Tourists coming to Nelson often find out that there is no room at the inn — Cloudside Inn that is, and with a Certificate of Excellence from Trip-Advisor under their belt, the inn may be much busier.
Chris and Sally Drysdale are the owners and innkeepers of Cloudside Inn.
“After a year in South and Central America and a year in the rest of the world, we came back to London and just decided to try something different,” said Sally.
Chris had a successful career in marketing and Sally was trading bonds for a German investment bank.
“We thought we would like to have a stab at looking after people because we had people look after us for two years,” said Chris.
Sally said if they hadn’t come to Canada they would have ended up back in the rat race in London.
“It would have been far too easy to have fallen back into that trap,” she said.
Chris calls themselves the typical urban escapees.
While the couple was traveling they stayed in various kinds of accommodation, but they realized there were basic criteria for what made for a good room, even if it was at a basic hostel.
“One of the most basic things we realized is that we had to be nice to people and mean it. When people ask for something, it is not a nuisance,” said Chris.
He said they’ve had guests say that they like honey in their coffee for breakfast, and if they don’t have honey, then they’ll go to the store and get it.
“We want things to be right, so when you give someone honey, it means nothing, but you get this feeling that that little touch made that person happy, and for goodness sake, it’s just honey,” said Chris.
Cloudside Inn is similar to a bed and breakfast but Sally, Chris and their children Albie and Hannah live in separate quarters in the back of the house.
When Sally and Chris found out that they had won the Certificate of Excellence they were thrilled, but Chris said TripAdvisor keeps them on their toes.
“We’ve received many reviews, and with TripAdvisor you have to stay on top of it because people are seeing it and there is concern that someone will come on and say something bad and then you won’t get an award,” he said.
As of Tuesday morning, TripAdvisor listed Cloudside Inn as the number one bed and breakfast/inn in Nelson, with 99 per cent positive reviews.
The Inn is currently ranked in the top 20 (out of a total of 1,370) bed and breakfast/inns in British Columbia.