Jon B.
Yelp
The Ledges by The Bay is a nice motel, with a lot going for it. Location-wise, it couldn't be better! It is one of a handful of former Midcentury mom-and-pop motels situated on Glen Cove, Maine. So, most rooms have a splendid view the owners count on to compensate for the many cut corners and minor inconveniences of this place.
For example, at $181/night, you shouldn't have to spend ten minutes with your arm in floating biofilm and flecks of rust or feces, pulling nearly 2 cups of accumulated hair and gunk from the backed-up shower drain before you can take a shower.
The staff in this place are so sweet and dear, but the business feels more like a revenue engine for an absentee corporate landlord than a mom-and-pop family business. The complementary free breakfast we had was inedible--mushy apple, fishy (almost rotten-tasting) hard-boiled egg, stale, weak coffee--just kind of gross. Honestly, they'd do better to remove the "free breakfast" feature altogether than to phone it in with such crap.
Similarly, other cost-saving decisions on the corporate level degrade the experience of staying here. In all the new construction, the bathroom exhaust fans are so loud that you wake up when anyone in the building goes to the bathroom-- and you can't avoid using the fan unless you can pee or shower in the dark, because the rattling cacophony is linked to the lights.
One of the most frustrating features was the poor WiFi, which drops out and/or slows intermittently. C'mon Ledges. It's the 21sr century.
Also, the soap takes forever to rinse off. If they want to save on their water bill by maintaining so little water pressure, they should at least choose a brand of soap that rinses off easily, and doesn't leave you with an itchy, sticky film all day.
The Ledges by the Bay isn't a terrible motel. The view alone made our stay worthwhile--but they cut so many corners, and cheap out on so many simple details that they make their customers feel unwelcome and unappreciated as anything more than a number on a spreadsheet.
It's too bad. We'd stayed here many times when it was a small, inexpensive place run personally by the owners who lived on site. Now, the home where they once lived looks derelict, and the updated, expanded, sprawling complex below feels like just another chunk of corporate strip mall culture blighting a spectacular location.