Tag: Mississippi Hotels
View All TagsSnapshot / Religious Hotels / Days Inns / Mississippi Hotels / → All Tags
Free WiFi, Supper And A Little Christian Charity At The Days Inn Natchez
Aint nothing like a good old stereotype, and our recent visit to the Mississippi Delta pretty much ticked them all off. Awesome accents? Check. Disquieting levels of hospitality? Check. Catfish on the menu and blues singers on every corner? Hell, yeah.
One thing we hadn’t ticked off to start with was the “Southerners are God-fearing” stereotype, but that changed when we reached Natchez and saw this ad for the local Days Inn.
Nothing unusual about a national chain offering a seniors discount, or a freebie. But broadcasting its Christian status with the fish symbol? Not something we’ve seen before.
Mississippi Hotels / Music Hotels / Historic Hotels / Deep South Hotels / Clarksdale Hotels / → All Tags
Who'd You Rather: Ike Turner Or John Lee Hooker? The Choice Is Yours In Clarksdale
All this week, Julia Buckley will be taking us down the Blues trail in the Mississippi Delta and giving us the lowdown on the hotel scene. So kick off your blue suede shoes and get comfy.
If you only have time to stay in one Delta town, it’s probably going to be Clarksdale – there’s more to see and do there than the other places. And if the lux Lofts at the Five and Dime are out of your budget’s league, as they were for us, then you should do what we did and go for The Riverside Hotel.
The Riverside oozes blues history - so much so that it even has its own blues marker standing outside. So if you want to immerse yourself in the music, this is where to come. First up, the sober history: the building was originally Clarksdale’s Afro-American hospital, and it’s here that blues singer Bessie Smith died after a car crash (according to legend, she was refused entry to a closer, white hospital).
Then in 1944 the building was extended – think doubled in size – and converted into a hotel by the redoubtable-sounding Mrs ZL Hill. Being Clarksdale’s only African-American hotel during segregation meant that every black artist who came to Clarksdale (and there were many) stayed there. John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk, Aretha Franklin’s dad, etc etc. Even JFK Jr stayed here when he came for a blues festival.
Mississippi Hotels / Delta Hotels / Music Hotels / Deep South Hotels / Indianola Hotels / → All Tags
No Blues And No Biscuits, But That's A Good Thing
All this week, Julia Buckley will be taking us down the Blues trail in the Mississippi Delta and giving us the lowdown on the hotel scene. So kick off your blue suede shoes and get comfy.
Indianola is a place that many people seem to skip when they’re in the Delta. We made this mistake our first time, too, with a drive-through visit to the (incredible) BB King Museum. This time, we decided to stay overnight – and were recommended the Blue Biscuit Bungalows.
The Blue Biscuit itself is a blues bar open at weekends opposite the BB King Museum in downtown Indianola. As a bar, it’s pretty and charming; but as a place to stay, it’s one of the best in the Delta.
You have two options: one, a shotgun cottage that, unlike the Tallahatchie Flats, has been done up: painted yellow outside and converted into a modern house inside with awesome kitsch everywhere (yes, Elvis is in the building). That’s out on the road by the bar.
The other option is the one we stayed in: the summer house. It’s tucked away in the owners’ garden, by the pool and next to their main house. So your bed is about 10ft from the swimming pool. While we’re on the subject: swimming pool. Mississippi Delta. Two things we never thought we’d see together. Wow.
Mississippi Hotels / Apartment Hotels / Delta Hotels / Music Hotels / Deep South Hotels / Clarksdale Hotels / → All Tags
Clarksdale's Lofts May Cost More Than A Dime, But They're Probably Worth It
All this week, Julia Buckley will be taking us down the Blues trail in the Mississippi Delta and giving us the lowdown on the hotel scene. So kick off your blue suede shoes and get comfy.
So you want to visit the Mississippi Delta, but the Tallahatchie Flats seem just a little too dirty, you don’t want a chain motel, and the Alluvian, lovely as it is, could be anywhere. Never fear, though – you shan’t be robbed of your authentic Delta experience. You just have to move an hour north of Greenwood to Clarksdale. There, you’ll find The Lofts At The Five And Dime.
Although the Lofts are the swankiest places to stay in Clarksdale, they’re not exactly a hotel – they’re six mini apartments above the old Woolworth's building in downtown Clarksdale. They’re all owned privately but rented out pretty much permanently. All this really means to you is that you get a full kitchen, living room and washer-dryer included with your bedroom (score), that each loft looks different from the next (fine) and that, occasionally, you’ll see marks of the owners (in Loft D, for instance, there was a photo of the family in the bathroom).
You won’t feel all adrift as you might in a normal apartment, though, because the whole outfit is overseen by Bubba O’Keefe (to be honest, it’s really worth staying there just to say you’ve stayed with a man called Bubba). If we tell you Bubba is the epitome of southern hospitality, you probably won’t believe us, so we’ll just tell you that we met him as he was showing a guest – and, now, a friend – round the WROX museum in town, which he owns, and our quick museum tour turned into a two hour sit down and chat on the original sofas upstairs where Ike Turner used to work and Elvis popped in to play. Amazing.
So, yeah, Bubba will be your friend/concierge in town. Don’t worry about that.
HotelChatter Reviews / Dirty Hotels / Delta Hotels / Mississippi Hotels / Budget Hotels / Weird Hotels / → All Tags
Second Time Around, These Delta Shotgun Houses Gave Us The Blues
All this week, Julia Buckley will be taking us down the Blues trail in the Mississippi Delta and giving us the lowdown on the hotel scene. So kick off your blue suede shoes and get comfy.
It’s almost exactly two years since we visited the Mississippi Delta to follow the Blues trail, and we were so entranced by what we found there that we’ve spent the last two years fantasizing about a return. Finally, two weeks ago, we made it out there, and for old time’s sake, we chose the Tallahatchie Flats in lovely little Greenwood as our first stop.
Last time, we adored it – comfy bed, gorgeous setting and, the Flats’ jewel in the crown, their fantastic manager Les. This time, though, we couldn’t help but be a little disappointed, and not just because it turned out Les was no longer chez Tallahatchie (he’s been replaced by an equally nice lady).
No, what bugged us this time was noticing that the cleaning standards had gone down a steep hill. Last time we’d noted that our bathroom sink could have been cleaner; this time, it wasn’t just the streaky sink that was the problem; the toilet didn’t look as it if had been cleaned, the shower almost certainly hadn’t (it had the label off someone’s facecloth on the dirty shelf, and we had to rinse black dirt from the shower tray) and the entire bathroom smelled a little, err, steamy.
Hotel Retail / Hotel Beds / Delta Hotels / Mississippi Hotels / Road Trip Hotels / Hotel Swag / → All Tags
Buy Everything But The Bed (But Try The Bed) At The Alluvian
We’re always suckers for hotel tat – whether it’s nicking a pen and notebook from the room, buying branded crockery or saving up for one of those Kimpton animal print bathrobes.
So imagine our excitement when we popped in to see the posh Alluvian hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi and found that, as well as the beds in the rooms (which we couldn’t hunker down on, what with not being hotel guests), there’s a bedroom for visitors to try out in the hotel shop across the road.
Hotel Video Tours / HotelChatter Reviews / Delta Hotels / Road Trip Hotels / Mississippi Hotels / Music Hotels / → All Tags
Inside The Shotgun Houses of The Shack Up Inn
After we loved our stay in the Tallahatchie Flats last week, a friendly Mississippi local told us we should see the Shack Up Inn about five miles outside of Clarksdale (home to Morgan Freeman’s blues club, Ground Zero and restaurant, Madidi).
So we popped along and, sure enough, we thought it was great. The Shack Up is set on what remains of the Hopson Plantation (part of the official Blues Trail). It’s bigger than the Tallahatchie Flats – there are 10 shacks, one house, and 10 “bin” rooms in the old cotton gin. Shacks cost from $60 a night, and the bin rooms from $65.
Hotel Video Tours / Delta Hotels / HotelChatter Reviews / Road Trip Hotels / Mississippi Hotels / Music Hotels / → All Tags
Back To Basics, Shotgun Style: Inside The Tallahatchie Flats
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Not only can it make you think fondly of the bad times (Wham! reunion, anyone?), it can also make spending the night in a little shotgun house off a cornfield in the Mississippi Delta sound like a good idea. So when we found out about the Tallahatchie Flats - a collection of six original plantation cottages, transported to a field outside Greenwood, Mississippi - we had to go straight there.
Room Reaction:
We asked for the cheapest cottage – which costs $65 – but the manager/all-round man about the flats, Les, upgraded us to the bigger Red House, worth $85, because he’d already turned the air con on in that one. Nice! So we ended up with a choice of four beds (a king in the master bedroom, two singles in the second bedroom, and a sofa-bed in the living room) and a living room, dining room and kitchen as well – plus two porches to sit on and chew tobacco.
It was big, but don’t expect luxury – it’s as you’d expect a shotgun house to be, with plain wooden floors and walls, old pictures of JFK and Martin Luther King on the walls, and a seriously teeny bathroom. But the bed was comfy and we slept like logs – the only noise out here is from the frogs outside (don’t underestimate them, though, they’re loud little buggers).
Anti-View / Marriott Hotels / Mississippi Hotels / → All Tags
Room With an Anti-View: Bland Outlook from Jackson Marriott
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
Avoid a room on this side of the Marriott Hotel Jackson in Mississippi unless you have a particular fascination with parking lots. Personally we'd rather stare at closed curtains than look out over these pretty bland buildings and endless rows of cars.
The Marriott Jackson website does freely admit that the hotel is in the heart of the business and government district, and since they've just done a multi-million dollar renovation, the inside must be looking much better than the view. Rates start at $139 a night with romantic getaway packages (romantic view not included) from $149 including champagne and strawberries.
[Photo: Jim Frazier]
Mississippi Hotels / → All Tags
Dirty South Oven Maker Also A Hotel Maker
[Ed. Note: Hotel Maven Tim Leffel got all Betty Crocker on us, checking out some high-end ovens only to discover they were made in Mississippi. Naturally, when you follow the oven, you're bound to find a hotel. Er..not quite but read on to find out what hotel is worth a stop down South.]
Greenwood, Mississippi has a population of only 17,344 and one substantial employer. But when that employer is an upscale appliance maker, a swanky boutique hotel starts to make lots of sense.
Inc. Magazine is not a publication we normally turn to for advice on hip boutique hotels, but a story on the hometown of Viking Range caught our eye. The high-end stove company was founded in little Greenwood, Mississippi and is still headquartered there. The founder, Fred Carl, was tired of bringing sales reps to town and having no decent place for them to stay. So he took things into his own hands and financed the development of the Alluvian Hotel, in a restored building downtown.
This lovely boutique hotel is to the existing highway motels in town what a Viking stove is to a Kenmore starter model. As one "admirer" says in the article, "It don't belong in Greenwood!" Picture fine fabrics, stylish furniture, attractive lighting, commissioned art, and all the attention you would expect in an upscale hotel. There's a plush lobby and bar, plus a great restaurant (also owned by Viking) on the corner. It's $175 a night for one of the 45 regular rooms, but plan ahead to get a reservation. They're so booked up that they don't even let you do it on the web--you have to call and see where they can squeeze you in.
Image via DeepFriedKudzu/Flickr
Related Stories:
· The Alluvian Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
· August 2006 [Inc. Magazine]
