This was a Hampton Inn and was recently rebranded as a Choice Hotel.

As the Hampton Inn, it was one of our favorite hotels. It was comfortable, conveniently located and reasonably priced. We had a favorite room there and would always request it. We made it a point to get there at least once a year and enjoyed the scenery, stores, and a couple of favorite area restaurants.

This visit had some many issues most of which were reported the first morning but went unresolved during our second night. The follow-up afterwards raises troubling ethical questions.

The issues:

Our room was cold, the heater in our room wasn’t working well.

Internet service was horrible, we could not stream anything.

Breakfast on the first day was a huge issue with a single overwhelmed person (Hampton often had two people) who couldn’t keep up with keeping food available and tables cleaned.

One of the two elevators was broken creating wait times during busy periods and, since the ice machine on our floor was broken, made simply getting ice a time-consuming effort.

All of these issues were reported to the front desk that first morning. Although breakfast was better on the second day, none of the other issues were fixed.

Someone cranked our heater up to 80 degrees, it didn’t help get the room past 70 degrees.

A few went by and I got an email invitation to provide feedback and a review about our stay for the Choice Hotels web site. I detailed the problems we experienced that weekend added a final comment that people considering this hotel should look for improved reviews as this formerly gem of a hotel completed its transition to the Choice Hotels brand.

I received a standard canned response back from the Assistant GM.

To my surprise, my review was never posted on the Choice Hotels web site that claims “We’ve made it easy to find real, candid comments on the hotels that matter to you. Guest experiences are posted on ChoiceHotels.com, so you’ll be able to see honest feedback from travelers just like you.

Capturing—and sharing—genuine feedback about our hotels is important to us. That’s why we’ve built a site where you can browse honest takes from real guests. But don’t just take our word for it. Go ahead and check out what our guests are saying!”

Reality check: A closer read shows that reviews have a ‘chance’ to appear on their site. They don’t post every review and filter to present themselves in a positive light.

Repeated requests to their customer service team about this were never directly answered.

Two words: buyer beware. Two more: keep looking.

My daughter and I book this hotel last minute, I was not disappointed. The rooms, bathrooms, the hallways and even the property was clean... the breakfast is to die for. Little mini- waffle iron... my daughter loved it. I would definitely recommend anyone to stay there.

We booked this hotel last minute after our original booking at the extended stay hotel was disgusting. This hotel was excellent. We got a 2 room suite which was extremely clean. It smelled fresh. The staff was awesome and very helpful. The breakfast consisted of omelettes and sausages, yogurts, juices, assorted muffins, scones, breads, hard boiled eggs, coffees, teas, cocoa’s. More than enough by any standards during this pandemic. The room was extremely quiet and top notch n my opinion. We will definitely stay here again when visiting Maine.