Family/Kid Friendly

Kids

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Sea Street Beach

Swan Pond River

Barnstable Municipal Airport

Nantucket Memorial Airport

Provincetown Airport

Martha's Vineyard Airport

The Garlands

Dennis Port

Freezing cold A/C and as close as you could possibly get to the water.  Beach erosion is a thing, so make sure you get out there early on the corners behind the break walls, otherwise location is A+ w/clean rooms and affordable price tag for "on the water" (almost literally) for a low key, low effort beach vacation or getaway.

Perfect if you are looking for a weekender too.

Freezing cold A/C on the beach!

I stayed in this unit (#15) last year and thought it was very nice. Well, over the winter it was  updated and refreshed  with new paint, decor, and handmade tables that added to the beach vibe. I booked a few days off season “ to work from home”. The views and ocean sounds from the unit and deck are amazing. The unit had everything needed from cooking utensils to a keurig coffee maker. This unit even supplied Kona coffee  k cups along with extra paper towels , facial tissues and wipes if you forgot to bring them. The private beach disappears at high tide but a 3 min walk brings you to another if you want sand.  Not sure how much work I got done, but sitting with a nice cup of coffee  in the morn for sunrise and a glass Vino at sunset were unbeatable. The Garlands is not a 5 star resort so don’t expect that, but it is a 5 star reset your hectic life with the “aaawww this is so nice” stay. I can’t wait to “ work from home again”.

Perfect location

We stayed  in Unit # 15 on the second floor. The unit was very clean with beach decor thru out. The newly added A/C mini splits really made the unit with the hot days. Awesome ocean views and breeze ( approx 50 yds away) from every window especially the sofa and deck . The beach is great and if tide is high you can walk 5 mins to a beach that still has sand. The Kitchen had a keurig and basics you may need to cook with. A small stove , microwave and fridge , a gas grill is located by office for guest use. Plenty of lounge chairs at ocean deck for relaxing. This complex is a basic I want to escape and not be bothered for a few days destination. Booking the room directly thru the Garlands also saves you fees. Each unit is individually owned and decors and condition differ but a standard is maintained. One parking spot assigned per unit with no additional charge.

Very peaceful Stay

We stayed for a week in room #14. The unit was updated, well appointed, and super cute. Spectacular ocean views from every room!  Kitchenette had all the basics and grill on site. The a/c mini split and fans kept us comfortable in the heat. Small complex with private beach. We enjoyed snorkeling and fishing there. Short walk to 2 other beaches, Sailing Cow, ice cream and gift shop. Quick drive to bike trail, kayaking, live music and many great restaurants. For my husband, teen and I it was perfect accommodations and location. We’ll be returning.

Spectacular Ocean Front!

We just checked in and were so pleased with the space. It's clean and the decor is beachy and cute. The kitchen has everything we need with some nice touches. We are loving being right on the water. I was concerned when reading the reviews but have found the space to be lovely. (Unit 15)

Nice, clean and beautiful location

We were a group of 7 who made reservations to stay in two 2-bedroom units in July at the Garlands Motel. We looked all over the Cape a couple of months leading to our planned stay and had trouble finding a suitable waterfront hotel for a girls’ retreat complete with a couple of babies in tow. We wanted to be on the water and this location provided private ocean access as well as a small kitchen with separate dining and living areas.

After we had booked the two units through a third party site, we contacted Garlands via email to request an additional reserved parking spot and adjacent units which they readily accommodated. Lauren was an absolute gem. She was extremely helpful getting our group checked in and even helped locate an item we had misplaced after we had checked out. 

Overall, we were very happy with the location and being local to Massachusetts, we set our expectations appropriately for the property and the area. The motel has two buildings with 10 units each. The buildings face each other which gives each unit a view of the ocean. As with many beachside properties, the interiors of our Garlands units had tired fixtures and furniture (the units were right next to each other, but had different updates and different furniture). We paid a hefty price as we had booked the rooms in June, but were very satisfied with our stay. 

We used the mini-fridge, stove, coffeemaker, and microwave. We sunbathed on the sun deck. We used the patio to lounge and sip our drinks as we listened to and watched the ocean. There is no air conditioning, so we we lucked out that the weather was 75 degrees during our entire stay. The very small “beach” was covered in shells, but we brought a straw mat and swam. We enjoyed the exclusive use of the area as it was a private beach just for guests staying at the motel.

Who is this property best suited for? I would recommend the Garlands Motel for those who absolutely want to be on the ocean but also need the separate sleeping, living, dining, and kitchen areas. The units are small. For those who have not already been to the Cape, keep in mind that many ocean-front lodging options in the area are independently run and do not compare or compete with standard Marriott or Hyatt-type properties. For our future stays, we would bring our own pillows and sleeping bags as better pillows and blankets were really the only things we were missing. We found the Garlands Motel to be perfect for what we needed.

Great location and service, but could use some updates and maintenance

First, I must start off by saying I arrived on Labor Day and the weather cooled down quite a bit.  My first night,  I found the room unbearably hot/humid/stuffy.  I opened the windows and the ceiling fans helped, but A/C would have been nice (I tolerate heat very well, so ..... if you don't, then you might want to consider a different motel. I'm thinking in peak summer season, this room-cooling situation  would be a nightmare, and I've read other reviews to support that theory).  

I opened the windows, as I said, and enjoyed listening to the waves .  However - - there were 20-something year olds behind me who were up and outside late , and they were very loud.  At the crack of dawn, an old couple behind me were up and they were hard of hearing or something because they yelled.  Even in the shoulder season, closing the windows would have been awful. I had to choose my battles:  Noise vs. stuffiness/heat.   I sleep rather deeply, too, so I speculate it could be BAD for a light sleeper. 

The beds were made with extremely old and used top sheets.   The elastic for the fitted sheets was no longer stretchy and I had to sort of lay it over the top of the bed when I got new linens (due to COVID there is no housekeeping service - they let you trade your towels/linens midway and you must make the bed yourself - which I feel is understandable during a pandemic, and it's probably the way it is everywhere).   There were also stains on my fitted sheets (like from metal or something, not from a person, thankfully!)  My neighbors complained that their sheets seemed old, too.  I feel like their staff ought to make a judgement call and throw away sheets that are way past their prime (and management ought to support that).  

The room seemed to be recently renovated (the photos I see posted here don't resemble my accommodations very much. I wish I took photos ).  One of our bedrooms had twin beds , the other a full size bed.  Both bedrooms had old wallpaper that made the rooms look dated, but they were clean.  The bedroom artwork looked like it was from the dollar store.  

The bathroom was clean.  I had the best hotel shower at this place, actually!  Excellent water pressure and it stayed hot throughout.  Every fixture in the bathroom that had metal (except the faucet) had at least  some rust.  The bead-board walls seemed warped in places.  Seemed like a renovation on a budget.   

The living room/dining room  appeared to have new furniture and looked recently painted.  It didn't look like a top quality paint job, but it was nice to be staying somewhere where they are maintaining the property.  The kitchen looked to be remodeled to some degree and had maybe a new stove.  It has only a dorm fridge - enough for drinks and leftover takeout, not an ambitious grocery trip - especially if you're a family of 4 with kids.  It looked like the plates/ coffee mugs were recent purchases.  

Unlike the other reviews, I had no issues with the pots/pans.  They didn't look "new," but they were functional.  

If internet is important to you, I'd like to let you know this service was thready.  In the early morning, perhaps when people weren't up yet, it wasn't bad.  We had to tolerate Netflix freezing quite a bit when we wanted to watch a movie one night. If you are working remotely and hoping to do some zoom meetings for work or something, you should be prepared to maybe use your own data.  

The rooms in our buildings had  100% glass frontage - all windows/sliding glass doors.  We were in a middle unit , fortunately, where there was little foot traffic to the stairwells. However, I felt like I was in a doll house.  You know how kids open the doll house to play with it and it's just ..... OPEN?  It felt like that. I'm thankful I wasn't next to the stairs with people walking by a lot. I would have felt exposed.  I felt like I had to pull the blinds all the time. I could sit on the balcony area and if I looked straight ahead, I could see (without intending to) neighbors across the court yard eating dinner in their room or sitting on their beds and reading .... just made me feel exposed.  I could live with it, but people who feel like they need more privacy might not like it.  

There is a deck area overlooking the beach with lots of lounge chairs if you want to lay in the sun and get some air.    Each room has some outdoor seating (two plastic Adirondack chairs and a little side table).  They have semi-private privacy walls between the rooms' exteriors which I appreciated.  

The beach, small to start with,  disappears anywhere near high tide.  If you're looking for a motel with a good beach, this isn't it. I wasn't looking for that  - just liked the seaside air while I had my morning coffee and enjoyed hearing the waves at night for a fair price.  Our off-season rate for this two-bedroom suite was $95/night which I think is a great price for a seaside motel with an ocean view from my bedrooms.  There were tons of horseshoe crab shells washing up on shore and tufts of seaweed.  But my neighbors said it was good swimming.  My other neighbor did some fishing from the rocks.  

I never saw staff until I checked out at 10AM, the designated time.  They left my key under my mat and my name and room number on the office door when I checked in.  I don't know if they're limiting their hours due to COVID, but I might have liked to have seen a greater staff presence.   I didn't have an issue that required attention - hopefully I could get someone on the phone if I needed them ?  I can't really rate the service because I had so LITTLE interaction with the staff.  

As far as the location, it's excellent.  Its proximity to Yarmouth means there is plenty to do nearby and plenty of stores/restaurants.  It being mid Cape, it was about an hour from Provincetown where we daytripped.    We were also nearish to Hyannis where we went on a whale watch .  In Chatham, I recommend the Chatham Pier for tasty seafood and a free wild seal show, ha.  The seals come in looking for treats from the fishing boats.  Overall, I think Dennis is a nice place to stay. It's off the main drag, not too crowded.  

Anyway, I would stay here again in the shoulder season (May and early June or September/October) - I can't imagine how hot and noisy it must be in the peak summer season. 

I feel like many of my complaints can't be helped , except the A/C and internet.

It was OK (and probably only OK because it was off-season)

Terrible stay.  I wish I never booked my vacation here. First of all there’s no air conditioning and the rooms are very small. Mold in the bathroom, pots and pans were gross so we ate out every meal. Small refrigerator maybe you should get a few things in it. The beach totally disappeared with high tide. When you could go on the beach it was full of rocks and shells. Drunk people everywhere, woke up several times to trash from the other units all over the place. Very disappointed,  not worth the money or the time.

Awful place

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	8/15/2020
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Would've loved to have posted a positive review here but it's 9 pm on what I expected to be our first night of a weekend ocean-front getaway only to find myself elsewhere, wishing I had stayed home. I booked two nights well over a month ago only to arrive 30 minutes after check-in time to find a locked front office door with a note saying anyone checking in could find their key under the mat of their unit. A sheet of paper listed two names, two unit numbers. My name was not included. I called the two numbers listed on another piece of paper taped up under a notice "call in an emergency after hours" only to get two voicemails. This is a traveler's worst nightmare, to arrive at a rental only to find you are literally shut out. Checked email and saw the property had contacted booking site TWO HOURS before check-in time to notify me that the "property was unfortunately unable to honor the reservation because of overbooking". Oh gee, we're sorry! But we needn't worry, we would not have to sleep on the street because ANOTHER unit was available (oh joy!) Ended up accepting the consolation prize because, where else are we going to stay on cape cod, the middle of August on a Saturday night? Said unit was a crummy dark condo in the back of an old beat up development with a stunning water view (see picture). Knew it was real estate gold when I had to walk past my neighbor on the outside balcony through a haze of cigarette smoke. After speaking to an apologetic property manager and a customer service rep from the booking site, it seems somebody at the property screwed up and plugged in our reservation incorrectly for a month earlier (contradicting the confirmation email I received over a month ago). Whoopsie! Thanks a bunch, you guys really helped make what my wife and I were looking forward to - two days of relief in the midst of a crappy Covid summer - into a complete and utter disappointment.

Anyone booking here in advance should get a notarized receipt BEFORE DRIVING ALL THE WAY TO THE CAPE.

Might be nice if they let you in!

First off, there was no air conditioner (IN ANY UNITES) my family had to go and buy more fans because it was so hot in the room. No “high speed internet” like mentioned, you have to wonder around the place just to send a text message. Pillows were extremely dirty. MOLD was all over the bathroom ceiling. Pots and pans were so bad we couldn’t use them to cook anything. We gave the pans to the lady at the office, she took them  but never gave us another one to replace it with. Bed are horrible, everyone on the trip had trouble sleeping. Nice view, although the beach disappears because of the tide. My family drove 20 minutes up the road for a better beach considering the one we have was just water. Lack of utensils, we had to buy our own at the grocery store which added to our vacation expense. Very inconsiderate “neighbors.” Everytime someone left next store to us someone worse would check in, they left their burger king trash all over the place, one man got so drunk he fell down the stairs causing him to knock over his fishing pole which ended up in our room, mother of three of four kids just let her kids scream and run around way passed 11 o’clock at night. NOT worth any of the money we spent there. Very disappointing. We told everyone we know that plans on going down to the area to NOT stay at the Garlands.

The Garlands

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