Now that I'm home, I feel like I can give a few recommendations and tips. First off, just remember that even though there are no cars on the island (aside from the firetrucks that is), you are still a pedestrian. The horses and bikes are the cars on Mackinac. If you are walking, you need to look both ways to cross the street and not walk out in front of the bikers or horses. Staying on the sidewalk is best. In mainland USA, always walk against traffic, but most people walk with traffic on the island.
Now for specifics:
Food
Dinner-wise, I think the Yankee Rebel has the best food. It has the best rootbeer by far. And the atmosphere is very nice and reminiscent of something in Williamsburg...if my memory serves me right. I was very young when I went there.
For lunch, the best place is Millie's on Main.
The other places we went to eat just weren't as good as those two: Seabiscuit's and Mustang Lounge. Food-wise, I don't think anything was bad at any place. Seabiscuit's is just too small for a tourist destination. I think we were extremely lucky to even get into the place. Mustang was too much of a bar, was really cold even for me, and didn't smell very nice.
But, all in all, I don't think we went to any place that had bad food.
Shopping
These are just my personal preferences. I'm sure that others will disagree with me, but my favorite shops are Little Luxuries on Main Street and The Birches on Market Street.
Little Luxuries has lots of home goods, a few t-shirts and sweatshirts, soaps, lotions, travel mugs, perfumes, and the like. It's quite a large size compared to the other shops, the setup is nice, and it smells really good in there. I bought lotion, a cherry pit compress (instead of rice), and a really pretty sweatshirt.
The Birches had the prettiest t-shirt selections. I had a very hard time picking out only one to buy. They also had a few other souvenirs, such as lilac lotions and candles for the festival, figurines, and really nice pocket knives.
The places that seemed to offer the biggest selections of Lilac Festival posters are Flagship on Market Street and the gift shop where you get off and switch carriages on the carriage tour.
JoAnn's seemed to have the better selections of fudge, but that may be just because I didn't try any other places as we were running out of time on Saturday.
My Front Porch had a good selection of items, especially for your front porches (shocker) for signs, flags, figurines, hats, and lilacs. It was also one of the bigger stores, especially on Market street. I also noticed that their prices were a bit better, probably because they are not located on Main.
Metivier Inn Rating
I can't say that I can fairly rate this B&B since it is the only one I have stayed at on the island, but I can give a few thoughts anyway. My family members have always stayed at the Cloghaun, but I decided to stay here since their prices are a bit cheaper. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, they have a very large front porch that is so nice to sit on in the mornings, as well as a back garden that is nice and quiet. The Metivier Inn is right beside the Medical Center on Market Street. On the other side of the Medical Center is the Cloghan, so it wouldn't be that hard for my family to find.
I also mentioned earlier that I wouldn't recommend getting Room 7. It was okay, but the shower was extremely small and the AC unit seemed possessed. I'd just pay more for a bigger room when I stay the next time. But, other than that, it was nice enough. I think I'd give the entire Inn 4 out of 5 stars for experience. The cleaning staff was very kind and the managers were too, though I didn't interact with them much. They had a lot of guests for the Lilac Festival. And I'm not the most social person anyway.
Tours
I am very glad that I went on both the Lilac walking tour and the Garden Tour at the Grand Hotel. I am not sure I ever need to go on another carriage tour. Overall, I feel like that one was the most disappointing, especially since the tour guides on both plant-based tours were very personable and went above-and-beyond with talking to us about things that were not necessarily part of the planned tour and sometimes even showed us things that wasn't on the plan.
For next time:
Next time I go to the island, I'm probably going to do different things, such as take my bike to go around the entire island (8.2 miles), stay up for the ghost tour for spooky stories, go horseback riding, and go up to the fort. Got to get my history. But I'm not sad or disappointed that I didn't get to do all that this time around.
I have reasons to go back again. No problems whatsoever.
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