My friends and I took a frontier airline flight down to the Tampa Airport. Frontier is a discount airline flight and everyone seems to have different experiences with them. We figured that we would risk it and without any of us having to be at work the day after coming back, we were okay with the risk involved. We flew out of Cleveland Hopkins, which is usually an easy airport to navigate. After clearing security, we made our way to our gate and sat to enjoy some conversation between us until boarding.
**Just a warning, Frontier does make you pay for baggage and any other "luxury" upgrades. Need extra leg room? They'll charge. Want to be seated with friends or family? They charge. The pilots and staff were extremely friendly, and the flight was smooth. We were also willing to accept the up-charge because they were still one of the cheapest flights.
Once in Tampa, our flight came in later in the evening (I believe 8pm), and after waiting 40 minutes for our luggage, which is the only complaint we had with Frontier, we caught a shuttle to our hotel in St. Pete Beach, about forty minutes away. They charged us 40 dollars to take the shuttle, but it was the quickest way without taking a taxi. Uber and Lyft are not allowed to pick up from the Tampa Airport, so if you are traveling here, please don't rely on them. In Cleveland, we are big fans of Uber. Not every city carries them, and not every city has the same laws regarding companies like Uber and Lyft so please be aware wherever you are heading.
We stayed at the Plaza Beach Hotel on the water. It was one of the more inexpensive hotels in the area. We weren't very concerned with having anything more than a place to sleep so not having a ton of amenities was okay with us. However, it did have private beach access, a pool and a blow dryer. We were in business! We were also very pleasantly surprised upon arrival at the cleanliness of the rooms, the space, and what was offered to us for the price.
As shown in the pictures above, you can see we had a suite hotel room. It offered two beds, a pull out couch, and a small kitchenette. It was extremely nice, especially since there is a Walgreens across the way that we did light grocery shopping at. They even provided the pots and pans, and any kitchen necessities. The only thing that we did have issues with in this place was the bathroom being on the smaller side. Three women, small bathroom? It was fine and fortunately enough, we are all good enough friends that we can share!
After getting checked in and settled, we braved the rain (It rained three out of our four days there) to land at a small local dive called the Drunken Clam. If you're into drinking and lots of it, this is the place for you. The drinks were strong and cheap, the staff was fun and friendly. Can't get better. We loved this place so much we ended up here every night of our stay.
We did do some exploring while here, but it ended up being cold while we were visiting. By cold, I mean around 65 every day. It also was accompanied by wind and clouds, even rain at times. We tried to find things in a beach town to keep us entertained while we couldn't visit the beach. We did find a few things. Something we all loved about St. Pete Beach is the free taxi service. We made sure to tip well, around $5-10 for different trips depending on the length.
We went to John's Pass Village for some local shopping. It was very touristy and "beach town" with their shoppes. We did get some awesome ice cream there! It however isn't very large, and I think we were only able to stay in the area for shopping for around two hours. Every store had what you'd expect - t-shirts, sweatshirts, towels, etc about Treasure Island and St. Pete Beach.
One place we did enjoy going for the food, staff and live music was Jimmy B's. We also took a moment to walk through the resort, which looked gorgeous as well. It was a nice night when we went there, so we walked along the beach and bar hopped around. Mongo's was another favorite.
Courtyard at the Beachcomber Hotel
This is the walkway out to the ocean at Jimmy B's.
Live stage
Three girls at Mongo's
We are at Mongo's. They also had large heat lamps - we loved this aspect on the chilly nights. They had an awesome beach front bar.
My group of girls at the Drunken Clam. Loved this place.
So, we were clearly not dressed for a chilly time in Florida. None of us brought jeans, sweatshirts, or jackets except the ones we came on the plane in. My advice for someone traveling to St. Pete at this time of the year would be, make sure you come prepared for all types of weather.
Another place that I would say is cannot miss while here is going to Pass-a-grille beach and the historic area. We didn't realize this was here until our last day so we didn't get much time to explore, and I wish we had. The beach there was gorgeous. It is on the far end of the peninsula, so faces the Gulf of Mexico, and the beach there is even more beautiful than on the rest of the peninsula. So just by traveling down a mile or two, it was completely worth it.
Beautiful white sand beaches here!
On the way back home, we flew out in the evening and were supposed to land back in Cleveland around 11. Our flight was delayed by around 20 minutes, which put us in right around 11:30. Frontier airlines had the same issue on our trip back that it did on our trip there - it didn't send out our baggage for approximately 45 minutes. Since this was New Years Eve, we spent our midnight in the airport. However, we were extremely happy that we got a chance to spend a few days relaxing on the beach, even if it was quite cloudy and cool. Landing back in Cleveland, we had a few inches of snow already and some much cooler temperatures. I would definitely recommend a trip to St. Pete Beach if you are looking for a relaxing vacation without many tourist attractions within a twenty minute radius. I'm sure everyone is aware that Florida is littered with other tourist attractions, so having one spot where you can focus on the beach is great.
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