Suggestions for our Maine visit?

[eheeter]

My husband, our 22 mo. son and I will be visiting Maine between October 14th-23rd for a vacation. (We're from Indiana.)

I'm wondering if anyone could recommend fun, sweet, family-friendly places for us to stay.

We'd like to be in Portland for a couple of days and then either another coastal town or an inland town within the general Waterville/Camden/Portland area. (Our original accommodation -a family friend's cabin- fell through.)

What would you suggest? Also, any top favorite local activities/restaurants for families?

Thanks in advance for your ideas!!!

[lotus.blossom]

Whats your price range? I can tell you about the Camden/Rockland area since I live about 20 minutes out from there. Its pretty pricey to stay in town but you can find cabins around for an ok price.

For fun stuff? Mt Battie (Camden) is fun to drive or climb up.
The Camden Snow Bowl offers a pancake breakfast and chair lift rides at various times this month.
The Farnsworth Art Museumin Rockland is nice.
You can take a fall foliage train ridefrom brunswick to rockland at certain times of the year.

If you're into shopping you'll want to hit the outlets in Freeport.

[christinar]

I have a bunch of links/ideas for the Central Maine-ish area on the Local Resources section of my website http://www.birthingyourbaby.com/localresources.html - look under "Fun Things to Do" and "Enjoying the Outdoors".

A few highlights from the list: We like hiking Mt. Bradbury in Freeport, and Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park is nice too, right on the water. In the Augusta area, the Pine Tree State Arboretum is really nice this time of year and has trails. The Animal Park in Gray is fun, depending on what you have access to where you live. Both Augusta and Portland have children's museums, if it's rainy one day & you're looking for something indoors - Portland tends to get way more crowded than Augusta (I wouldn't go on a weekend to Portland, personally). I think some of the farms on the list do corn mazes/fall/ hay rides etc. - Chipman in Poland and Ricker Hill in Turner.

We don't go out much, so I'm no help on restaurants, and we haven't stayed overnight anywhere except http://www.villagecoveinn.com/, which was nice & not too expensive, considering the area (though we went out of season). There's tons to do in that area - one of our favorites is the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge in Wells.

There's the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor http://www.maine.gov/dmr/rm/aquarium/index.html.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta is very inexpensive, has nice seasonal wildlife exhibits, exhibits on local industry (logging, farming, fishing, ice-cutting etc.), a running mill wheel, a old car/boat exhibit all the way downstairs, and a nice gift shop.

If I think of anything else, I'll post again. Have a good time - it's a gorgeous time of year to visit!

[AnalogWife]

The Children's Museum in Portland is free on "First Friday" of every month, from 5-8pm. We've been, it wasn't too crowded.

If it's semi-nice you could take a ferry from Portland and take a peek at Peaks Island.

Our DS is only 16 months and we've only taken him to a few places to eat...and this may be cheesy but the best place we've taken him was the Macaroni Grill. It's a shame to recommend them since we have so many great restaurants in Portland, but they had the crayons and excellent child-friendly waitstaff that it's the only place we've been where we don't feel like we're annoying anyone. And there's Chuck E Cheese, of course...but we haven't been there.

You may catch peak leaf-peeping time, a walk around the Audobon Society should get you great views, and I free (I think!?)

Pumpkinland at Chipman Farm....I don't recommend. It wasn't "crunchy" it was more like "pass the hypodermic", I thought.

The Eastern Prom in Portland has a glorious view on a nice day for a picnic.

[shayinme]

In the Portland area,definitely walk around the old Port, there is a great toy store on Exchange St (Treehouse). I second the suggestion to take the ferry to Peaks, right next to the Ferry Terminal is a great IMO family friendly place Flatbread PIzza. There is also a great place in the Old Port to eat its a natural fast food food place without burgers and fried called O'Naturals, They have a play area for kids.

A drive to Cape Elizabeth would also be nice, park area plus a chance to see a lighthouse.

Shay

[eheeter]

Thank you, everyone! We are taking your ideas with us!

We've found a couple of places to stay via vrbo.com. So we'll be in the Portland area and then in Stonington for a few days.

Thanks again-- we're really looking forward to our visit!