Scottishnellies Redundancy Trip Jun18. Day 3. Grand Plaza At St Petes Beach, Bongos

[scottishnellie]

We were all exhausted so no alarms set and the plan was to sleep as long as we needed, have breakfast then decide what to do before moving to St Petes.

I of course woke up at 4am as usual. I lay there desperately trying to close my eyes but nope. That was it. Wide awake. So I got my phone out and started on the trip report I was too tired to do last night. Tried to answer some questions too. I love when people leave comments and questions and am happy to answer what I can but I feel guilty that I don't reply to every comment, or if it takes me a day or two to have time to answer questions or private messages. I do appreciate every single comment. It fair spurs you on to keep writing when you know folk are interested.

When it got to 6am I felt I could maybe sleep again so off I went 😴. Next thing I know I can hear kieran up and about and Kevin speaking to him. Dozed off again then could feel kieran ^accidentally' bumping my foot. After 10 minutes of me ignoring him he comes right up to my face and says ^Mum, when can we go for something to eat? It's one o'clock in the afternoon and I'm starvin' I nearly had a heart attack til I pressed the button on my phone ^no Kieran it's five past eight! ' 😡. But that was me awake so I got up and got ready and took kieran along to the lounge for breakfast.

Whilst there checking Facebook my cousin Frances let me know she is off to Florida next year with her family so we chatted back n forth a bit. She is booked to stay in RPR but not club level so I was trying to explain the benefits and directed her to the dibb. I also said I would do lots of breakfast photos in today's report so here they come

Yesterday Mortimer Mouse asked me to try to find out what the meal offerings were each night. I'm chuffed to have played a blinder here! I had a chat with the girl and she printed them out for me. It's a 5 day rolling menu for the whole summer so I have written the dates so far and you would need to count forward to see what you get on your dates. Handy eh?

Hannah turned up for breakfast after about 20mins with Kevin close behind her. We discussed here what everyone wanted to do as we could go to the parks (no Mum we've done everything) go to the hotel pool (nah) or go to Walmart then set off for St Petes (yay Walmart!) so that was the plan. Once everyone was nice n full we went back to the room and got our bags ready to leave.

Checked out using the phone in the room as per the email I had from the hotel this morning and down to the car.

The nearest Walmart was turkey lake road where we picked up a body board for kieran, a bikini and sunglasses for Hannah and caps for them both so they would be beach ready 😎.

Kieran had fun looking at all the nonsense stuff. I mean honestly where else can you just pick up a massive hairy monster head? !

$90 down (but with no monster head) I set Waze for the drive to St Petes and off we went. We always use the waze app for satnav both at home and in Florida. It was now noon.

$90 down (but with no monster head) I set Waze for the drive to St Petes and off we went. We always use the waze app for satnav both at home and in Florida. It was now noon.

I use this wee magnetic mount thing I got off the internet for the phone to sit. Works a treat.

On the way there the skies in front were dark and miserable and then the rain and lightening started! Yeah - maybe we won't be needing that body board!

As we got to St Petes the skies got a bit lighter. Found the hotel no problem, parked and went to check in desk. This was busy and a bit slow.

She took our details, checked us in confirming we had paid the room and still had to pay $31.64 per night resort fee which gives you the following

she said our room wasn't ready yet (it was 2:30 now and checkin officially 4pm) but they would call us when it was. She did say they can't always reach the international mobiles so if we got no call to just return at 4pm. She gave me a little card to show the beach dude to get our cabana / chairs. They gave us a parking voucher to place on our car dash.

We went out to the car to do this and picked up the 2 beach bags I had packed. We cut back through the hotel and out the back into the beach, passing the famous Bongos on the way

I had the wee card but he just asked my surname and looked up a list, saying ^helen?^ I choose beds and brolly as the cabanas looked very sheltered from the breeze so looked warmer. This was perfect as although baking hot the shade and breeze made it comfortable.

Kieran was straight into the sea with his board!

Kevin joined him and Hannah and I stretched out in the sun.

Heaven!

You know when you are at the beach and in the water but you get disoriented as the wind and current take you left or right of where you started? Well kieran kept drifting miles south of us but was oblivious to it, so Kevin was keeping an eye on him and was going ^look at him - he'll be down at Anna Maria island in an hour!'

4pm passed and we had no phone call for the room, but I didn't care as It was just so nice and chilled and I was in no hurry to get to the room. But Hannah was, as she wanted 5 hours to have a shower and draw her eyebrows on. So eventually Kevin and I went for the bags and key, leaving the kids on the beach. I had paid for a partial sea view which was exactly what we had and on 4th floor

We had one king size bed and one small bed, slightly bigger than a single but smaller than a double and would definitely be a struggle for either of our HH / KK sleeping combo.

Big bed. Wee bed

So I headed back down and asked if they could add a roll-away bed which they did for $10 a night.

We gave Hannah her key and she went to get ready and us 3 stayed on the beach. It was now 5:10

I headed up to the room at 6pm to shower only to find Hannah hadn't even stepped in the shower yet 😡 let's just say there were many loud Scottish words spoken 😡 eventually we all got showered and ready. Arrived down at Bongos at 7pm and asked for a table on the beach thinking we would have to wait, but were seated at the only free table at the front straight away. Result!

There was a guy playing guitar and singing which was lovely. There were a bunch of eejits/grads at the table behind us (the guy at the table on the other side said ^bunch a punks^) who occasionally used their phones to play ^house^ music. Wasn't like any bloody house music I had ever heard and totally killed the vibe of the guitarist. Thankfully after half an hour it so this stopped. If it hadn't I think I might have had to put my big girl pants on and had a word 🧐

Nonsense over, we had our starters of boneless chicken wings and cheese curds to share, and watched the sun start to dip as the guitarist played.

WOW! Just wow! If I never see another sunset that's fine. God this place is gorgeous 😍. The food took ages which suited us fine.

We had a couple of bacon and turkey sandwiches with fries, crab cakes and fish tacos

In between courses kieran would just go for a wander about the beach. I sank a fair few Bongo Sunsets and Kevin tried a few different beers.

Then I had a banana split cocktail - that was right up my street!

Hannah had white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake which I helped her with coz am such a good mum that way.

We settled the bill and made our way back to the room.

We had planned to eat in Spinners revolving restaurant in the hotel tomorrow. But I can see that being patched for toes in the sand and cocktails again. We will see...

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New Photo Added by scottishnellie - 21 Jun 18 7:04 AM.

[yellowrose78]

What a fab day! That sunset looks amazing, just bliss!

[princess allie]

Great day. Really enjoying your pictures of the Grand Plaza as we are staying there in August for 4 nights. Wish I’d booked a sea view room now.

[jacqui]

Another great day, what an amazing sunset.

[Rescuer]

Lovely day. That beach looks amazing.
Thanks for posting the club level menu.
Enjoy your chill out time.

[JenD1]

What a wonderful day. I could almost feel the relaxation as you rest after a busy couple of days. Fabulous.

[Megandllsmum]

Helen what a great day, nice and chilled and the sunset looks amazing xx

[Nicki G]

What a lovely beach and that sunset - you cannot beat it

[Dutchdisneyfan]

What a lovely day!
My kids are 10 and 11, so it's nice to see a glimp in the future. How it's like going to Florida with proper teens