Truewood by Merrill, New Bern is a beautiful place. The atmosphere is great and the food is great. Everybody seems to be so nice. The staff is great. I'm in a two-bedroom apartment and it's really nice. When you come in the door, it's a kitchenette, refrigerator, stove, and sink. Then you go straight down into the living room, which is very nice. On the right, there's a one-bedroom, which I'm not using for a bedroom. I'm using it for my computer and my lift chair. When you come in the door on the left, there's the bedroom that I'm in. It's a nice bedroom. There's a long closet space in both bedrooms. It has a pantry that's really big and nice. It has a big, nice bathroom, and nice windows that you can see out. They've got something all the time. They have three meals a day and the meals are really good. They have bingo, bridge, cards, canasta, and exercise classes, and they have a guy that comes and sings and plays the guitar. They have a lot of activities. They have a preacher that comes on Sundays. They have ice cream socials, like if somebody has a birthday. The value for the money is good. I might move to a one-bedroom later on because it is expensive.

Courtyards at Berne Village is great. The people are nice, and the food is good. There are more things to do than you could choose. They have transportation, trips to different places, and they'll take me to doctors' appointments. They have a clubhouse that's constantly busy. The staff members are very good, pleasant, always talking to you when you're going to eat, and they ask you want you want. It's like one big family. There are at least 28 buildings, each with about five or six people living in different rooms. There are walking paths throughout, and it's well laid out. The people are constantly doing different things.

I was very impressed with Courtyards at Berne Village. It was a very nice community. The staff members were extremely wonderful. They said that if I didn't like the color of the wall, I could buy the paint and the maintenance people would take care of it. I really like the place. They were so very wonderful. The facilities were wonderful, too. I had lunch there, and the lunch was good. The staff members were incredible.

My mother is a resident of Courtyards at Berne Village, and we’re not really happy with it. When we went in with my mom, they gave us the whole spiel of what she would get, it was probably 3 months afterwards, somebody else bought it, and the things that they told us she would get, she hasn’t got. They had flooding from the storm, she has mold in her apartment, and they did not want to do anything about it. I wouldn’t want to recommend Courtyards to anyone. The food is either uncooked or it’s burned. The rooms are not bad, other than the mold problems, but she’d had problems with roaches. She participated in things that she liked, every now and then, they have some music, or somebody comes in, and they take them on a bus to grocery stores. The staff was caring to my mom, and they were amazing.

I liked Courtyards at Berne Village, but I could not afford it. The rooms and the dining area were nice. The residents looked like they were comfortable. The staff seemed to be fine.

Courtyards at Berne Village is at the bottom of my list. My general impression was that they wanted to show me certain parts and make sure I didn't see the others. It was a long tour that was more than I was able to physically handle. Some parts of it looked outdated, and there were other parts that had been updated that they wanted me to look at. It had a big dining room. The only activity seemed to be bingo. I quit looking for a community because this one was so undesirable.

The grounds at the Courtyards are very nice, but the apartment is small, and there’s nothing special about it. The price is reasonable compared to others. I met two people, and they seemed very nice.

Courtyards at Berne Village was very good. The staff members were excellent and went out of the way to treat us nicely. She gave us a lot of options and showed us all the way around the facility. The price was better, and the food was great. I had lunch, and it was good. They had an art director who showed us all of the opportunities to get involved.

Courtyards at Berne Village was nice and very convenient to everything, like grocery stores, doctors, hospitals, and whatever you might want. The apartments were a little small but less expensive than other places I. The staff was wonderful, knowledgeable, very patient, and answered all kinds of questions. They had a game room and a little place to meet in the afternoon. The one thing I liked a lot about it was that it was all on one floor, therefore you had a lot of green area. I could see them walking around outside. I liked that a lot. The disadvantage to that is that it didn't have much security. We visited the independent living area.

The Courtyards was well kept and was really nice. The staff was friendly. My father-in-law is in a private room with a kitchen area, a living room, a big bedroom and a spacious bathroom. I’ve eaten with him before; it was family dining and was really good. There are several tables in there and the clients can eat the food they want and as much as they want and the servers come out bringing the food. They were very polite to me when I went. They have shuffleboard and horseshoes. They have a recreation room where they can go hang out, have a drink and play pool and dartboard. They get to have a happy hour one day a week and they go on field trips during the weekend.

I didn’t mind where we were, but my husband didn’t like the food and he didn’t like the old people walking around with walkers and wheelchairs. That’s the main reason why we left Courtyards at Berne Village. He’s eighty-five years old, but he just didn’t want to look at old people, and there's nothing I can do about that. We were there for seven months, I believe. The people there were very nice. The staff was very friendly. What I liked about it, actually, which I told my husband, was, as much as the food wasn’t the greatest in the world, you could always find something you can eat. I also liked the fact that you had a lot of sociability around there. They did not have a good recreation program. They didn’t have a good director for it. I could’ve told them how to do it, but I kept my mouth shut. There were things wrong with it, but since we left there it has changed hands, so I have no idea what it’s like now. But those kinds of places, they always really have problems with food no matter how you look at it, I know that. You’re not going to satisfy all the people all the time. Food needed work, but another thing I realized was that older people have diet restrictions, and so they can’t season things like you did at home. The food wasn’t as tasteful as you would make it, but they can’t do that in an institution and I understand that, so that’s the way it’s likely to be in some of those places. There are probably a lot of them unless you’re paying a bundle of bucks. Their grounds were lovely, and it was nice walking around. We had a dog (we still have a dog) that we walk. People were always outside, and the housekeeping seemed to be OK to me. I think it was clean; they took care of it. They took you places, to concerts or different things around town. They had outdoor picnics. We had a dance one night we were there, but I think they could have more activities. It was not as well organized, maybe, and not as informed about things that could’ve been going on.

I only live two blocks from the Courtyards at Berne Village, so I know what it looks like on the outside. I did go in and the lady was very cordial. I liked the layout and everything in it. Everything was pretty convenient for the independent living residents because everything was on one floor. She showed me one room that was already furnished and she said you could get them either way, but the price was the same. I thought it was really delicately furnished. It looked really nice, but it was fine with me. Tt was kind of like what I have in my own house and I was really impressed with the way the furniture looked and the layout. It would be something that I could use when I am ready to downsize.