September trip to St. Pete Beach
For dh’s 40th birthday, we took a quick weekend trip to St. Pete Beach. For those of you who know me well, know that my husband has been trying to get me to move to Florida practically since we met. I can’t say I blame him. Every time I go down there I’m reminded of how beautiful it is. How much slower the pace of life is. How nice people are. But then I snap back to reality and realize this is where my job is. I have at least another 7.5 years to go at work. Anyway, we had a good flight on Jet Blue, under 3 hours. Slight turbulence. It was quick to get rental car from Enterprise. Once we were in the lot they tried to upsell insurance and a bigger vehicle. We declined and drove to the hotel. We stayed at the Sirata. We arrived just before 11am and were able to get right into our room. #1511. It was a nice room with 2 doubles or queens, not sure. It was clean. There was a fridge and safe in room. The room was overlooking one of the pools. The only thing that would be better is if we had a balcony. Our first stop was to CVS and Publix (their grocery store chain). We got some sun lotion, a few other things, spiked seltzer, water and pretzels. We went to the beach which was beautiful and fairly empty. It hit almost 90 degrees. The ocean water is like a bath, so beautiful. That’s another plus for Florida. The ocean at home is like an ice bath…no thank you. I have to be sweating bullets to poke my toes in the ocean at home. The hotel offers free loungers on the beach but you have to pay $20 if you want an umbrella. No thanks. We went to have lunch at Rum Runners. We split a cuban sandwich with fries and had beers. It was very tasty. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. We went in about 6pm to shower. We tried to go to Agave for dinner and they are closed until 9/23. So bummed! So we tried a different Mexican restaurant.
Grand Hacienda: We were seated right away. Dh got the house margarita for $5 and I got a corona. We ordered the table side guac. It was very good. Dh had the street tacos. He got one carne asada, one chorizo and one carnitas. He liked them. I had the beef enchiladas rojas, not good at all. They tasted burnt. My dinner came with beans and rice. The beans were decent. We got the churros for dessert. Those were very good. They came with ice cream and whipped cream. Pics are above. Then we went up to Spinners for a view and over to Rum Runners for a drink before bed.