On 4/22/13, as part of a NE Florida – Georgia Wish List, we posed the following question:

Statute Mile 575.5 ‘“ Who has cruised upstream on Savannah River, and spent a night or two along the downtown Savannah Waterfront? Where did you stay ‘“ the city dock, the Westin or River Street Market? Did you have trouble being jostled by the wake of passing, larger, ocean going freighters or tankers? How did you enjoy downtown Savannah?

Responses follow:

Claiborne,
This is in response to your request for NE/FL wish list items and our response for Savannah Westin Resort/Marina:
We spent two nights across from historic Savannah at the Westin Resort/Marina starting on April 7, 2013. It was our first visit to this city as we decided to get off the waterway and broaden our view a bit as we make our way north on our 37′ sailing vessel. Be cautious as you enter the river up to Savannah from northbound on the waterway as it is not easy to pick up even large commercial traffic until you are almost into the channel. We used the Shipfinder app on the iPhone here since we do not have onboard AIS and it allowed us to slow for an inbound container ship. Did the same thing on departure allowing us to follow a departing large commercial vessel we would not have seen until we had pulled away from the dock. There is room here on the sides for us little folks, but not a lot in some places.
The Westin is a floating face dock about 250′ long, it is not a marina in that it has no fuel or pump out, and showers if you need them are a bit of a walk over to the golf club house. To reserve a spot you must call the hotel concierge who at least for us was hard to reach. You as well must leave a credit card to hold a spot. Upon arrival there are no dock staff or anyone on the VHF so you must again call the concierge. She dispatched the hotel “engineers”, but they arrived after we had already gotten ourselves tied up. We had timed our arrival and later departure to be near slack tide because there is significant current here and we expected no help here from reading other postings. The engineers did have keys to unlock the power pedestals and provided a 50A to 30A adapter since no direct 30A service was available. The price is currently $3.00 per foot which is high for what is provided. There is currently really only room for about 2-3
transient vessels in the 40′ range because a beautiful historic sailing ship the Roseway(120′) is docked there for 6 weeks with daily river cruises. They need a lot more than their length to depart and return. Deploy all your largest bumpers when you tie up here or at the public docks across the way because you get some serious rocking from very large commercial ships going by 24/7. The escorting
tugs run closer to the sides with even bigger wakes. The public rooms at the Westin are very nice, they have free bikes that you can use and the heated pool is great. Food was a bit pricey but very good for our one dinner.
With that said we are very glad we stopped. A free ferry runs from the Westin across the river every 30 minutes with two convenient stops. The town is well worth visiting with good food, great historic sites and homes, and just fun to walk about. We are happy we picked the Westin over the town docks since all the waterfront tourists are walking right along side your vessel which is really not for us. If we visit Savannah again we would plan to stop at Thunderbolt or Isle of Palms and take the regular bus up to Savannah, but it would not be the same experience.
Harry Burns
S/V Two for the Roads

Click Here To View the Georgia Cruisers’ Net Marina Directory Listing For Westin Savannah Harbor

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Westin Savannah Harbor