Picking a place to stay in Savannah is not just a matter of deciding how far you want to walk. Your hotel can change the entire feel of the trip.
Jodie and I have been to Savannah more times than we can count, and we have learned that there is no single “Savannah experience.” You can spend the night surrounded by old brick and tall windows, come downstairs to a lobby full of fossils and minerals, trade records from a hotel library, or climb into a soaking tub inside a former church bell tower.
Those are not minor differences.
These four properties have earned a place in our Savannah notes for four completely different reasons. This is not a ranking, and I am not going to pretend that one is the best choice for everybody. The better question is: What kind of Savannah trip are you trying to have?
The Alida: Modern Savannah with a little personality
The Alida sits near Factors Walk and the west end of River Street, close enough to put the riverfront outside your door without making the hotel feel like another piece of old Savannah dressed up for tourists.
The building itself is modern—it opened in 2018—but the name connects it to the woman often described as one of the pioneers of Savannah’s preservation movement. Alida Harper Fowlkes bought and restored historic properties long before preservation became part of Savannah’s identity. Her former home on Orleans Square is now the Harper Fowlkes House.
I like that connection. Savannah would not look like Savannah today if people had not fought to save it, and the hotel named for one of those people does not try to imitate an 1800s inn. It gives you the modern version of the city instead.
We were upgraded to a corner room with a built-in bar area that practically begged you to attempt a little in-room mixology. Each room has a record player, and guests can swap albums from the hotel’s record library downstairs. That was one of our favorite touches because it felt like somebody had actually thought about the room instead of just picking a color palette and calling it “boutique.”
The details kept going: sparkling water on tap in the hallway, fresh fruit on the floor, and two very different bars without leaving the property. The Trade Room downstairs is the more polished cocktail-lounge option. The Lost Square is the rooftop bar, with wide river views and clear yurt-style tents during cooler weather.
The Alida is the choice for someone who wants a comfortable, modern hotel, good drinks, riverfront access, and enough personality to remember where they stayed. If your Savannah fantasy requires antique furniture, creaking floors, and the possibility that a ghost has opinions about your luggage, this is not that hotel.
That is not a criticism. Sometimes you want the history outside and a very comfortable bed inside.
Best for: Couples, cocktail people, riverfront walkers, and travelers who like boutique hotels but still want full hotel service.
JW Marriott Plant Riverside: Savannah turned all the way up
A short walk from The Alida, the JW Marriott Savannah Plant Riverside occupies the site of Savannah’s former riverside power plant. The original plant dates to 1912 and was decommissioned in 2005. During redevelopment, its brick exterior and twin smokestacks were preserved rather than erased, turning a piece of the city’s industrial past into the centerpiece of the Plant Riverside District. The rehabilitation later received statewide preservation recognition from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.
That sounds tasteful and restrained.
The inside is not restrained.
There are dinosaur fossils, enormous minerals, artwork, dramatic lighting, restaurants, bars, live music, and enough visual distraction to keep you wandering through the property long after you meant to leave. It feels like a luxury hotel, a museum, and an entertainment district got together and decided subtlety was overrated.
The hotel is not relying on the lobby alone. Baobab Lounge has African-inspired décor, taxidermy, and creative smoked cocktails that make ordering a drink feel like part of the show. At Turbine Market, the campfire hash bowl—with sweet potatoes, smoked sausage, Aleppo pepper, and chimichurri—was the kind of breakfast that could carry you through several miles of Savannah walking.
Stone & Webster Chophouse is still on our list, so I am not going to recommend a steak I have not eaten. I know. A travel writer admitting he has not tried something. The internet may never recover.
The JW is the easiest of these four choices if you want the hotel itself to be one of the attractions. A family could spend time looking at the fossils and minerals. Adults can move from dinner to cocktails to live music without figuring out another ride. Even if somebody in the group wants to call it a night, the rest of the evening is still downstairs.
The flip side is obvious: this is not the quiet little inn where the desk clerk remembers which chair you like. It is big, busy, and intentionally theatrical. For some trips, that is exactly the point.
Best for: Travelers who want luxury, activity, restaurants, drinks, and entertainment in one place—and anyone who believes a hotel lobby could use more dinosaurs.
East Bay Inn: The history is in the building
East Bay Inn gives you the version of Savannah many first-time visitors picture before they arrive: old brick, tall ceilings, enormous curtained windows, and rooms that feel connected to the city rather than dropped into it.
The building was constructed beginning in 1852 as a warehouse near the working waterfront. Its cast-iron façade and some interior columns remain. Its history also deserves more than the soft-focus version. This was part of Savannah’s cotton economy, an industry built through enslaved labor. The inn’s own history of the building acknowledges that directly. Later occupants included a steam bakery, foreign consuls, a lodge hall, and the Columbia Drug Company before the vacant structure was restored as a 28-room inn in the 1980s.
You do not need to know all of that to enjoy the room, but knowing it adds weight to the stay. Savannah’s history is beautiful, complicated, and sometimes ugly. A good historic property should make room for the whole story.
Our experience at East Bay Inn felt much more intimate than the riverfront resorts. The lobby and rooms kept the building’s character. Our room had those floor-to-ceiling curtained windows and one of those beds you continue talking about after the trip. The staff was warm, the morning coffee was fresh, and Tandem Coffee & Spirits downstairs made the transition from coffee in the morning to something stronger in the afternoon very convenient.
Then there was the parking.
When we stayed, East Bay had its own parking, which in downtown Savannah felt roughly equivalent to discovering the room came with a winning lottery ticket. The inn still advertises guest parking, but arrangements and fees are exactly the sort of thing I would confirm directly before arriving. Savannah is wonderfully walkable after the car is parked. The “after” is the important part.
East Bay is for the traveler who wants to feel the age of the city in the place where they sleep without giving up the practical parts of a hotel. It puts you close to River Street and the Historic District, but the hotel itself does not disappear from the trip.
Best for: First-time visitors, history lovers, travelers who want to walk most places, and anyone who would choose a gorgeous old room over a giant resort.
Sanctuary Place Inn: We slept in a church bell tower
This is the one people remember when we tell them about it.
Sanctuary Place Inn—now also called Sanctuary Place or Duffy Street Lofts—is in Savannah’s Victorian neighborhood south of Forsyth Park. The building began as an Episcopal chapel completed in 1889 and designed by Savannah architect Alfred S. Eichberg. It later served Greek Orthodox and Baptist congregations. Some of the memorial stained glass added during its years as Garvin’s Temple Baptist Church remains inside the converted lofts. The property’s own history is worth reading because the building did not simply stop being a church one day and become a clever Airbnb the next. Several communities left something behind.
Our unit had flagstone floors and beautiful hardwood stairs leading to the former choir loft, where our bedroom was located. It still had original beams and stained glass. There was a small fountain in the courtyard.
And there was a soaking tub inside the bell tower.
Not near the bell tower. Not under a photograph of a bell tower. Inside it.
That is the sort of detail even a very nice standard hotel cannot compete with.
The owners gave us a first-responder discount, which always finds a warm spot in both my heart and my wallet. More importantly, we added another night because we did not want to leave. You can say a property is unique, charming, memorable, or any of the other words that get thrown around travel writing until they are almost meaningless. Adding an extra night says it better.
Staying south of Forsyth also gives you a different Savannah. You are outside the busiest stretch of the North Historic District, closer to neighborhood places and the parts of the city where people actually live. You can still reach Forsyth and the familiar historic sights, but you return at night to something quieter and much stranger—in the best possible way.
This is not the choice for someone who wants a conventional front desk, room-service routine, or identical hotel rooms. It is for someone who wants the place they stayed to become one of the stories they tell about the trip.
Best for: Repeat Savannah visitors, architecture lovers, couples who want something genuinely unusual, and anybody who just read “bathtub in the bell tower” and immediately started checking dates.
So, which Savannah do you want?
If I were helping a friend choose, I would make it this simple:
Choose The Alida if you want modern comfort, river views, good cocktails, and thoughtful boutique-hotel details.
Choose the JW Marriott Plant Riverside if you want the hotel to double as an attraction and prefer plenty of food, drinks, music, and activity close at hand.
Choose East Bay Inn if you want a genuinely historic building, a smaller hotel, and easy access to the traditional Historic District.
Choose Sanctuary Place Inn if you want the most unusual stay and do not mind trading the standard hotel setup for a story you will probably tell for years.
We would not choose the same one for every Savannah trip. That is what makes these four useful. The Alida works for a polished couples’ weekend. The JW works when we want plenty happening around us. East Bay puts us directly into the city’s older bones. Sanctuary Place made us extend the trip.
There is no universal best hotel here. There are four very different doors into Savannah.
You just have to decide which version of the city you want waiting on the other side.
Photos: The Alida/FlightBridge, JW Marriott Plant Riverside/Campo Architects, East Bay Inn, and Sanctuary Place Inn.