Continuing Care Retirement Communities Communities in Mercer Island, WA

"My husband has been in Skyline for almost 2 months now. It's a very nice place. I like the location; he has a nice outlook. They had a unit available where there was a bedroom and a living room. The units are quite large, and refrigeration is very nice -- big bathroom, big shower, and the makings of a kitchen. We like the bedroom idea very much; we had to furnish it, but it's alright. It's very expensive. They say they do laundry and they wash, but they don't iron, which I find really quite amazing. They haven't done much because I have the 24/hour care there, but their caregivers seem to be very sweet. There should have been soap and towels in the room when he moved in but we had to go and ask the nurses for it. I don't think that should be; they should have a list that they give the girls and stack up those rooms when somebody is coming in so that they're available. We don't always want to run around and find a nurse and find out what they supply. I think that should be very clear to everyone and it wasn't at Skyline. "

"I went to Exeter House which I sort of really like, but it used to be a resident hotel in Seattle -- and probably in the 40s I am not exactly sure many years ago -- and they have nice little apartments there and I was considering that and then I thought, I can have people come in and I can stay in my own house. The apartments were really very nice and I think financially they were probably just above the other facility. You got one meal, but you had your own kitchen whereas at the other facility you have a microwave. I was very impressed. It is right across from a city hall where they have lots of speakers, and it’s right across so you could have some intellectual stimulation other than bingo so that’s another plus to it. I think it was very good; it just wasn’t for me. They did have nice apartments, and it didn’t seem quite as cramped. "

"Horizon House was beautiful and very well-run. The staff was lovely, and the food was good. The dining area was very clean and appealing. They have water aerobics, classes of all kinds, aerobics on land, and gardening. "

"We were able to had a tour at Merrill Gardens, and we saw that the place was kind of run down a little bit although the building itself and the rooms were very nice. They had an inner courtyard which was nice. They had good food as we were able to eat lunch there. "

"I liked Merrill Gardens very much. It’s a very well-kept, upscale facility. The people were very nice and gave me a tour even though I hadn’t scheduled one yet. I saw a one-bedroom apartment, which was large and very nice. The dining area looked like a hotel, and they had a nice salad bar. The only downside I discovered was they’re really more independent senior living with light assisted living, and I think my dad needs a bit more memory care support, so it wasn’t the best fit for him. The staff was very professional, friendly, and knowledgeable. They kept following up with me, too; they were very helpful about that. "

"I really liked Bayview Retirement Community. It had a beautiful lobby and a friendly atmosphere. It’s very clean; the staff is great. "

"I am at Merill Gardens. I like the area that it is in. The staff seems to be pretty good and they are really involved in people's lives. I don't have any complaints with what they are doing. I have three meals a day and some of I like and some of it I don't. They have a lot of activities and I enjoy helping the activity person with them. They have buses and take people around like groceries and trips around the area. "

"The Kenney is where I wanted my mother to go to. I like the facility. It has a really good reputation. It's been around this town for years and it has been maintained for a long time. My mother thought the price was too much. That's why she didn't go there. What's neat is you can start out there independent and they take you til you're fully dependent. It goes all across that span and it's got a very high reputation for its care. The rooms are very nice. It depends on how much you want to pay but the small rooms are small. The food is very good. The dining room looked really convenient like any one could come and go in there and it's very spacious. After we found out how much it was, that was kind of the end of it for her. "

Pacific Elderly Care is an adult family home care licensed by the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services to provide care for seniors. We are dedicated to offering a comfortable, respectful, friendly, and loving family-like environment with expert quality care for five residents only. We believe in providing activities and opportunities for our residents to maintain a happy and healthy lifestyleTo learn more about this providers license and review other available state reports, please visit: Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Long-Term Care Residential Options

"We toured Timber Ridge at Talus. They were very helpful. They had a lovely library. The unit was much smaller than the other two places that I've looked at. The food was very good, and it was restaurant-type dining. You could eat in the main dining room or different places. So, that was nice. They had a beauty shop and they had a pool, and that was very important to me because I like water aerobics. They were very supportive of the residents' interest. They had a general meeting room. This facility was located in a very nice residential area. The front desk staff was efficient, knew their job well, and was very hospitable. The building was very nice, but there was no adequate parking."

"The staff was very nice and very attentive. The activities program seemed very vibrant; there were a lot of things going on. In independent living, it seemed that people were really enjoying themselves, and the food was great. The room was really nice. The Hearthstone was an older facility, and the large building, which has nine floors, had a feeling of a dormitory. The independent living apartments were small. In general, everything was fine and clean. It was not as nicely decorated as some other places; the décor was a mixed artwork that the residents probably brought with them. It wasn't professionally decorated as far as the hallways which consisted of a combination of different people's art that were probably from their homes. It looked like a really good value and more reasonable than the one we went to downtown. The food was really good, and there were lots of stimulating activities available for the independent living residents. "

"Here at Emerald Heights there's 550 people that live here, and we have four degreed physical fitness people and several acres for a walk through the woods every day. I don't think there can be many facilities that are better when it comes to physical fitness. I was taking 13 classes a week before the corona hit. We have 30 different classes a week that people can choose from and we have four degreed physical fitness people. Besides that we have the trip and event girls who do a great job in putting together trips and events. With the corona it's different. However, they have extra movies on and different activities to keep us busy. Then we have the in-house TV and we have 38 acres here to walk on. This is the CCRC. My husband is in the skilled nursing wing. There's memory care and assisted living too. The staff and residents in that wing are over 300 people. I knew this because they did a corona test and that's how many tests they did in that wing. We have a high morale here. The residents here feel like they are respected by the staff and the staff feels respected by the resident. Our apartment is only 904 sq. ft. but we have two bedrooms, two baths, and a living room and a kitchen. Our fees are not exorbitant like they are in these family homes, the fees are exorbitant; here they are not. I would be very curious if you could find anything that goes near what Emerald Heights has to offer. The food is absolutely exquisite. We have lots and lots of choices that we can make. During this coronavirus, we also have what they call a grab-and-go. It's a refrigerator with a window and then we can choose the food in there if we want. They are already packaged and you can put them in the oven for two to three minutes and then you can get your full meal. You can also choose from the specials or you can choose from the wide variety of other food. They have quite a number of people that work in the dining room and the kitchen, so the restaurant is absolutely exquisite. We all have to eat in our rooms now by ourselves of course. We go and take out. We order our food in the morning. We have, I think, four vans and two buses that takes us to our medical appointments in three different towns around here. The vans would also pick up residents' orders from the department stores in the area, so I just don't know what else more anybody can do for seniors that is not done here. The staff loves us and they come to work for us, they don't come to work for them. Same way with maintenance. We have good maintenance crew and they all want to help us. No matter what the problems, they're out to help us. I don't see where we can find a better place. The food is tasty. We have a sister campus which is about an hour and a half away, the chef here is also in charge of the chef down there. You could not have a better restaurant in my opinion. We have a guardhouse and it's manned all the time, 24/7. We have gates and right now it's manned differently. We only have one way to come in and we drive in, we have to stop at the lobby, go in and have our temperatures taken, and then we can go and park our car. Anybody coming in off campus can't, no visitors are allowed. Visitors come, but they just have to drop off everything at a table we have set up. They drop off what they want to and they drive off. You might think it's expensive, but this area is kind of a high-priced area. There are stories I hear about these family homes. I know somebody that pays $12,500 per month to live in a home. A friend of ours also pays $9,000 a month to live in a home. I think there should be regulations because I think that's just out of bounds to be charging that kind of money. I pay about $6,000 a month. Here, for couples, once you go over at skilled nursing, the only extra charge is for supplies and medicine and the government requires three meals a day, so I pay only about $1,000 more for my husband to be in skilled nursing and this, for me, is reasonable."

"We found Wesley Des Moines. It's close to our doctors and the area that we're familiar with. It had a lot of activity and everything going for it. They all seemed great. We just liked the location of it. We tried the food. It was lunch time, and we just had a sandwich. We're planning to move when there's a spot available that is what we want."

"My experience at Judson Park in the Health Center has been nothing but amazing! I was fortunate enough to be able to tour multiple skilled nursing facilities prior to my loved one needing to go to rehab and picked Judson Park after checking out a few places in the area. From the very beginning all the way to the very end, they never let us down! All the staff were very well trained and you can tell they really love their jobs! I would compare their customer service to what you expect to see from a high-end store like Nordstrom! I never even encountered someone at Judson Park with a frown or bad attitude! They really know what they are doing there and I would highly recommend them for any short term rehab needs! We would definitely return if we ever had that need again!"