We're staying at the Ocean Plaza Hotel on Tybee Island this weekend, and would love to hear any comments, good or bad. We've never been to Tybee Island before, and there didn't seem to be too many hotels to choose from. I also did a search and couldn't find any comments on this hotel. We're going there because it seems to be the closest beach to Atlanta. Help, please!

It's just Ok...been around for a while and right on the beach. As you saw, there isn't much out there and nothing special. The beach, IMHO, is just so so. Hard packed brown sand.

This is a very personal choice, but I would head to Hilton Head before I did Tybee. We used to live in Savannah so I'm familiar with the beaches in the area, and HH, though more congested, is far more upscale. HH has the same hard packed brown sand as Tybee, it is just a cleaner area. Of course with Tybee, you have Savannah just a 20 minute drive away, with some great touring and a wide choice of restaurants. If you do go to Tybee, I would recommend eating at the Crab Shack just off the island. You'll have to get directions while there. It's a fun, laid back place--casual, inexpensive etc--one of our favorite spots when we lived there.

OO, is the water around Savanah and Tybee Island brownish? We have been to St. Simons and Jekyll Islands and the water there has a brownish tint to it, supposedly because of the marshlands.
Thanks

Tybee is not Hilton Head, nor is anywhere else in the world. Ocean Plaza is a good hotel, close to the ocean, within walking distance of the business district, very close to the fishing pier and pavilion , and has a nice restaurant. Stayed there in June and enjoyed it. There was no overwhelming traffic, no suffocating mass of people , just a laid back good time. My kids don't know a great beach from a good beach and had a great time there.

Thanks so much for the replies. I went to Hilton Head once several years ago and really liked it, but this is such a short weekend trip that we wanted to spend as little time as possible in the car.

Sandy, no, it is not the color of the water around Jekyll or St Simons. I was shocked the first time I saw that!! It's very...greenish...I guess is the best way to describe it, around Tybee and HH, both.

Heather, if you really liked HH, you might be better off there. It isn't that much further. We preferred their beaches, so often would go over when we wanted to go to the beach. It took us an hour from the historic district to the beach at Folly Field Rd. It would add no more than that coming from Atlanta (when you wouldn't actually get all the way into Savannah) and probably less.

One thing about Tybee that we've found nowhere else, are the shark teeth (fossils) all along the beaches. We've picked up as many as 80 in a day--a special Tybee kind of "shelling" and lots of fun for all ages.