Florida-based travel advisor Lindsey Ellis arrived at Maine's Cliff House expecting a relaxing family week and left with a masterclass in what it truly means to travel with young children.
At a Glance
Maine's Cliff House delivers authentic coastal experiences for families, from working lobster boats to ocean-view rooms perched on dramatic cliffs. The resort's modest kids' club is offset by abundant local activities—sailing, kayaking, hiking, whale watching—and the surrounding Maine coast provides hands-on learning opportunities that structured programs cannot replicate.
Most hotel arrivals begin the same way: a lobby, a check-in desk, a key card. When Lindsey Ellis walked through the doors of the Cliff House in Maine this past May, something stopped her in her tracks. "The reception area was to the right," she recalls, "but straight ahead was the ocean and all the cliffs looking out." She knew in that moment she might spot whales. She also knew, instinctively, that this place was going to deliver something she hadn't fully anticipated.
Ellis, a travel advisor who specializes in family travel, had chosen the Cliff House deliberately. School had just ended for her almost-six-year-old twin daughters, and camps hadn't yet begun. The trip was designed as a single intentional week — unhurried, uncomplicated, and shared. What it became was something richer: a first-hand education in the kind of destination that earns its reputation not through brochure copy, but through lived experience.
A View That Sets the Tone
From the moment of arrival, the property announced itself. Perched on dramatic coastal cliffs above the Atlantic, the Cliff House earns its name with unapologetic confidence. Ellis and her daughters checked into the Ledges, a two-bedroom oceanfront suite, and found that the view from the lobby was not a luxury reserved for premium rooms. "It is called the Cliff House for a reason," Ellis says. "It sits on huge cliffs overlooking the ocean, and all of the rooms that I saw had that same view." Every balcony. Every morning. The Atlantic, unobstructed.
For a family arriving from Florida, the sensory contrast was immediate and welcome. The salt air carried a cool edge even in summer, the kind of freshness that New England regulars seek out deliberately. Ellis later spoke at length with a couple who make the drive from New York City to the Cliff House every two months, simply to breathe it in and reset. She understood why.
When the Kids' Club Isn't the Point
Ellis had anticipated, as many family travel advisors might, that a resort of this scale would offer a structured children's program. What she found was something more modest: a theater, some games, a handful of small activities. For a moment, she wondered whether this might become a gap in the experience. It never did. "What really surprised me is that we didn't miss it for one minute, because there were so many other activities to do with the children," she says. "The children's activities at the hotel were just really icing on the cake."
The surrounding Maine coast filled that space with something no organized kids' club could replicate. Sailboat sailing, river kayaking, fishing, hiking, whale watching, and biking were all within reach. Ellis has personally checked on nearly all of them. "If I were as an advisor talking to someone, I would go through the list that they have prepared for you and talk through it with my clients," she explains, "because I've done most of the things, or at least looked and checked on most of the things on the list." That kind of granular familiarity is exactly what separates an advisor who has been there from one who has simply read about it.
The Lobster Boat That Became a Dinner Table
Of everything the week offered, one experience rose above the rest — not because it was the most dramatic, but because it was the most complete. Ellis and her daughters drove to a nearby harbor, boarded a working lobster boat, and headed out to sea with the captain. They helped pull up the traps. They learned, side by side with a Maine fisherman, which lobsters were large enough to keep and which had to go back into the ocean. They gathered six. The captain packed them on ice, and the family returned to the Cliff House, container in hand, and delivered them directly to the concierge.
That evening, the lobsters became dinner. "We had lobster rolls, we had lobster everything," Ellis recalls. "It was fabulous." The story moves in a single clean arc, from harbor to table, and it captures everything that makes coastal Maine distinct: the authenticity of a working fishing tradition, the involvement of local knowledge, and the rare pleasure of eating something you helped bring home. For two girls not yet six years old, it is the kind of memory that sticks.
The Navigation Puzzle (and How to Solve It)
Ellis is generous with her enthusiasm for the Cliff House, and equally generous with her candor. The property has grown organically along the cliffs over time, and its layout reflects that history. It is not a boutique hotel in the conventional sense, and finding your room for the first time requires patience. Ellis got lost more than once. Her daughters, naturally, figured it out after a single try. "It is very difficult to find your room at first," she says with good humor, "and I kept getting lost. Of course, the six-year-olds figured out how to get there after the first try."
Her practical advice: study the map before you need it, and talk to the concierge and bellman more than you normally would. Ask what happens when it rains. Ask about the fastest route from your room to the snack bar, where the lobster rolls are, by the way, worth every detour. The reward for the effort is real. "All the rooms have balconies and look out over the cliffs and the ocean," Ellis notes, "and that is a huge reward." Once guests find their way, the resort reveals itself as something Ellis describes as "boutique within a huge resort," a configuration that takes time to understand but pays off completely.
The Details That Actually Matter for Families
Family travel is Ellis's specialty, and the Cliff House reinforced her core professional belief: traveling with children demands attention to the details most itineraries overlook. Where is the laundry? What can a child actually eat for dinner? Ellis found the answer to the second question at breakfast, at least. "The breakfasts at the Cliff House were wonderful," she says. "I think any child can find pancakes, waffles, and eggs that they would enjoy eating." For other meals, she recommends looking at menus in advance and asking specific questions, advice she now applies as a standard part of her client conversations.
The property's indoor Olympic-size swimming pool also proved essential for her Florida-raised daughters, who had little interest in the cold Atlantic. Children under 13 are welcome in the indoor pool year-round, while the outdoor adult pool carries an age restriction. Knowing this in advance, Ellis says, makes all the difference for families planning their time.
Day trips added texture to the week. Ellis and her daughters explored Algonquin and other small Maine towns nearby, moving through local life at a quiet pace and sampling the kind of food and atmosphere that only a coastal New England village can offer.
What Comes Next
Ellis returned from the Cliff House with more than photographs and a daughters-approved itinerary. She returned with the specific, irreplaceable knowledge that comes only from being there. She knows which lobsters go back in the ocean. She knows which pool the girls will use. She knows to ask the bellman about the route before the luggage arrives.
As for what's ahead, Ellis is already thinking beyond Maine. She's not quite ready to take her girls to Europe yet, but she's watching the landscape closely, noting the companies that cater to children even within itineraries designed primarily for adults. When the time is right, she'll have done the research, and almost certainly, the trip itself, before recommending it to anyone.
