On a Friday a couple of weeks ago, I was tired of being home and tired of the heat. If it has to be hot, then let’s head to the beach. Instead of looking for a place on the Atlantic coast as we’ve often done, I decided to try to find somewhere on the Florida panhandle. I admit, I have certain prejudices about the panhandle that generally keep me away, but I figured we’d try something new.
I had really hoped to find a hotel with a pool with great water slides for the kids, but, giving the little time I had, I was not successful. I did find us a fairly reasonably priced room at the Holiday Inn Resort: Panama City Beach. Based on the reviews I read at TripAdvisor and elsewhere, the “resort” sounded like it might be a little out of date, but also that it would be a casual place for us to spend a weekend at the pool and at the beach with the kids.
I reserved our room at 11am, but we had to wait until 4pm for Rob to get home. By the time he had packed, and we had hit the road, it was getting late. Thank goodness for the time change — we arrived in PCB (that’s not “printed circuit boards” as Rob had initially thought) around 10pm. Checkin was smooth; the girls were given plastic wristbands and we were given elastic ones. Our room was on the tacky side, but honestly, I wasn’t there for the room. Every room is ocean front, but that late at night we couldn’t yet tell what a gorgeous view of the gulf waters was just outside our windows!
The room had a full-sized fridge, two queen beds, some chairs and a desk. I loved sitting at the desk, looking out over the beach while working! The outside deck was nice, but it was HOT and the AC units were LOUD — loud enough to obliterate any wave sound that might have been heard otherwise.
Rob and the girls headed right to the pool while I unpacked and took advantage of the free and steady wifi. I had a poor 3G signal in the room, but the wifi was nice and strong.
I’m not sure the pool every opened or closed. There were no lifeguards on duty, and we saw practically every pool rule broken. Despite that, the pool was fun for everyone. People took care to not infringe on others’ enjoyment, respecting the hard earned vacation of everyone there.
The beach was lovely; the sand soft and the colors of the gulf were amazing. I wish the seaweed had been a little less omnipresent along the beach. Once we swam out past the seaweed to shallow sandbars, we were able to really enjoy the waves and the water, however.
We did not eat in the hotel. The prices were, in my opinion, far to exhorbitant. We found a bagel shop down the street and a pizza place nearby. We also stopped at the Publix and bought plenty of provisions to store in our full-sized fridge. I, as usual, brought my own coffee and filters for the tiny in-room coffee pot.
The girls liked the toddler waterplay area, and Chloe LOVED the hula hoop contest. If we hand’t been so tired after a day in the sun and water, I’m sure we would have loved watching the movie playing on the pool deck in the late evening.
Overall, I found the hotel a wonderful place to getaway with the family, as long as we were willing to “rough it” in terms of food and amenities. From looking online and at the tourist info, we saw that there are many things to do in the area, but this trip, well, this trip was all about not rushing about, but simply enjoying the pool, beach and family.
(Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed while we were there, and I lost most of my photos of our stay.)
