Day 13 - Beach Day

[**Leigh_11_22**]

Here is a link to my pre-trip report and previous days:

Index - Pre-trip report and previous days

We had a bit of a lie in today and woke with no alarms at about 8:30am. We were off to Clearwater for two days of fun in the sun. I spent a while packing mine and Aaron's things and then got a cool box together.

We had decided to take drinks with us to the beach to save on having to find shops every time we needed something. I filled the box with cans of pop, loads of frozen bottles of water and small chocolates and crisps etc.

All sorted and we hit the road at 9:45. Our first stop was Denny's for some breakfast. Our waitress was lovely and soon enough we had all ordered big yummy American breakfasts.





However, once we had our food she was nowhere to be seen! I really needed another drink, as did Aaron. It took her 20 minutes to get to us once we had finished eating! We asked for a drink for Aaron and myself as we were really thirsty and also for the bill. Well the bill arrived but still no drinks! I was seriously annoyed at this point because more than anything she was waiting our valuable beach time! I gave up in the end, paid the bill and left the minimum tip with a sad face in the tip section of the receipt!

Moan over! Off we head for the beach! The journey took roughly an hour and a half in total and was really boring. All was running smoothly until we hit road works around Tampa.





We were held up for a short time but were soon running smoothly again. Soon enough we had seen the sea and were at Clearwater. We were staying at the beautiful Hyatt Regency hotel and soon spotted it! It's enormous!

The hotel has a huge multi-storey car park attached to it so we parked up in there.

We headed down to reception with our bits and Tom signed his life away. We headed up to our room and it was amazing! It was big and clean and really modern. We had a full size fridge and freezer, the bathroom was lovely and the room had a big TV too. I loved it and would happily spend a week there, not that we could afford it. However, for one night we got a really good rate from Asda of all people and having seen the room the £140 seems to practically be a bargain!

We unpacked a little and got our swim stuff together. The beach was right on our doorstep and soon enough we were marvelling at the white sand and beautiful view.





We had a really lazy afternoon. We had our snacks that I'd brought with us and I was so happy to have all of those cold drinks at hand.





Aaron paddled in the sea for a while and then made friends with another boy called Elliot who was bored because his brother was in the sea body boarding all day! They played on and off and shared some sweets.

Tom and Samantha had naps in the afternoon while I read and simply sat and watched Aaron play. I really had a wonderful afternoon just taking it all in and trying to appreciate it.







After a while Tom took Aaron off for a walk and I had a little time to myself to read. When they came back they had buckets and spades and had some slushes too. The weather was really pleasant today and there was a constant lovely breeze. Aaron and Tom played in the sea and we all made sand castles.



We called it a day at about 4pm and headed back to the room. Tom is crazy so went off to the gym! The rest of us chilled out and cooled down as we had really caught the sun today, that'll be that lovely breeze lulling us in to a false sense of security. Oops.











We got showered and dressed and headed out for drinks. We weren't sure where we were going to go and saw a sign in the hotel for a rooftop bar so off we trotted! Samantha nipped up to the spa on the way and booked a massage for tomorrow.

The bar as up by the pool and was very fortunately for us on happy hour. We had such a lovely hour up here. We had corona, wine and cocktails.



















There was a dart board which Aaron made good use of too. We had such a wonderful view of the magnificent sunset. It was beautiful to watch and we got some of my favourite holiday photos here.



Once the bar closed we headed out to get some dinner. I'd scoured the Dibb of course and we decided on Frenchies which was just a minute down the beach from the Hyatt. We were seated straight away and soon had beers and cocktails in our hands.

The actual restaurant was more of a beach cafe and we loved it. Tom ordered crab claws and loved them! The three of us had some variations on prawn linguini and garlic bread. It was all so fresh and delicious and very reasonably priced too.



Samantha and Aaron headed back while we enjoyed another drink.
We wandered back via some beach gift shops. We were soon tucked up in our lovely big beds, happy, relaxed and really feeling like we were on holiday.

[mick]

A lovely day at the beach

Joan

[Jesslydevie1]

Another great day ,don't you just love clearwater .

[Redrach1903]

What a lovely chilled out day at the beach!

Gosh you and your sister are so alike! I can hardly tell you apart! Thank god Sam has that braid now Haha!

Gorgeous sunset pics!

xx