Grand Hotel Friday (continued) This was the first time I ever stayed at the 385 room Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, which was built by the railroads in the 1880s. The hotel is famous for its 660' long front porch and was a centerpiece of the movies "This Time For Keeps" with Esther Williams & Jimmy Durante, and "Somewhere In Time" with Christopher Reeves & Jane Seymour. I had managed to secure a bargain price for a Category One room on a weekend, only $335/night including breakfast. The typical weekend price for this small room with a view of only the out building roofs, was $610 including breakfast and supper. Although the room was small, it was fairly modern. Fresh flowers and a pound of fudge were waiting for us. The fudge, the porch & grounds, and wifi are about the only thing the hotel provides without additional fees. There is even an $8/person fee for moving luggage between the docks and the hotel. At least there is no tipping at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel.
The Grand Hotel has a dress code after 6:30 PM (Jacket, tie & dress pants for men. Dress, skirt and blouse or pantsuit for ladies). Since our hotel package did not include dinner, I wanted to try a different restaurant this evening. After freshening up, we took a horse drawn taxi to The Woods, another Grand Hotel property on the Island's interior, which I last visited many years ago. It is a beautiful Tudor mansion with enormous windows which look out on the surrounding woods. The menu is German influenced and I had a smoked trout appetizer and pork schnitzel for my entree. The food was good, but not outstanding, with my favorite part of the meal being the bread. Linda was happier with her maple baked Atlantic salmon and lobster mashed potatoes. We were both unhappy with the lobster bisque, which turned out to be tomato based and had no lobster which I could find.
By the time we took a taxi back to the Grand Hotel, it was getting fairly cold and we changed to warmer clothes before going back out. It was a good time to take some night photographs for www.mightymac.org. We finished the evening listening to the great Myk Rise at the Pink Pony, downtown.
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