St Pete's advice?

[lisaj]

Hi, planning a trip to ORLANDO and St Pete's and looking for info and advice. Really want to know has anyone been recently, Tradewinds Grand Resort in particular.
Safety of resort and shopping information also required.
Finally, restaurants and dolphin cruises. Any comments would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Goofyish]

Been a while since we went to St.Pete's Beach but I seem to remember there was a 'Dolphin Village Shopping Mall between the Don Caesar Hotel (big pink one) and the Trade Winds.

 

[MorningGlory]

Hi Lisa, we are going to St Pete's beach for the day next Saturday, i'll let you know what kind of cruises, etc are available at the beach afterwards.

 

[poohmadmum]

We stayed at Tradewinds Grand Island for four days last year and really enjoyed our stay. The hotel is right on a white sand beach. You can take a water trike out in the sea which was fun. There is a large inflatable water slide on the beach although you do pay for this. There seemed to be plenty of activities on site and a kids club although we didn't use these. The room we had was quite large and clean with a sea view and balcony. It also had a fridge and toaster which was very useful.

There are shops and restaurants in the area and the Dolphin Village has a supermarket, pharmacy etc. You can also book dolphin watching cruises or shell island trips from here. We did the dolphin watch cruise one afternoon which was lovely and relaxing and very hot although cold drinks were provided on the boat. We did walk there and it took a while can't remember how long possibly about 20 mins but you could drive.

 

[lisaj]

Goofyish Thanks for that, don't suppose you can remember what sort of shops there were?
MorninggloryI'd really appreciate the information please. Enjoy your day, wish I was closer to arriving.
poohmadmum The kids clubs don't really appeal to us but we are interested in the shops and restaurants. We have booked a water view room. Glad to hear the rooms were clean and a reasonable size.
Thank you all for your quick replies.

 

[eyoreaud]

Hi Lisa,

Stayed at Tradewinds in 2004, as has been said before it's right on the beach and is idealy situated for you to have a walk around if you don't want to drive. There are shops inside the hotel and they are not bad, the shopping in general won't win any awards though, mostly touristy stuff, although i may have missed them, there was a good christmas shop called Kringles i think, it was owned by an Irish couple and they were very nice, in fact there were a lot of Irish themed bars and restaurants in and around St Petes and were all fab.

The hotel itself is very nice and the rooms (we had a suite) were spotless and quite modern with plenty of room and internet access in the rooms.

Theres a fab ice cream shop just up the road, it's run by an elderly man and his family and is scrummy! sorry i cannot remember the name of it
Just outside the Holiday inn (a round hotel that we were supposed to stay in but was filthy! so got swapped to Tradewinds just next to it)theres an old silver campervan that's actually a diner, it serves the BEST cornbread i have ever tasted!

We were booked for the Dolphin cruise but it got cancelled because there was a storm (the tail end of a hurricane) that lasted a couple of days. so cannot help with this.

The Dali museum is supposed to be good and the Clearwater aquarium is good for a couple of hours.

If i think of anything else i'll let you know

 

[Goofyish]

Dolphin Village info:

http://www.dolphinbeach.com/dolphin-village.htm

 

[JohnnySharp2]

The best shopping mall by a mile in the St.Pete's area is Tyrone Square, or at least it was a couple of years ago when we last visited.

Tyrone Square Mall
6901 22nd Avenue N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33710
727-347-3889

Macy's and Dillard's department stores and a large Food Court, a 6-cinema movieplex and more than 170 speciality shops.

http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=135

 

[lisaj]

Eyoreaud Thanks for all the information, just what I was looking for. I will definitely head for the ice-cream store.
GoofyishandJohnnysharp2Thanks for the links, going to have a good look at both of them now.
Thanks again for the help

 

[Ware Bears]

We stayed at St Pete for a few days in March and had a wonderful time. We went on a dolphin watching trip with Dolphin Landings just behind Dolphin Village. This was such a relaxing way to spend the afternoon and the crew were all great and even let everyone have a go at sailing the boat!

We also caught the trolleybus up to Clearwater and visited Clearwater Aquarium where there is a lovely little dolphin called Winter who has lost her tail but is making remarkable progress.

We loved St Pete, even though we live less than 2 miles from the beach it's not the same as waking up and being able to step out of your hotel on those lovely white sands and the sunsets were fabulous.

BTW, a great place to eat is Crabby Bill's, great food and atmosphere.

 

[Andy Lou & Meg]

We went to Tradewinds Grand Island in 2005. It was wonderful great service, complex, people, rooms etc (and their is a restautant about 5 min walk away called Skidders that does a great breakfast). If I ever go back to St Petes I would not stay anywhere else. I

 

[lisaj]

Thank you for your replies, you have really helped.