The first time I went to Mackinac Island, I was young enough to ride in a carrier on the back of my Dad’s bike. I have absolutely no memory of that trip. So, this summer, we decided it was time for the Emighs to finally take on Mackinac Island. I was excited to discover that we could take a ferry from St. Ignace and not have to pay to cross the bridge. We could also take a slightly longer ferry ride to get there and actually go under the Mackinac Bridge if we arrived at the right time, so that is what we did. We got combo tickets to take the ferry both ways, take a carriage ride on the island, and tour the Grand Hotel.
Things were not completely smooth with the ferry company. We had to wait to get all of our various tickets and the lady working had a young helper that ripped one of our passes – it ended up being completely fine, though. I can’t help but think that we were supposed to receive some instructions with the various tickets, though, which would turn out to be an issue later. We also weren’t aware that the parking lot was small so we would have to park half a mile away and walk. This meant that we missed the earlier bridge tour ferry and had to wait for a slightly later one. All in all, just first world problems, but it was early in the day and I was hungry and grumpy.
Once we were on the ferry and headed towards the bridge I felt much better. It was very cool to go under and see the shadows of cars going over the grates of the bridge. Definitely a unique experience to have had.
Once we arrived on the island, our first order of business was lunch. We got off the ferry and immediately found seats at Mary’s Bistro and Draught House. The food was great – everyone ate all of their food. Keith tried a new beer from their extensive selection, and Maddie tried and loved a mead called Zombie Killer. That’s an exciting drink to order as your first alcoholic beverage with your parents! I had a lovely chicken salad plate – exactly what I wanted on a hot day. Feeling refreshed, we set out in search of the carriage rides. We jumped in line since we already had tickets, but it turns out you have to turn in those tickets for a timed ticket – something that, again, probably should have been explained to us by the very distracted lady at the ferry shop. It was not great to be in line and then be told to jump in another line with all the people that hadn’t already paid for tickets. I feel like there should have been a line for those with tickets already and a line for those that still needed to buy them – there did not seem to be any advantage to having them prepaid. But I digress. Eventually we were on the carriage with our lovely tour guide and got to enjoy all of the sites of the island. My very favorite, and the one that I was most excited to see, was Arch Rock. We also saw Skull Cave and some gorgeous views of Lake Huron. Here are a few photos of scenery from our carraige tour.
In the middle of the carraige tour, they drop you off at a complex with a blacksmith shop, a butterfly house, bathrooms, and a donut shop!! We, of course, bought some donuts to share. Maddie decided she wanted to make a knife at the blacksmith shop, so she got signed up for that. While waiting, the other girls went through the butterfly house and Keith and I waited to take photos of Maddie blacksmithing! Here she is making her knife and with the finished product. She was very proud of it. 🙂
Our final stop on our tour was The Grand Hotel. We wandered around for quite a while trying to figure out where we were supposed to check in for the self-guided tour. Seriously, it was a little crazy that it was so hard to find. But we got checked in and discovered that the kids were not really interested in most of the places on the tour. We did try the coffee shop, though, where I got a lovely iced chai to enjoy. We did most of our exploring outside and really enjoyed taking photos of the hotel itself as evidenced below.
After we finished exploring the gardens at The Grand Hotel, we headed back into town to do some shopping. We got some clothing, some stickers, and, of course, a Christmas ornament. We also stopped at a fudge shop where everyone but me got ice cream and I got chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels to snack on. We made the choice to take the ferry back to St. Ignace before eating because food was so expensive on the island. We ended up have very limited options, so we had late night Taco Bell. It was very satisfying and gave us the energy to make the half hour drive back to the house.
All in all, it was a good day, but I am not sure I need to go again for a while. Nothing there was intuitive – it all seemed like too much work for very little return on investment. It was a little too loud and a little too crowded for me – too touristy. I think it is something to enjoy at least once, but if I could, I would go at a less crowded time of year.
Have you ever been to Mackinac Island? What was your experience? Tell me all about it in the comments!
Adventure. Create. Relate 