74. Mackinac Island, Michigan: What to Do and What to Skip at This Luxury Travel Destination

Step back in time as I take you along with me on my luxury vacation to Mackinac Island, a charming destination in Michigan where no cars are allowed, there are as many horses as there are people, and fudge shops line the streets! In this episode, I'll break down the top things to experience there, including what's not to be missed and what wasn't worth the hype.

Mentioned in this episode:
The Pink Pony
Grand Hotel
Mackinac Island Carriage Tours
Bicycle Street Inn
Mission Point

 
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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

Hello, jetsetters. And welcome to another episode of jetsetting with me. Today, I am very excited to take you along with me on my luxury vacation to Mackinac Island and my stay at the illustrious Grand Hotel. Time seems to stand still on Mackinac Island. It is a definite throwback to the 1920s turn of the century high life. If you weren't part of the Gilded Age heading up to the Hamptons, and you were in Chicago, then you were headed to Mackinac Island, and you would stay for a month or 2 for the entire summer season there. There are no cars allowed on the island. There are a handful of the oldest buildings in Michigan, including the governor's summer residence and one of only 11 large wood frame hotels that is left in the US, that being the Grand Hotel.

2 movies have been filmed there, including my favorite, the famous movie starring Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. I know people Google it or ask your grandparents. It was called Somewhere in Time. It's about time travel. And you can see the full movie room gallery from the Grand Hotel and my Mackinac Island highlights on my Instagram, which, of course, is in the show notes. So according to the Hotel Historian, that movie has the 2nd largest fan following in the world. Gone With the Wind being the first, and Somewhere in Time and The Wizard of Oz go back and forth between 2nd and third. In fact, the annual reunion weekends for the movie sell out a year in advance.

So let's talk about what to do, what to eat and where to stay, if Mackinac Island is also on your bucket list. Okay. What to do? The very first thing that I recommend that everyone do is take the full carriage tour. And by full, I do mean that you don't want to just ride up from Main Street. Let me back up a minute. You can only get there by ferry from Mackinac City or Saint Ignatius Point, because there are no cars allowed on the island. I think I said that. Everything is a horse and drone buggy.

It's the most romantic thing in the world. By romantic, I mean, that romantic feel when you step into a new place and time. And so once you arrive by ferry, you arrive right on Main Street of Mackinac Island. And on Main Street are fudge shops everywhere you look. Every other store is fudge. There are bicycle shops, because that is one of the ways to get around. If you're not taking a horse and buggy, you can ride a bike or you can walk. And now they do also allow some electric bicycles, but you don't see any scooters or anything of that nature.

So there's no emissions, which helps the horses who live on the island. And by the way, there is one for every person. 500 people live there year round, and there are 500 horses that live there during the seasons. There's a horse for every person who lives year round. And the horses live longer lives because there are no type of any car or scooter missions. So there's lots of fresh air. And we happen to be there at the end of the season in September when the weather was perfect to walk or have a horse and buggy ride. So you take the ferry over, and you arrive on Main Street.

And just down Main Street is the Mackinac Island carriage tours. And they have been giving tours for over a 100 years, really since before the island was even developed. And you can take that tour just from Main Street up to just past the actual Grand Hotel, to where the horses live. There are stalls, and there's a historic carriage museum there. Or you can then transfer and take another horse and buggy ride, which has actually got pulled by 3 horses. It's really cool to watch 3 horses pull a buggy together. And it goes through the state park, Former national park, currently state park. And there's a story to that that I really encourage you to ask your guide about when you get there.

And that takes you again to the fort, the governor's summer residence, and back around it does a full circle. And then you can ride back down to main street, or you can then get off at the grand hotel. So do the full carriage tour. You can make reservations for the next day, or you can just walk up. In the morning, they start at 9 AM, and they tend to go like every 5 minutes, because it is one of the most popular things to do on the island. So the second thing that you absolutely have to do is get some fudge. And so I did mention that there is fudge on every other door on Main Street, but it's also sold in every single hotel. And everyone has their own version, and it's sold really everywhere.

Must be the fudge capital of the world. I didn't look that up. But anyway, so get some fudge, take the carriage tour, and then, of course, you must sit on the longest port in the world at the Grand Hotel. I'm sure you've seen the iconic picture of the columns and the red gables and the white wrap around porch that is, as I said, the longest porch in the world, filled with rocking chairs. So definitely sit on that porch, rock some, and get that iconic Instagram photo. You will, of course, see mine in my stories. Those are the three things that you absolutely must do on the island. Now, of course, you do have to eat.

And I already mentioned how important fudge is. There are 2 different places that I would recommend that you would go and get fudge. Either Murdoch's fudge, which is the original island fudge, and you can find it on a couple different places on Main Street, but also, when I mentioned you can take the carriage tour up to the carriage gallery, there's all these old carriages from a 100 years ago. There's winter carriages. There's like a fire station carriage. There's a hearse, what they would have used for a funeral back in the day. And you can get Murdoch's original fudge up there. There's also Joanne's, which has two locations on Main Street, and they won the Fudge Olympics.

Fudge Olympics. Who knew? So either one of those is a great place to get your fudge. You could try one of each and you decide which is better, or try multiple different flavors. There are so many creative kinds. You're not just gonna get chocolate, peanut butter, and vanilla fudge. We got a double chocolate cherry fudge, because cherries are another big part of the geographic region and what goes on there. Okay. Another great place, and this was probably my favorite meal.

It is a part of the Grand Hotel, but it's outside, kind of like a crossing away from the grand hotel. It's called the jockey club. It happens to be where if you want to take a tour of the stables and the horse and buggy carriages, the carriage gallery, and all of those things, you can eat at the jockey club. It is also where you can sit overlooking half of the golf course, because the Mackinac Island golf course at the Grand Hotel is the only golf course that you have to actually take. A horse and buggy that separates the front 9 from the back 9. So the Jockey Club was a great place to eat. During the primary season, they have brunch. Brunch had already entered when we were there.

So we had a lovely lunch, and they also have dinner. And you do need reservations for dinner only. Supposedly, you need them for brunch, but since they weren't serving brunch anymore while we were there, I was unable to confirm that. More on that later. And another place to eat would definitely be the Mackinac Island Tea. That is in the parlor at the Grand Hotel. The Groups Today Magazine ranked it as one of the top ten teas in the world. They rank it along with the tea time cruise on the River Thames in London.

It is definitely pricey. We did it for a late lunch slash early dinner, and it definitely filled us up until we all needed snacks late in the day, like around 7:30 or 8. It had the traditional turkey and cheese, egg salad with some caviar on top, scones with potted cream. It had lemon cream to put on some of the scones as well. It had all the sweets you can imagine, including the jellies, the fruit charts, a little mini bundt cake. It was a lot of fun, and you will, again, see pictures of all the tea and how it was served and the plating of it. It's an experience. I think everyone should get to experience what is considered to be one of the top 10 teas in the world.

Although, if you're going for the food and or the tea, you will likely be disappointed based on the price and the fact that the tea comes out fairly cold. Okay. One more place that you might wanna go inside and eat would be the famous Pink Pony. It is the island's foremost entertainment establishment. It's located inside the Chippewa Hotel, and it's famous for its white fish dip and burger. It's located right on the water, and in fact, its patio house sits right over Lake Huron. And it is ranked by daily meal as one of America's 10 best restaurants for outdoor dining. And at night, they have dueling pianos, and you don't have to worry about drinking and driving because guess what? You are walking home at night.

Okay. We've talked a little bit about what to do and where to eat. And of course, we have to talk a little bit about where to stay. And here is where my tea gets steaming hot. So I'm sorry for everyone who, like me, the bucket list wasn't just going to the island, but was staying in the beautiful and iconic, one of only 11 wood frame hotels left in the United States, Grand Hotel, because it's not on my list of places to stay. On the island, I would actually recommend the newest build hotel, which is the Bicycle Street Inn, which overlooks Main Street. It does have an interior courtyard. You can also get river views.

They do have some walk out balconies. They call themselves luxury on historic Mackinac Island. Because it is the newest build, it does have the most luxuries. You will have the most USB ports. You will have the best Wi Fi. They're a little more, quote, unquote, fashion forward, should I say. It's blue painted. It's still got the gables that you will love and see all over the island.

But again, it's the newest build. And no, I didn't say there. That recommendation actually comes from one of the year round residents who worked at my second recommendation for a place to stay. He was the guest services manager at Mission Point Hotel. And he says he would stay at the Bicycle Street Inn, because it is the newest hotel. So Mission Point Hotel is the 2nd largest hotel on the island after the Grand, and it is still a family owned and run business. The Grand Hotel was actually a family owned running business since its inception. It had been in one family for over a 100 years until 2 years ago when it was sold to a major corporation.

And let me tell you, I believe you can tell the difference. Another place that you will see tons of bed and breakfast as you do your carriage tour, many with rocking chairs and beautiful gardens. So another option for you to stay would be any one of the bed and breakfast. And finally, if you are slightly more budget conscious, which, of course, nobody on this podcast is because everybody wants that luxury experience, but you can stay at several different modern hotels over in Mackinac City, and you can take the ferry over to the island to explore for a day. Just as if you are staying at any of the other places on the island that I recommended, you can go and explore the grand, get that iconic photo of yourself on the rocking chair, on the porch by purchasing a day pass. And that is actually what I recommend. And I'm so so sorry. I'm telling you, literally, my heart breaks a little, but the experience of staying at the Grand did not live up to my imagination.

So the least expensive room there starts at $800, and that is even at the end of the season when we were there. It does have a conference space. So at the time that we were there, it was actually very booked based on conferences being there. A lot of Michigan state conferences go there, because it's just so iconic. And it is one of the things that drives tourism in the state of Michigan is the island, and in particular, this hotel where the movies were made. You can experience the grounds where Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeves sat. You can see the gazebo where Christopher Plummer, who was also in another one of my favorite movies. You can listen to my episode on set jetting in Salzburg, if you are interested in learning about the sound of music.

I digress as usual. If you've been here for more than a minute, you know that I always do that. But I will say the staff was phenomenal at the Grand Hotel. Every single person we encountered was nice, held the doors, asked us how our stay was, wanted to know if there was anything else that they can do. But sadly, the food and beverage has gone way downhill. The iconic experience of eating in the grand dining room, which is over $100 per person, was so bad that we ended up getting it refunded. I mean, the dessert was completely inedible, and not a single one of us at the table finished our entrees. And my appetizer came out cold.

Not great for a 5 course meal at over a $100 per person that didn't include gratuity or any alcoholic beverages. And as I said, our tea time, my tea came out cold. It has great character. And I would love for everyone to walk up that red staircase, sit on that porch, rock a little with the view of Lake Huron. Fun facts, at trivia, we learned that it is not on Lake Michigan. It is on Lake Huron. We did not get that trivia question correct, I will tell you. In fact, we didn't get very many trivia questions correct until we did the tour the next day.

So we should have gone back and done trivia we would have killed. But we still got a prize. So, you know, there's no losers in trivia at the Grand Hotel. So I was saying my tea came out cold, but it is an experience and it was a delightful thing to do for a long weekend. And I hope that it is on your bucket list that you will let me know and let me help you plan your stay on Mackinac Island. Until next time, jetsetters. Safe travels.