Vacationland Inn

The room was cheap, but I still feel like I overpaid. It was dirty, and the halls had debris scattered around. A soiled towel showed up in the hallway and stayed there for the last two days of my visit. The bathtub and shower looked like they had mold throughout, and cigarette smoke was all I could smell. The room was hot, with no other way to cool it down, so I cracked the window. At 3 a.m., an employee woke me by yelling and banging on my door, warning that the pipes might burst. It was 29° outside, so I didn’t think that was likely. It’s listed as a 2 star hotel, but I’d say that rating is about 2.5 stars too high. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t get bed bugs.

The big problem was the noise during the storm. We’d stayed in town to avoid driving home in bad weather, but at 2:43 a.m. a slow tractor started plowing behind the buildings in the large, unused lot. There was under 1 inch of snow on the ground, and the lot had only dumpsters and one SUV, with no guest cars. The plowing, shoveling, a man changing into snow clothes, and eventually a second truck went on for over an hour. It was thunderously loud through the thin walls, and there was more plowing and loud back-and-forth talking at 4 a.m. The front desk said the hotel’s contract calls for plowing at 3 a.m. in any snowstorm. In my opinion, that’s a poor time to do it when guests are paying to sleep. A quick 10 minute swipe would be one thing, but there was no need to plow such a tiny accumulation. By checkout at 11 a.m., the car photo showed how little snow there was. Anyone could have driven out safely without plowing. This would definitely affect whether I stayed here again during a storm. I don’t recommend it. The hotel is very outdated but mostly clean. A candy wrapper was left on the floor by a previous guest, though it was otherwise sanitary, just old. There’s a small Vizio flatscreen with basic channels, two complimentary waters in the fridge, laundry on site, and complimentary breakfast. The tub had no drain, so it was really a shower. The walls are paper thin, and you can hear people talking in their rooms from night to morning. Guests also had barking dogs during our stay. Headphones or earbuds might help, and with those it’s overall livable. Checkout is at 11 a.m. If you’re not a light sleeper, it may be adequate for the low price of 70-80 dollars. If you want good sleep, I’d go somewhere pricier. Not a great experience.

Most of the stay was fairly normal, probably because my partner and I avoided the lobby. One night we went down to eat and saw Jamie arguing loudly with someone I assume is her live-in partner, about some of his belongings in the room. She was yelling while he kept touching what looked like a side arm loosely tucked into his belt. By the time I finished eating, he was throwing several trash bags into the hallway. Earlier, after my long flight, I asked about the complete lack of hot water because I needed a shower. The guest ahead of me had raised the same issue. I waited patiently and told Jamie, the manager, I had the same concern but hadn’t caught the details. She sighed rudely, visibly hitched her chest and rolled her eyes, said, "I don't have hot water either, ok," then walked away and said something I couldn’t understand to the desk attendant. I felt embarrassed and had no real choice but to return to my room. My husband was furious, but I pleaded with him to let it go because of all the gossip and drama in the lobby. Check-in was another problem. The website said it started at 3:00, but after I’d been given a key and found a housekeeping or maintenance person in my room, I was dismissed and told check-in "starts" at 3:00. We’d stopped to eat beforehand. I waited in my car for about 15 minutes, and the room was ready when I went back inside. The staff member was then talking with a manager in the lobby, and they openly laughed about what I’d seen as a small inconvenience. That made it worse. A pleasant desk staff member had also given me names of local restaurants and attractions. UPDATE: The owner's reply just proves my point. "Eva," whoever that is, asked me to contact them directly with my stay dates, though I never saw them during my stay. It’s strange if they’re the GM, especially when someone else claimed to be the GM. Are they asking for proof? Other reviews, photos, and videos make this seem pretty standard. I had to give my name at the desk every time, and the front desk staff understood perfectly that my partner and I have different last names. Maybe look for yourself. Bad management made a bad situation worse.

I probably would have rated this place higher if I hadn’t been made to move my car. The parking spots in front of rooms are apparently reserved, but there are no markings to show which door they belong to. I’m handicapped, and there is no handicapped parking here. I was told to move farther away because a long-term guest complained that I was in the spot in front of their room. Whether someone stays one night or long term, I think guests should be treated equally. If they painted room numbers on the spaces, provided the required number of handicapped spots, or at least explained the parking at check-in, this might not happen. After I spoke with management in the morning, they didn’t seem to care about handicapped rights. I wouldn’t recommend staying here if you’re handicapped. The owner replied that they were looking into the handicap spaces and that rooms with outside doors have their own spots directly in front, so guests can’t park there. They said other spots were close to the building and thanked me for staying. But those spaces aren’t labeled or mentioned at check-in. Under Maine and federal law, handicapped spots are supposed to be closest to the building entrance, where I was parked. The pictures show there was no marked parking, and, most of all, no handicap parking.