Bankers and computer experts will be working overtime this New Year’s Eve to derail any Y2K threat, but many other Mainers will take advantage of elaborate party packages at area inns and resorts to usher in the new millennium.

While media reports have predicted a large percentage of Mainers will keep it simple and stay home Dec. 31, staff at hotels from Presque Isle to Scarborough say party-package bookings are moving along at a steady pace and most expect to be full for the New Year’s Eve 2000 celebration.

In Bangor, the Ramada Inn on the Odlin Road had filled 75 of its 115 rooms as of Dec. 11 for a $299 New Year’s Eve package.

“We’re gonna be full, sure,” said senior desk clerk Carrie Starnes, looking at a 65 percent filled rate two weeks before the big night.

The Ramada’s celebration package includes champange in individual rooms upon arrival, a reception, evening meal, dancing, and tickets for a certain number of free drinks Dec. 31 followed by a champagne brunch and late-day checkout New Year’s Day.

At the Lucerne Inn, midway between Bangor and Ellsworth, party-goers have shown a willingness to pay a steeper price for a chance to usher in the millennium at a facility that overlooks Phillips Lake.

Maria Bridges, front desk manager, said close to three-quarters of the facility’s 22 rooms and eight suites had been booked by Sunday.

Rates for the two-night weekend package range from $699 to $949 and include everything from dining and dancing at the inn or its new banquet center to weekend brunches Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. A wide-screen telvision will play football games New Year’s Day in the inn’s lobby, and a shuttle service to the Bangor Mall will be available Jan. 1. Weather permitting, inn guests will have the opportunity to take part in a snowman-building contest.

The Lucerne Inn is nearly booked full for its $120 per couple dinner-and-dancing-only package, according to Bridges.

In southern Maine, an extravagant New Year’s Eve party package offered at the Black Point Inn in Scarborough is about half sold out. For $1,500, a couple can stay two nights at the four-diamond triple-A rated lodge and on New Year’s Eve be treated to a six-course meal with different wines at each course.

About half the inn’s 80 rooms had been booked as of Sunday for the millennium bash, which also will feature dancing and a postmidnight buffet. A clerk at the resort said reservations had been trickling in since Thanksgiving but the pace has picked up substantially in the past week.

In Presque Isle, the County View Hotel, formerly Keddy’s Motor Inn, has about half its rooms booked at $120 for double occupancy.

In Bar Harbor the Atlantic Oakes hotel has half of its 240 rooms booked for New Year’s Eve, with more inquiries coming in over the weekend, according to a reservations clerk.

In Rockport, the Samoset Resort is offering a three-night celebration package for $1,499, a two-night package for $899, and a one-night package New Year’s Eve for $499. About half of the 178 rooms and 20 suites were booked as of Sunday, according to reservationist Christy Lima. In addition to a semiformal event promoted as a “gala dinner ball” for adults, the resort will feature a separate, and supervised, New Year’s Eve party for children.