Great view and pool at the Sea Breeze Motel in Bar Harbor, Maine Sea Breeze Motel Bar Harbor, ME
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If you want to stay outside of the hustle and bustle of downtown Bar Harbor but still want easy access to the rest of Mount Desert Island, the Sea Breeze Motel is a decent choice. Sitting on a hill overlooking the ocean, the hotel has ok rooms, a pool and a hot tub, all in a location that makes it easy to explore the island.
There’s really nothing fancy about this hotel, but when I compared it to other island hotels, I found it to be reasonably priced, and I liked the fact that there was a view and it had a pool. Turns out that those were its best points – the view is great and I had a good time enjoying the uncrowded heated pool and hot tub.
Where is it?
The Sea Breeze Motel is located right off of Route 3 a few miles after you cross the bridge onto Mount Desert Island. It’s about a mile north of the main entrance to Acadia National Park and about four miles from downtown Bar Harbor.
There area where the Sea Breeze is located is also home to a few other hotels and cottages, along with a few restaurants so you don’t necessarily need to travel to Bar Harbor or one of the island’s other towns to get a meal.
The Sea Breeze is set back from Route 3 and there’s plenty of woods in between the hotel and the road, which helps to isolate it from the busy road (you can still hear some traffic) and give the motel a bit more of a peaceful feel than other area hotels.
What to expect
Two buildings make up the Sea Breeze Motel. The main building houses the office and probably about half of the hotel rooms. There are rooms that face the ocean and rooms that face the woods behind the building. This is a one-story building except for the office, which is two stories. The ocean facing rooms share a common porch that has plenty of rocking chairs where you can enjoy the view. The second building is three-stories tall and has rooms that face the ocean and rooms that face the pine forest behind the building.
From the outside the buildings look to be in fairly good shape, though there could stand to be some landscaping and some maintenance done to the buildings themselves. Things look a bit tired.
The pool, hot tub and outdoor patios are all located in front of the two buildings. The pool is heated and has plenty of lounge chairs around it. The hot tub is a smaller tub with room for about four people. There is also a patio area where you can sit out and enjoy the sun and the view of the ocean.
In our three days at this hotel, we never found the pool to be crowded. At most we were usually there with one other couple, even in the middle of the day or in the evening when you’d think people would want to be swimming.
Checking In & Out
I had made reservations online and had them confirmed before we arrived. For reservations of more than two nights, you have to pay half of the cost when making the reservation (the whole thing if it’s just for one or two nights).
When we got there our check-in process was pretty painless. I paid the remaining balance on the room, we got our key (an actual key!) and got information on the pool and the other parts of the motel.
Check out was even easier. All we had to do was leave the key on the table in the room and lock the door on our way out.
Someone is in the office pretty much all day from the early morning until about 11 at night should you need something. Also since the staff stay at the hotel, if you are arriving late, you can still check in.
The Rooms
Once again, some freshening up would be nice. The paint on the outside is a bit old and the door was a bit hard to open up. Inside I can’t say I was overwhelmed either positively or negatively. The room was pretty basic. We had a king sized bed along with two chairs and a small table, a TV and a mini-fridge. In the back of the room was a door to the bathroom, which was a single room.
The main room was in fairly good shape and while not spacious, had enough room for the two of us to spread out, unpack our bags a bit and get settled. The bathroom was a bit small and we had to use it one at a time. Not only that, but it seemed that the bathroom could have used a good scrubbing and some work. There was a large water stain on the ceiling of the bathroom and there was mold on the wallpaper above the shower/tub area along with the rest of the bathroom.
It wasn’t to the point where I was grossed out or anything, but I wondered throughout my stay why they couldn’t have just taken the effort to scrub it off.
The bed was pretty comfortable, a bit on the firm side, but we both slept on it without any problems. We did have to get an extra pillow though, since there are only three on the bed and we couldn’t find a spare in the room. We just stopped in at the office and they got one for us.
The room was generally quiet, except for the fact that our room was behind the two-story portion of the office so when people in the office used the stairs or moved about on the second floor, you could hear some creaking and footsteps.
Cost
Nothing on Mount Desert Island in the summertime is cheap, however this is one of the less expensive hotels that you’ll find depending where on the island you go. For one that’s convenient to Bar Harbor and Acadia like this one is, I felt we paid a decent price, even with the lackluster room.
Overall Experience
Neither my partner nor I were really impressed by this hotel, however we both really liked the view and the pool area, so I guess it was sort of a trade-off - a mediocre hotel room versus an outstanding view and pool area.
The mold in the bathroom really bothered me. The rest of the room was kept clean, but I just couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t scrub off the mold. It’s not that difficult and it would have been something to give an almost instant face-lift to the bathroom.
I did like that even though we were there for a long weekend, the hotel itself never really seemed to be crowded, especially when it came to using the pool. I hate trying to swim when there’s a huge mass of people around you, but here, it was like we had our own pool most of the time.
I also liked how the hotel felt isolated. Even though it was only a few hundred feet off of Route 3, it felt like you were up on this hill, overlooking the ocean in your own little world. It was nice to lay out by the pool in the sun, take in the view and just relax to the relative solitude of the area.
Final Thoughts
If you don’t mind the slightly rundown nature of the property in exchange for its great view, the Sea Breeze Motel is a decent place to spend a few nights on Mount Desert Island.
While it wouldn’t be my first choice when going back to Bar Harbor, I would consider staying there again.
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