Shoreway Acres Inn

This is my third Winter stay at ShoreWay Acres Inn when the ferries to Martha's Vineyard have been cancelled. Arriving in driving snow about 9PM, or in severe winds, I found a warm welcome, an absolutely immaculate room, at a reasonable price. I cannot praise it enough. Mark Wright

We stayed here for three nights as part of a Great Rail Journeys tour around New England in the Fall This hotel has a nice location, which if you use a short cut is just 200 yards from Falmouth Main Street, with its plentiful shops and restaurants. The buildings, laid out motel-style are colonial style with a mixture of old and new in a landscaped setting. One of the newer buildings has an indoor pool. If you want a quiet location, this is a good hotel. A good breakfast is included as part of the room rate. The staff, though not plentiful, are very welcoming. It has a pleasant non-corporate feel to it and it is clearly not part of a chain. However, the hotel is in need of a makeover. The decor could do with some attention and the shelves in our room fridge, a nice addition which we found useful, were beginning to show signs of rust meaning they had not been cleaned for some time. This part of New England tends to be a bit pricey for the average Brit, and as it’s the first hotel on this particular tour you need to remember about tax being added to the posted price in shops and restaurants, and of course your average 20% tip addition in the latter. Although they don’t produce them, the local maps in the hotel are not to scale and away from the Main Street the distances are elongated. What looked like a short walk down to the harbour was rather longer than that. There isn’t much to see in Falmouth itself apart from a small museum and a minor American stately home used as an art gallery. Using the hourly public bus, free for seniors on Wednesdays will get you to either Hyannis in 75 mins or Woods Hole in 18 mins. We did the latter and it was well worth it.