We're on our first trip to Savannah, and enjoying every minute.
Well, *almost* every minute.
Our $10.00 Oglethorpe tour of the city — on open-air trolleys, in the June heat — wasn't a laugh a minute, but we did get a pretty good overview of the town. (You certainly can't beat the price, and they were even nice enough to pick us up from and return us to our B&B. See http://www.oglethorpetours.com/)
Our B&B — the Savannah Bed and Breakfast Inn (http://www.savannahbnb.com/) — started off on a sour note. In historic Savannah, during the week, parking is on the street … and the meters get hungry every two hours. The Savannah B&B (on its website, in the room literature) offers guests a way to deal with this, providing parking passes or feeding meters.
But when we arrived, the pasty, humorless young woman behind the counter handed me a stack of quarters. "You can use these to feed the meters outside or wherever you happen to be in town."
I blinked. "Um, your literature says you guys handle the meter."
"And we do," she said, not missing a beat. "That's why we give you these quarters."
"It pretty clearly states that you guys do that for your guests."
"That's why I'm giving you these quarters."
I took a deep breath. "I'm on vacation," I explained. "Do you really think I would want to dash back to the B&B every two hours to feed a parking meter?"
"You don't have to," the young woman said. "But if you don't, you might get a ticket."
I slid the quarters back to her. "I believe you need to do as your materials promise and feed the meters for me."
She shrugged. "Okay, but if I get busy, I might forget to do it."
This same young woman had the distinction of showing us to our room — the one selected for us as the "Manager's Choice." Savannah B&B Inn offers this clever program to keep those unrented rooms full: if you're willing to go with Manager's Choice, then you pay about half what other guests pay … and you may change rooms from day to day.
We were surprised, though, to find out that our Manager's Choice room — the room we'd celebrate our 16th anniversary in — featured two twin beds! ("Manager's Choice," our humorless hostess said, shrugging.) Happily, the same program booked us into the biggest, grandest suite in the joint on the following night … so everything balanced out. (And, as Clyde noted, them's the breaks when you sign up for a promotion like this one.)
Our anniversary night dinner at 700 Drayton (http://www.mansiononforsythpark.com/700drayton/) was absolute perfection, from arrival to departure. The staff were friendly and enthusiastic … and surprised us with a bottle of champagne in honor of our anniversary. In addition to serving up the smoothest mojitos ever, they made our nights with "like buttah" fillets and a seafood grill packed with perfectly cooked scallops, fat shrimp, and a tasty swordfish fillet.
Dessert included a volcano cake oozing liquid chocolate … and a "gilded brownie" spiced with flakes of bright gold leaf.
All in all: a great first day in Savannah … and on day two, the trip just got better.
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