Stellar Senior Living

I thought it was just okay. There were a lot of much older people there, and it seemed like a less active community.

This would have been our second choice. My loved one absolutely fell in love with this place. The amount and types of activities really appealed to her. She is LDS, and they had a whole center based around that. The food was excellent. The friendliness of the staff was really awesome. The part I didn’t care for was the sales process. At first we had a really great experience. I talked to the marketing director at least twice before we came on our tour, and she and I had very long conversations about my loved one's preferences and things for her to see and experience on the tour, as well as what some of her fears were around moving. In hind sight, I feel like the marketing director listened and then was like - this is how I can sell you on this. Then when we got there, the pricing and availability changed drastically from what she had told me on the phone. We had gotten my loved one so excited to live there, and then there was absolutely no way we could afford it. My loved one gave me the most crestfallen look. Clearly this woman didn’t listen during our conversation, which created an awkward situation. We still loved the environment. It didn’t feel like an old person’s home in the traditional sense. They really encouraged interactions between the residents. We actually saw residents out and about interacting, and my loved one was able to talk with them and get a feel for the community, which is what she was looking for. It was just a matter of pricing.

The director seems to tell you to want you want to hear vs reality. The communication is about average between the family and the staff. I would want people to research this community before making their decision

The community had recently changed administrators. The new administrator was good at working with us in resolving a situation. There also was a new finical administrator.

While COVID was not present, she had a good experience here, but once that hit it all went downhill. My mom got COVID while she was here, they assured me that she did not get it inside the facility, but she had not been out even for doctors visits, so she had to have gotten it there. After mom went to the hospital the second time, we were getting ready to take her to rehab and I discovered she had no glasses, no hearing aids, or her dentures. So they sent her to the hospital without that stuff and they said they didn't know where they were. Overall, we did not have the best experience at Clayton Oaks.

My loved one started off in the assisted living, and then moved to memory care after about 5 years. All the ratings are combined for both the assisted and memory care unit. If your loved one is going in under assisted living, and able to function for themselves. You won't have an issue with a community. The community states they have memory care assistance, and it is for the basic memory care for assistance. If your loved one needs assistance on daily living activities, I won't rate this community very high. They are not setup to offer more memory care assistance. You can bring in your own staff, but the cost is there as well.

I liked the people. The place was a bit of a maze and smelled very heavily of air freshener. I had a headache after about an hour visiting.

Staff was super nice. Residents looked happy. Just a little dark and outdated.

It is nice, but very old, and old looking. The hallways are very narrow and dark. Only one laundry room on first floor, and garbage has to be take all the way out to the parking lot. The meal situation is ideal, very convenient.

Didn’t care for it. Old. Cold. Did not look at independent living when we were there.

The facility overall is beautiful & well kept. There are ample activities for those who want to be involved. The food is very good for this type of facility, good variety, & the 12 hr open dining and snacks allows a lot of liberty. Overall a good choice for independent living - more of a challenge when you have to move into assisted care. The medical director (RN) controls the care level assignments & it is rather unclear as to how they decide what price you should be charged - 1 day it's $400 then next day its over $1200. The caregivers (aids) seem to be kind & helpful, but the facility is constantly short staffed, so they are over worked & hurried/stressed. The nursing staff who handle things like medications can be rude/ condescending to the patients instead of respecting their dignity. Communication can be an issue. It has been hard to get an actual appointment when I need to discuss my loved one's care - just have to catch the director on the fly - which makes it hard to address concerns in full and get on the same page. If I had it to do over, I would probably had placed my loved one elsewhere, but since elders can be traumatized by moves, we are just trying to make this work (for now anyway).

I toured The Oaks while looking for a new place for my loved one and I to move. I thought that the community was nice, but for only being two years old, it already seemed well worn. I also didn't feel that they offered as many amenities as some other places we had looked.

When we toured this community for my mom it was nice and clean. The person doing the tour was helpful and answered all my questions. It was just really to far away from me. So we chose something closer.

My cousin has been here since the middle of June and at first I was very pleased, but it hasn’t been great since. We’ve been having trouble with a lot of miscommunication and have even had to hire our own caregiver that will be going in every once in a while to make sure the staff are doing the things they need to. They don’t have enough people working there and something has happened within the last month that leads me to believe there’s been a high turnover rate. The facility lost my cousin’s burial instructions and I don’t think the office is as efficient as it could be. My cousin is in the memory care unit and is not all there and it feels like the community is not giving us the whole story on what’s going on with her care. They do keep things pretty clean, though, and that’s something I like. Another positive is that it’s the closest community to my cousin’s son’s home so he’s able to visit her whenever he likes.

Too big. My mother would be overwhelmed. [Removed] offered her a room very near the receptionist and dining room, but the vastly changing sea of new faces would overwhelm her here.

I write this review after having just moved a parent to another facility. I'll be honest, my first impression of Thunderbird was very positive. We interacted with both [names removed] and they were enthusiastic and pleasant. We toured the facility and found it modern and clean. We were very excited that we had found a new home for Dad, where he could be safe. We sat and filled out paperwork and signed numerous initials and signatures. Unfortunately, we did not read every page verbatim. Our mistake. We had no idea that if someone is unhappy or wishes to leave, that they are committed to paying for 60 days after written notice. Another costly $4000+ mistake on our part. Our Dad who is usually very outgoing found cliques to be much a part of life at Thunderbird. People sat at the same table with the same people every day in the dining room and didn't very much welcome newcomers. Our Dad often skipped meals rather than sit alone. He spent most of his time in his apartment watching Blue Blood instead of trying to force his way into a group. In August, Dad went to visit his daughter in Texas for a couple of weeks and then came to Maine for a month. He was told that he would be reimbursed for meals if gone for 30 or more days. When I went to the finance person to find out about meal reimbursement, I was told that he was entitled to $100. For 2 meals a day for more than a month $100??? Really?? I was charged $11. when I ate with my Dad. Dad is presently at another facility and is much happier. He is addressed by all staff by name and the administrator interacts with residents every day in the dining room and throughout the building. Dad has joined the chorus and is more the outgoing dad that we know. My suggestion, READ ALL PAPERWORK BEFORE you place any initials or signatures anywhere. It could be a very costly mistake!

It was not a good fit for my loved one at The Groves, A Merrill Gardens Community. If you are totally independent and don't need care it might be a good fit for that person. It is super clean, and the staff is very friendly. It is very noisy and chaotic with a lot going on. You might find a resident or two sleeping in the lobby as you come in. You have to have all prescriptions go through their pharmacy and my doctor had problems getting my loved one's medication on hand for her to take. I needed my loved one's medication and food intake monitored. This was not a good fit for us.

I was not very impressed with the tour I had taken of this community. I did not really like the layout of the building and I found it difficult to navigate through it. It was very impersonal and way to big in my opinion. Everyone was just kind of every where with no organization. It was just not the right place for me in the end decision.

Place was very cheerful and bright. Not a bit depressing. [Removed] was great in showing us around. The 2 bedroom was perfect if you need and can afford it. We are needing a one bedroom which was comparable to others in price but too small for my parents. I wish it was larger. We loved the courtyards and atmosphere. Traffic in area was not too busy which is a plus. The only negative was the size of the 1 bedroom unit. We will keep looking.

I toured this community for the care of my father. They did not have the type of care that I wanted. The equipment was old and not updated. The tour did not show us a lot of what we were looking for.We did like the staff who did answer our questions. We suggest that families tour the community for the care of a loved one.