Holiday Inn Bar Harbor Regency Hotel by IHG

On the water

Heat was noisy. Restaurant had limited menu. Breakfast wasn’t included.

So I should start by saying I don't write many bad reviews, so the score I have given this hotel can be put into context! I feel like I have to share our terrible experience if it will help others. Our family of 4 planned a New England road trip over the summer and chose the holiday Inn as place to stay for the Acadia part booking a 3 night stay. We decided to splurge a bit on this part of the trip and pay extra for a quality room and booked a suite called the Vanderbilt suite which sounded like a luxury option and came advertised with a King bed and sofa bed. When we arrived in Boston we unfortunately had some issues with delayed bags which meant a delayed drive to the Holiday Inn and we arrived around 10pm - which is when everything started to go wrong. The hotel was clearly very busy and the staff not able to cope - there were already multiple people complaining at the front desk and hoards of people roaming around. We eventually managed to check in and went up to our room looking forward to just settling in. This is when it really started to go wrong. The suite was like something from the 1950's and although it was big, it was just filled with arm chairs and old furniture which did not seem to serve any real purpose. The key thing we noticed was that it was missing the sofa bed. We called down to reception who after a while said they would send up the Manager to show us where the sofa bed was. So the Manager comes up, looks around the room for a while and then confirms the room does not have a sofa bed, sorry about that. Obviously this was a major problem as there was nowhere for the kids to sleep......initially it sounded like it was going down a road of 'there is nothing we can do' but I showed her the e-mails and booking reference confirming the room layout with the sofa bed so she went to try and find a solution. At this point the jet lagged and tired family are near to combustion. 20 minutes later she comes back and says there are no room options available that can fit all of us - they could offer 2 more basic rooms that were not close to one another, or they could book us into another hotel closer to the town centre called the West Street Hotel. Based on our few hours of experience at the Holiday Inn we jumped at the opportunity to leave and bade farewell to this disastrous experience. It was such a good decision as the West Street hotel was right in the heart of Bar Harbor whereas the Holiday Inn's location meant you would have need to get a shuttle bus and based on our chaotic experience I can only imagine how that would have worked. Unfortunately the bad customer service did not end there - we were promised by the Manager that if we moved hotel that it would be exactly as if we had stayed at the Holiday Inn in terms of payment cost and IHG rewards. The hotel had taken a hold for the room charge of over $2K when we checked in and between the bank and the hotel it took over a month for this to be released back. I also had to chase numerous times on the IHG points and nights and as of today, over 3 months later this has still not been resolved despite raising a complaint, and messaging the Manager directly many times - with the last time not even receiving any acknowledgement or response back which was the trigger for me to write this review. So in summary, I think we had a lucky escape in not actually staying at this hotel based on the calamitous customer experience received. Admittedly we did not see the actual resort area, but clearly this is a place where customer service is terrible, the hotel is overrun and for somewhere where you are paying top dollar pricing, it really has to be better. The one positive is that this hotel will go down in our family history as the source of many jokes with a favourite already being 'at least we are not at the Vanderbilt suite'.

Location, property

I upgraded to a balcony, however, when you have to climb out a window to get to, not an upgrade. Also a view of the parking lot and roof. Not an upgrade. Very disappointing.

location

moved us to a location 2 miles away. new location was better as far as walking distance but didn't have the view I paid for.

The location was good. The facilities and amenities were nice.

The front desk when we arrive was really bad at her job. No smile, no welcoming demeanor and not helpful. We had a problem with our room because we booked a room with a pool view but was given a room with a parking lot view in the basement floor. We tried to resolve it with the front desk but she was not at all helpful. Did not even apologize or any of that sort. Did not try to help us resolve it, instead she just said “not our fault” and figure it out with booking.com. Which set the tone of the conversation really bad. We waited for updates on our stay but nothing so we just did not mind it because we did not want to ruin our vacation. Acadia is beautiful and will come back here again but definitely not on this hotel.

this hotel is very nice, in a coveted location (close to the city center) and offers splendid views over the islands and the ocean. Too bad that the desk and restaurant staff lack professional training and refuses to communicate. For instance we had to wait in line 15 minutes every morning before being ‘forced’ to sit on a breakfast table far from our choice (in a half empty room!) As a consequence we preferred to retreat and grab a bad coffee in a paper cup although our full breakfasts were pre-paid.

מלון על חוף הים • המיקום מעולה החדרים טובים

1• שירות החדרים לא בוצע עד השעה 15:00• הגיעו ב16:00 ואז היינו בחדר והחלפנו מגבות• 2. ארוחת בוקר ע״פ תפריט קבוע. לא בופה. אין גמישות מצד הצוות( המנה שביקשתי כללה פרוסה לחם אחת ועליה הניחו ירקות .בקשתי פרוסה מעל ולא הסכימו).הזמנתי 2 פרוסות לחם ב4 דולר וביצה קשה ב3 דולר.3. בצק אאוט התברר שהם לוקחים 25 דולר ליום resort fee.על שימוש במתקני המלון . כל המחירים לפני מס. שום דבר מזה לא הובא לידיעתנו לפני ביצוע ההזמנה.

Everything about this resort.

Nothing