Cameo Heights Mansion and the Vine Fine Dining Restaurant

We attended Easter brunch. The menu leaned more towards dinner items, but everything cooked to order, prepared well, and a cut above a nice meal out. In fact we asked to see a dinner menu, and would return. They make a point of locally sourcing ingredients and also have a garden onsite. The whole property is exactly what you want for a couples getaway.

Sadly things have changed at Cameo Heights, which used to be our favorite romantic splurge. We planned a visit in May on our way home from Yellowstone, rerouting our trip to assure for a night of pampering before we returned home. Unfortunately we received a call the afternoon of our arrival explaining the chef had an emergency and there was no dinner service that evening. We were driving through Eastern Oregon and there was literally no place to stop and get food. We had a light breakfast because we wanted to be hungry and enjoy the wonderful meal we had experienced on previous visits. After a week of vacation and restaurant food, we were looking forward to a home cooked meal at The Vine. We checked in before we made the 40 minute drive to Walla Walla. The young receptionist asked if it was our first time and when we explained which suites we had stayed in she was not familiar with them, this seemed a little odd. After taking our luggage to our room on the top floor we noticed the scenery had changed, ALL of the orchards were gone and there were over 100 piles of bulldozed trees waiting to be burned. This was a shocking sight! We went downstairs to ask the receptionist what happened to the trees but we could not find any staff to inquiry. While downstairs we needed a snack and noticed the snack basket was pretty lackluster, granola bars, cookie packs, candy bars had been replaced with snack size and generic, Same with the ice cream, no more Haagen Daz just plain chocolate covered vanilla bars that had partially melted and refroze. These subtle changes, along with some minor housekeeping miscues, had me rather hyper critical of the direction the mansion was going and I pointed them out on my comment card. Immediately the owner responded and explained why some of the changes had occurred, he even promised to treat us to a dinner for the inconvenience. I was impressed that he cared enough to "right the wrong" of canceling our dinner and keeping us happy guests. But sadly I did not hear from him again, I tried reaching out and again he made promises he did not keep. So our quest of staying at each suite at the mansion will never happen. I don't want to discourage anyone from giving it a try but don't expect it to maintain the same of excellence.

This was our first B&B and it was absolutely beautiful. Top notch B&B that made us feel very spoiled.!! We were able to get early check in and late check out which is nice. We stayed in the Italian suite which had a beautiful blue sky above our bed that looked out to the pool and afar. This was the first time we had ever experience a bidet....lets just say-we're installing one when we do our bathroom remodel. We took advantage of the 7 course dinner at the Vine Restaurant. For all who are wondering-All but 2 coursed are set. (You have a choice for the main course and the desert.) My husband and I don't eat weird food and can be a tad bit picky at times and we both agreed that the food was VERY good.!! Oh and the portions are generous. In the morning, you have the choice of coffee, cocoa or tea along with a heart shaped sweet roll before breakfast downstairs at 9am. It was such a fun stay we're planning on traveling over for a weekend this summer.!!