What are ages and hiking abilities of your party? If people are up to it, the hikes in Acadia are well marked, have great write-ups online and overall, really a treat. For your short duration, I think it makes better sense to stay somewhere on Mt. Desert Island Wednesday night so you can spend most of Wednesday (Acadia is about 1:10 from BGR airport) and all of Thursday there before driving back to PWM. Also, keep checking for availability (DL: to DTW or LGA; US to PHL or DCA; and UA to ORD) from BGR so you can buy yourself more time in the park. Consider flying back on Friday morning instead.
That's for your help! It's just two of us, one of whom is not really into hiking (walking with minor inclines in nature is great though). The reason we still plan on staying in Bangor itself is because it's a free night cert, and I really don't want to pay and and use Arrival+ to offset it if I have a free night.
In terms of flights, my thoughts are like this: I just checked and a flight from BGR-PHL (PHL is our origin) opened up at 5:25pm instead of PWM at 7:40pm. If I switch to the BGR flight I'll have to pay to cancel the other tickets ($11.20) which isn't bad, but I won't be saving that much time since I'll have to leave 2 hours earlier anyway. With that in mind,
do you still think it's worth it to switch?We can't fly back on Friday as there are no flights early in the day (5:25p flight is available again, but it won't help us).
Even if I change to BGR-PHL, we'd need to leave Acadia at 3:15pm at the latest to make it to BGR by 4:25, return the car, and fly back, or to arrive at PWM by 6:15pm.
Now putting it all together. Based on the fact that we'll be staying in Bangor (I also hope for a minyan on Thursday), would it make sense to go back to Acadia knowing I'd have to leave by 3:15p, or can I do enough (I know I can't do all) of the highlights the day we arrive (in about 6.5 hours)? We don't need to do big hikes, just easy walk/hikes and driving around the park loop. If we don't go back to Acadia, I don't have any big ideas of what to do instead (besides perhaps the LL Bean Factory store in Portland), but I'm sure there's something.
Thoughts?
I'm assuming you couldn't find availability in Bar Harbor? Because staying near Bangor and traveling back and forth is a major schlep.
Bangor to Acadia looks like an hour drive without traffic (which I assume they don't have much of on that route. What is the minimum amount of time needed to spend in Acadia NP that would make the drive from Bangor worth it? 2 hours? 4 hours?
Any help is appreciated.