Help!! Boone Hall, Middleton Place or Magnolia Plantation

We are so excited, a group of us will be visiting your city in 2 weeks, we have done some research but we are having a problem deciding which plantation to see. Please give me some insight on each of these and what your preference is. Also, a good place for breakfast in the ';Patriots Point'; area. Thank you all!

Help!! Boone Hall, Middleton Place or Magnolia Plantation

I%26#39;ll take the breakfast one - that%26#39;s a no-brainer - unless it%26#39;s a Sunday, go to Boulevard Diner. It%26#39;s just before Shem Creek on the right. Looks like an old Dairy Queen on the outside (and kind of on the inside) - just look for the enormous amount of cars.

Your other question - abou the plantations - someone did a great job answering - I%26#39;ll find it and link it. Everyone has their personal preferences so I%26#39;ll let you decide.

Help!! Boone Hall, Middleton Place or Magnolia Plantation

Try this...there are lots of helpful hints from people who have just visited.

Honestly, each one is so different from the other that one person%26#39;s favorite is another person%26#39;s least favorite.

tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g54171-Activitie鈥?/a>

I haven%26#39;t been to the others, but I worked at Middleton for a summer when I was younger and it was a beautiful place.

There is a restaurant on the grounds. It looked nice, but I always brought my lunch and ate under the trees.

Middleton also has an Inn.

Middleton Place has some spectacular gardens. Be aware if you choose MP that admission may seem ridiculously expensive. I was shell-shocked at the price. We had Thanksgiving dinner last year at Middleton Place and were NOT impressed in the least. So go to see the gardens and the buildings. I 2nd the suggestion to take a picnic. It will be much cheaper and probably much better than the restaurant.

Thank you all for your suggestions. Ok, Middleton Place sounds good (except admission $) Not too much feedback about Boone Hall??? What do you know about the weather Starting Sunday?

Weather - mid 70%26#39;s to low 80%26#39;s day; mid 60%26#39;s at night.

I like Boone Hall a lot, but the house is not the original one (but it is old!)

It has the most impressive drive on the way in, and it%26#39;s probably the easiest to get to as it%26#39;s in Mt. Pleasant. Across the street you can even stop at the Pinckney museum, and they have hayrides and a pumpkin patch.

Magnolia is beautiful for the gardens and the swamp; that would be tied for first for me.

Drayton is the original house and it is simply preserved, not restored.

Have you read the trip reviews? Many of them give a really good insight and something is likely to ';click'; with you.

Enjoy!

Oh - don%26#39;t forget about the Preservation Society tours!

From another visitor%26#39;s report on her visit to Charleston and to Boone Hall -

';Charleston was wonderful! We stayed in Mt. Pleasant...the only down side to this was having to cross that huge bridge each day to do into Charleston...very intimidating! We were able to see alot in Charleston on our own..we did go on a Sunday which was a very good choice and one I would recommend. You don%26#39;t have to pay for meter parking and we were able to find spots to park in several different locations with not alot of trouble. We did two house tours which I highly recommend. My favorite of the two was the Nathaniel Russell House. Start your visit by going to the Charleston Visitors Center first where you can get all kind of info. Don%26#39;t bother buying the all-day bus passes. We made that mistake, and never ended up using them! The City Market is wonderful and alot of fun...a ton of stands in the market and shops along the street next to it...make sure you don%26#39;t miss this. The sweetgrass baskets are sold here...they are beautiful but very expensive. On our last day in Charleston, we spent the morning at the Boone Hall Plantation. We choose this one because it was very close to where we were staying and the cost was the most reasonable. It is very nice and the endless row of oak trees is well worth seeing. Plus, they filmed alot of the movie The Notebook here which is my daughter%26#39;s favorite so we had to of course see it! You get a tour of the house, a ride through the plantation, and a talk on the the Slave Street all for one price...some of the other plantations charge separate prices for everything. Since we only had a short amount of time to visit a plantation, it was a good choice.';

I agree with most of what that post said about Boone Hall but have to laugh about the bridge! My first thought is - thank goodness s/he didn%26#39;t visit when we had the old bridge - now that was intimidating! With the bridge comment in mind - it does not have a steep grade (it%26#39;s a popular walking/biking bridge) and it%26#39;s only about 2-ish miles long and high enough that container ships can go underneath with a decent amount of clearance. It is architecturally beautiful and a beautiful contrast to everything old and historic in the city. Nothing to worry about and delightful that there is no toll!

We were there a couple weeks ago and the only plantation we stopped at was Boone Hall. It was gorgeous! The drive in is amazing and the house is beautiful.

That being said - it was disappointing! The ';plantation'; is not original, its been rebuilt and refurnished. It is a beautiful house, but you aren%26#39;t allowed to take pictures because the owner still uses the house and won%26#39;t allow it. The gardens are beautiful, but again, not original to the plantation and are quite new from what the tour guide explained. The best part of the trip was the Gullah Theater - really, really enjoyed that show!

I didn%26#39;t research much into Boone Hall before going, and that was my fault - I saw that North and South had been filmed there and saw the amazing drive and wanted pictures of that...but unfortunately, I feel we didn%26#39;t get to see a ';real'; plantation. I%26#39;d pick one of the others before here!

The new Ravenel Bridge to Mt Pleasant is an engineering marvel and a work of art. The bridge is breathtaking - but in the GOOD way, and not in the intimidating way.

We frequently drive visitors from Kiawah to Mt Pleasant just so they can experience the bridge. Driving over the bridge is especially spectacular in the early evening, when the bridge is illuminated and the sun has just set.

I recently noticed that time-lapse photos of the bridge%26#39;s construction were being used as background to a advertisement for a new, futuristic, hybrid automobile.