A Great Place for a Family Beach Vacation

I recently made mention on my Texas Cruise and Travel Facebook Page that I spent a few days in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area of Florida as a guests of some of the area hotels and Rob Price of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. This region is located on the Gulf of Mexico side of Florida and is characterized by its white sand beaches which are some of the most beautiful in the country.

I will tell you up front that if your looking for a Spring Break atmosphere this IS NOT the place for you. However, if you are looking for a great place for a family beach vacation it may well be one of the best kept secrets in vacation travel. Hotels, are well appointed and more importantly, as a rule are children friendly. You need to keep in mind that while you can have alcohol on the beach you may not take it off of the resort at which you are staying's beach or property.

While in the area I had an opportunity to visit a number of properties that I believe would be perfect for a family vacation regardless of how your family is put together. All of these properties are located on Gulf Boulevard in St. Pete Beach and all of the properties I will mention have their own beach areas. So, whether your staying in one of the large properties like the Trade Winds or its more quaint neighbor, the Post Card Inn, your going to have access to a marvelous beach. Since God made the beaches I will not give any credit for them to the hotels. Just understand that all of the hotels have great beaches.

The largest, and in my view the most upscale of the hotels was the TradeWinds Island Grand Beach Resort. It is a complete resort with all the amenities you would expect from a 4+ star hotel. But, because I have a grand niece who has Asperger's I was excited to from Karen Lumpkin that this resort welcomes these children.

Not only are the welcome there but the resort provides programs for them as well. Here is a place where families with Autistic children can have a family vacation without being constantly concerned about that special needs child disrupting other guests. For me, this was a big plus. Great facilities, great food, and great service to go with a great beach.

Another really nice property is the Sirata Beach Resort. This is another fairly large property and according to Stephanie Alexander is privately owned. The rooms are well appointed and designed so that you could do much of your meal preparation right in the room. These a large and spacious rooms with multiple outlets for all your electronic devices. The TradeWinds has all the amenities you'd expect at a 3-4 star property. This is one of the few really nice properties that according to



The Sirata has a great stand alone dinning facility called the Compass Grille. If it's on the menu I really do recommend the shrimp tortellini. Actually, while the menu is limited the food is excellent and you don't need to stay at the resort to eat there.

A third resort that I was impressed by was the Post Card Inn on the Beach. It was not so much the facility itself that got my attention as it was the people working there. I could not help but notice as I walked the property a n umber of employees who were physically or mentally challenged. In speaking with Diane Dove I learned that it was part of the resort's employment policy to include on their staff a number of these kinds of people. This, for me was a big plus for me. It is the kind of social conscious thinking I'd like to see across the industry.


The facility itself is not as up-to-date as the previously mentioned properties. The property calls itself a boutique property and I guess it is. However, to me at least,  it appears to be more like a very large motel on the beach. Rooms are nice, comfortable, fairly well appointed and affordable. It is a great place for a very active family. Again, it has everything you need for a family beach vacation. In fact, of all the properties I visited this one had the best beach of them all.  In fact, I had breakfast on the beach at the Post Card Inn and must say I was not disappointed.

Truth is a tasted the food at all three of these properties and was not disappointed at a single one. All of them offer dine-in opportunities and have facilities (rooms) that allow you to do some meal preparation on your own. They all have pools and beach bars and food huts. Like I said, any one of these three properties would make a great family beach vacation headquarters.

But there is more to the area than just beaches, as if that were not enough. There are museums such as the Salvador Dali Museum and the Chihuly Collection. Both make for an interesting break from the beach.



There is one other thing that I recommend that you do as a special event during your stay in the area. I highly recommend the Starlight Sapphire Dinning Yacht. I did a two hour luncheon/site seeing cruise and was not disappointed. While the billing said luncheon the mean was more like dinner. It was outstanding and as good as any I've had elsewhere and I have done the dinner cruises in Galveston, New Orleans, Sydney and at half the islands of the Caribbean. The price was reasonable for the meal and excursion.