The rooms are great. The are huge, with pine floors, walls and ceilings. The bathrooms are also very large. Everything about the rooms feels very clean and of good quality. The phones on the property did not work during our stay, and we had no cell phone reception; we were told to go to the general store "right up the street" if we needed to make a call. There are no TVs in the room, and there is nothing to do in the area after 9pm, so if you want to be at all connected with the outside world, bring your phone and ride Eggemoggin's wireless internet connection.
Now I'll get to the one-star part. First of all, the innkeeper (I'll call her X) was rude and mean from the second we set foot on the property. We were in town for a wedding in Little Deer Isle, but we stayed here, 10+ miles away, because Eggemoggin allowed pets, and I was bringing my 16 lb dog on the trip. He would be crated in the room while we were out. My sister was told that this would not be a problem, that they would put us in a corner room to reduce any disturbance to other guests.
We checked in, and X offered to walk us to our rooms. I thought, how nice, we're seeing real hospitality. However, as soon as we stepped outside, she laid into us with the ground rules regarding the dog. She said that we were not allowed to walk him on the property, and this included the property across the street. Shocked, I asked her where we were supposed to walk him. She barked at me, "I don't know, somewhere up the street!" At this point my boyfriend was walking the dog along the treeline (we had just been in the car for about 16 hours). I ran to him to inform him of the "pet policy," and as I was frantically explaining, my dog chose that moment to go into a squat. X ran to us, yelling that she had just told me the dog was not allowed to "urinate or defecate on the property," and chaos insued as my boyfriend, poop bag poised, tried to comprehend what was going on, while I argued with X that I hadn't had a chance to tell him yet. She stalked away and continued making nasty comments from a distance, informing us that if any of the other lodgers complained about the dog, he would have to be boarded for the remainder of the stay, and that they had an arrangement with local boarding facilities. We were also told to watch out for wild animals when we walked the dog (in the pitch black, on private residences, mind you, not very neighborly of Eggemoggin Lodge) as there were some small wild animals in the area that were attracted to small dogs.
WHAT!
A) We were on vacation. We did not have my poor, adorable dog's shot records with us, and since it was a weekend, it would be difficult to get in touch with the vet to have his records faxed if need be.
B) If I had known that there was a chance we would have to board him, I would have taken him to his vet, where he is known, or to another boarding facility that I had screened in advance, and we would have stayed much closer to the location of the wedding.
We were not told of these details in advance, nor were we told that we were going to have to pay an extra $35/night for the 3rd person. We were so disgusted by the tone that the obviously bitter innkeeper took with us in relaying this information that we refused to dine at the lodge that night. We went out looking for food, but since we were in the middle of nowhere, nothing else was open at 9pm. We went to bed starving.
Luckily, the weather was cool that weekend, so we were able to drive the dog around with us everywhere we went. He stayed in the car during the wedding. Every time we left our room with the dog, X was standing on the deck, smoking and staring creepily at us (to make sure the dog did not pee on her expanse of grass, we felt).
Never before have I experienced such hostility from someone in the service industry. We had nowhere else to go, and felt completely trapped and helpless. What should have been a beautiful vacation turned into a total bust. What a waste of $165/night!!! read more
