I was mostly impressed with my first Rock N Roll experience. Savannah is always a fun city to visit and is less than 4 hours drive from Atlanta, making for an easy run-cation. The course was flat as expected, but did include some hills (mostly the highway) that did well to break up the monotony; complete flat tends to wreck my legs after a while. Truthfully, I expected there to be more bands considering this was a "rock n roll" race. I figured there wouldn't be a quiet section of the course but, unfortunately, there were some sections that were lonely (highway again). I've done nonprofit races with more music. However, the music represented was excellent and high quality. If you're a slower marathoner you'll miss the headliner band at the post-race party (I guess they want to grab most of the half marathon and earier marathon finishers for biggest bang); I made it just in time for the last song. In any case, the race accessibility, family friendliness, entertainment, swag, and awesome volunteers make this a worthwhile run-cation.

Pros:
- Expo: easily accessible by car (paid lot) or free ferry from River Street.
- Expo: even Friday, as the busier day, was still controlled, organized, and no long lines
- Course: flat, fast, old Savannah is beautiful, spectators are lively
- Aid stations: every 1.5ish miles, tons of ice cold water and gatorade (always cold even after several hours of a very hot race). Awesome volunteers. Spray stations, sponges.
- Start: if you stay in historic Savannah it's likely you'll be able to walk to the start and from the finish. Anywhere else and you probably have to take a shuttle (free) or park in town (I don't suggest this - very little street parking on those historic streets). I stayed 1/2 mile between the start and finish and this was great. I can't speak towards the shuttle situation.
- Music: not as much as I hoped, but it was all great quality and fun

Cons:
- No packet pickup for friends/family. Given this was a Saturday race, I had some friends that had a hard time getting to the expo before it closed from Atlanta, leaving after work. They do not allow friends/family to pickup packets even with signed confirmations and photo IDs. I was told by a director that this had to do with liability but I find that kind of a hokey excuse considering I've been to many other high security races that had alternative pickup options. They don't advertise this but there is supposed to be an emergency packet pickup on race morning at the start. Luckily my friends made it to the expo 15 minutes before it closed on Friday. The start is very crowded and chaotic; we would have never found the race morning packet pickup in time.
- Course: yes it's flat, but it also includes too many miles on a not flat, not shaded, highway. Boring and painful, especially in the full exposure of 80+ degree sun, with no clouds.
- Music: I've done nonprofit races with more bands/mile
-Start: very crowded and chaotic around the start area. There are supposed "corrals" but there's no actual separation and you can really just start anywhere.
- Finish: pet peeve really, but the jacket pickup for marathoners should really be directly after the finish line chute, not across an open, sunny field. Luckily we remembered to walk over there, but we met people at the hotel that simply never found/remembered the jackets because they weren't obvious where to pickup. Add to the mix people tired and sun baked, it's easy to forget to pickup if it's not right in your path after finishing.