Last week we took a family vacation to St. Pete’s Beach, Florida. This area was hit hard by two hurricanes in the fall (Helene and Milton) but we decided to stick with our plans since the hotels and restaurants that are open surely need the business.
We have been to this area many times (usually Clearwater), but this was our first time visiting in January. I liked dedicating all of December to the holiday season, but it was cooler in January. Our temps were in the low 50’s and 60’s, but we still spent almost every minute outside and had a great time.
Our first day / night we spent at our hotel, having drinks at the beach bar, playing in the sand and wandering down the beach to Salty’s at the Tradwinds. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn - which has super cute boho beach vibes in the lobby and a perfect outdoor space. The boys used the turf all weekend for soccer and football.
Our second day was spent at Legoland. We slept in a bit and then spent the day at the park until closing time. While all the kids had been there before, Brecken was only 3 last time so he had been asking to go again. Ryder isn’t a big ride guy, but the other boys went on pretty much every ride. We had perfect weather for the event and almost no lines. Favorites from the park were the mini Lego city and the 4D couch ride.
We ended the day with dinner and Mastry’s (kids had Culver’s on the 90 minute drive). That place had cool vibes and good food, so we actually went back as a date later in the trip, too :)
On Friday, we departed early for a fan boat tour in Tampa Bay. This was such a cool experience. We had a great guide - with headsets to hear him educate us on the area and local wild life. Throughout the two, we drove in and out of rivers and bays in both shallow and deep water and got out a few times to walk around islands looking at plants, crabs and animal tracks. One thing Shawn & I loved was the soundtrack we could hear through our headsets of the kids chatting and giggling through the entire ride!
We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool, playing on the beach and having dinner and drinks at Coconut Charlie’s listening to live music.
The rest of the weekend was spent playing on the beach, visiting more beach bars for live music, sneaking out for a few dates in the evening, playing mini golf and feeding gators, visiting the bird sanctuary, spending tons of time on the hotel turf watching the kids play games they made up, enjoying everyone go to bed so nicely each night all in one room, laying in hammocks, playing rounds of pool at Sea Dogs, eating alligator at Crabby Bills, having giant bowls of ice cream from Baskin Robbins across the street, lots of walks on the beach, Logan and Shawn running Logan’s first 10k (on the sand)…
Our last day was spent at Life Time Tampa Harbour Island. We played pickle ball, had lunch, had a couple beers and went swimming / sat by the outdoor pool.
We also walked along the river downtown before catching our flight.
Overall, there was much less sunshine than we expected for FL, but we loved the active trip and were truly able to slip into vacation mode right away.
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