Trip Report: Jekyll Island, Georgia Day 2

To start this trip report from the beginning, click here.

We woke up on Friday morning and decided to eat breakfast in our room.  I had brought some food from home because I knew our room had a kitchenette, and we wanted to make it to  the “Passport to the Century” tour with Jekyll Island Historic Tours at 11:00 am without being rushed (we’re not morning people).  I knew the island had an interesting history but I hadn’t made the time to fully research it beforehand, so I thought that starting our weekend off with a history tour would be a great way for us to be able to appreciate everything else that we would see over the next couple of days.

We made the 5 minute drive (everything on the island is only a 5 minute drive) to the starting point of the tour and got our first glimpse of the historic district.  I was not prepared for the natural beauty!  Massive oak trees covered in Spanish moss were everywhere.  It reminded me of Savannah, but without the big city features like traffic and noise.

In fact, the historic district doesn’t even really have streets so much as paths wide enough for cars in certain places (and just people and bikes in others), but no real streets, so the amount of cars is minimal.  It really is beautiful.

This historic home is where the tour departs and we went inside to check in.

After browsing the gift shop for a few minutes, it was time to go grab some seats on the tram.

Because it was a weekday, there were only a few people on this tour.  We saw it the next day (Saturday) and it was completely full, so if you will be there on a weekend, buy your tickets early.

Our tour guide was very friendly and knowledgeable.  We drove all around the historic district, and he would tell us about each building as we went by. Here we saw some people playing croquet on the lawn of the Jekyll Island Club Resort (even if you’re not interested in the hotel, click here to visit the website and be treated to a stunning aerial view of the island).  It felt like we had stepped back in time.

Here’s a close-up of the Jekyll Island Club Resort:

This hotel was built in 1888 as the Jekyll Island Club, a winter retreat for the nation’s wealthiest individuals. It was considered the richest, most exclusive, most inaccessible club in the world. At one time, it’s members represented one-sixth of the world’s wealth with names like Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt and Pulitzer. The club still exists today as the stunning Jekyll Island Club Resort.  I won’t give you all the details, but I urge you to read more about it here.

As more and more wealthy people joined the club, many of them decided to build their own “cottages” nearby that were large enough to house their families and servants.  The historic district is full of these large homes and they have all been fully restored.  We drove by most of them, and got to go inside of 2 of them.  This was the first one that we got to go inside of:

Our guide walked us through and told us the story of the house.  There were servants’ quarters on the top floor that we unfortunately didn’t get to see.  I recently watched the entire series of Downtown Abbey (it’s SO good!) and now I am very intrigued by the lives of the servants during this time period.  I kept imagining these wealthy people coming to the island every winter (most arrived by yacht) with all of their of servants.

These were originally built as privately-owned condominiums:

The scenery was so beautiful.

This is Plantation Oak, the largest oak tree on the island, and is estimated to be 375 years old:

The tour was only 90 minutes and a great way to learn the fascinating history of the island.  I highly recommend it.

After the tour, we were all hungry for lunch so we headed over to Red Bug Motors Pizza.  It’s strange name is due to the fact that it is associated with Red Bug Motors, which is a place on the island where you can rent little electric cars.

(photo courtesy of www.redbugmotors.com)

We didn’t rent one, but I would consider it on our next visit as it seems like a fun way to get around the island.

Red Bug Motors Pizza has a very small but cozy dining room.  I think there were about 8 tables, but only a couple were occupied when we were there.  There was a fire in the fireplace which was nice because it was a cool day, and we got lucky and were seated right beside it.

The food was really good.  These were the girls’ selections:

And for the adults:

They also deliver pizza anywhere on the island.  After we ate, we walked out back and discovered that they have an outdoor dining area with a window for ordering food.

There are also 2 playgrounds (one for bigger kids, one for smaller) and a mini-golf course right next door.  The bike barn rental hut is also in this area (more on that tomorrow), as well as an ice cream stand.  This seems like a really fun place to hang out on summer evenings.

We let the girls play for a while and then it was time to go check out some sea turtles.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center is located in the historic district.  It treats and rehabilitates sick and injured sea turtles (sea turtles nest on the island from May – October), so the only turtles you will see here are the “patients”.  It’s a small center and only takes about an hour to explore.  There are 2 sections: the the interactive exhibit gallery and the rehabilitation pavilion, where the turtles are nursed back to health.  The exhibit gallery teaches you all about sea turtles and also about conservation.

The neatest thing in the exhibit gallery is this window into the treatment room.  We were lucky and they were working on a turtle while we were there.  One of the people working on the turtle wears a microphone and describes exactly what they are doing.

Next we went to the rehabilitation pavilion.  It is a large room with lots of tanks housing the turtles.  Each tank is labeled with the turtle’s name, and mirrors above each tank help you see the turtles.

Every so often they have short presentations about how they care for the turtles.  We arrived just in time to see one.  Here we are waiting for it to start:

The presentation was brief yet informative and we got to see them feed some of the turtles.

Next we decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a bit before dinner.  After a while my youngest wanted to take a walk on the beach, so off we went.

For dinner we decided to go to the Beach House Restaurant.  It shares a parking lot with the Holiday Inn Resort, so we were able to walk over.  Also, guests of the Holiday Inn Resort get passes when you check-in for one free kids meal, per adult meal, per day of your stay.

(photo courtesy of www.jekyllisland.com)

The food and atmosphere were much nicer than I was expecting and we ended up going back 2 more times during our stay.

After dinner we decided to call it a night and walked back to our hotel room.

Up Next:  Jekyll Island, Day 3

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Disclosure: I pay for all of my own Disney vacations, but occasionally I am sent on assignment for a family travel website, kidtripster.com.  We were hosted at the Holiday Inn Resort, Jekyll Island Historic Tours, and Georgia Sea Turtle Center for the purpose of a review of Jekyll Island for kidtripster.com.