Portland Harbor Hotel

Love this hotel! A nice place to relax in this busy city. Friendly staff. Comfortable, tasteful public areas.

Good hotel. Great location. But as others have said WAY too many hidden fees! Poorly explained and seem very sketchy. Constantly run out of the amities that they charge a “resort fee” for providing. Service is meh. Should be great for what they charge.

We stayed three nights October 18th, 19th and 20th before finishing our trip off by visiting Bar Harbor. Unlike another recent review left by someone regarding the temporarily out of commission elevator, someone brought our luggage up to the room during check in without us even asking. We stayed in the Garden View room. The room was modern, clean and spacious. The Harbor Bistro restaurant is inviting and the food is delicious. However, my husband and I both ordered a cocktail which we could not drink due to the awful taste. But hey, not all bartenders are created equal anywhere you go! The server understood and brought us wine upon request. She did not charge us for the initial cocktails. I will add the Waffle Fry Poutine appetizer is fantastic and such a large portion that we could not finish it. My husband had the Monk fish tacos and I ordered the Seafood Fra Diavolo. The tacos were good, but the dish I ordered was fantastic. Although we did not go out to the garden, plenty of others did to enjoy the fire pit. Most importantly, I am specifically writing this review to mention the wonderful service of Anna upon our check in. I wish everyone in the hospitality industry was like her. We had a problem with booking our stay through a third party vendor. She was very understanding and sympathetic to our concerns and frustration. She took this upon herself to get this solved. I'm only assuming due to the mix up with booking, we returned that evening after walking around the harbor to a charcuterie board, champagne and two glasses. Wow, she went above and beyond to make our 20th anniversary special! I haven't written a review on Trip Advisor in quite sometime, but made a point to login and leave this review all because of Anna. She is a real asset to the Portland Harbor Hotel!

The location is nice but our experience was a nightmare. We were on a ten day New England Fall Foliage trip. The weather was cool during the days and colder at night. I say this to emphasis the need for a large suitcase and heavy clothing. When we arrived on a Thursday for a three night stay the Valet told us the ONLY elevator to the rooms was broken. When we got to the front desk, the clerk there confirmed that the only way to get our luggage to our rooms was to carry it up the stairs AND they do not have bellmen at this hotel! I enquired how long the elevator had been broken and they tole me a week but that the part to fix it was arriving the next morning and that it would be fixed first thing Friday morning. I also asked why they had not contacted upcoming guests to let us know of the problem in case any of us wanted to make other arrangements--or if they could make other arrangements for us. The clerk had no answers for any of our questions so I asked to speak to the manager. The manager refused to speak with us and told the clerk she was 'allowed' to take the resort fees off of our bill for the stay. The elevator was NEVER fixed while we were there. Saturday evening before we checked out we asked the clerk at the desk about getting our bags downstairs the next morning. She said there would absolutely be a bellman on duty at that time and they would come and get our bags. That was another LIE. This hotel seems not to employ bellmen--or at least could not get any to show up with a broken elevator and four flights of stairs. There was NO one from the hotel who ever reached out to any of us. I cannot imagine how on earth this place earned 4stars on AAA. The rooms are small--which we expected in a downtown old building. Up to date rooms, bathrooms could use an update. I would NEVER recommend this place to anyone. There are many hotels in that small area--I would go with anyplace but this. They don't deal with their problems or their guests well

Even though it's a nice hotel and convenient location for walking downtown, we were hit with amenity fees that were not communicated to us at the time of booking, so buyer beware. At check-out, the clerk took off one of the fees when we complained. However, all should have been removed, since the elevator was broken and we had to haul luggage using staircase. That would have been good customer service.