Last week my husband and I spent a few days with visiting out-of-town friends in Bar Harbor, Maine, the largest town near Acadia National Park. With all the trees dressed in their autumn finery, the glowing colors and natural beauty of the area did not disappoint, despite a soggy end to our trip. What did disappoint was our two-night stay at the fancy-shmancy Bar Harbor Inn.
Beautifully located right on the harbor, the Inn commands fabulous views of Frenchman's Bay, a large body of water off the Atlantic Ocean. Our room was priced higher than some others on the property because it faced that view, and I took full advantage of it on our first morning by taking about a thousand pictures of the sunrise over the water. But that was the only good thing abut it.
The hotel itself, while acceptably pretty in its common areas, leaves a lot to be desired in the pricy guest rooms. Torn upholstery, chipped furniture, hideous art, rubber foam pillows, no extra blankets and an outdated climate control system left us pretty miserable at night. (Great shower pressure, however.) But the worst thing about our stay was the blatant feeling of racism that permeates the place.
All the guests were white, at least while we were there. And all the servers were black. I mean ALL the servers, and the desk clerks and the cleaning staff. Apparently help is hard to come by these days due to COVID and the college students going back to school, so the hotel took action and recruited workers from Jamaica. Okay, I guess you can't blame them for that. But didn't they consider how that would come across?
At dinner the large, formal dining room, with its gold chandeliers, white linen tablecloths, white walls, and white guests were punctuated by the black servers, each one dressed in all black and of course wearing black face masks! It was like being on a southern plantation back in the day. And while they must have been pleased to be employed, none of the staff seemed any too happy about being there. Friendly chit-chat was nowhere in evidence. The same was true at the Continental breakfast, where the black staff members stuck to themselves and avoided any interaction with the guests unless they were asked for help.
Bottom line: The owners of the Bar Harbor Inn need to rethink their staffing protocol and give the place a thorough update. (The food wasn't that good either.)
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