Trip Report - March/April 2025

[Noreen411]

We have Nothing Bundt Cakes in our area. If you sign up with them you get a free bundtlet on your bday. We've tried them, but I think they use the cream cheese icing and I'm not a fan unfortunately.
We have stayed in Staybridge Suites several times on road trips and mostly they've been nice. A few could've been better.
We eat at Longhorn in Colorado. And recently tried the one in Kissimmee near WDW. Consistently very good. Sorry to hear you were ignored, that is rude! We would've left too and we have in the past for that kind of treatment.
Lulu's looked fun!!

Hi. I googled and see that there is a Nothing Bundt Cakes in Paramus, NJ (maybe 30 minutes away from us); that’s also the town where one of our favorite local restaurants, Biagio’s, is. Maybe we’ll have to take a quick detour and try the local Nothing Bundt Cakes soon.

Staybridge was a decent hotel. We prefer a bit of room to spread out rather than a standard hotel room when we can find it.

The first time we tried Longhorn I think in either North or South Carolina on one of our drives home, it was great. We’ve now gone to a few different ones. The food is pretty consistent but we’ve found the service hit or miss. This one in AL was the worst service yet where we were completely ignored.

Lulu’s totally made up for how we were ignored in Longhorn.

 

[Noreen411]

Following along for another great trip report!

Thank you

 

[Noreen411]

Monday 3/17/25
We both went to the hotel gym about 6. We purposely look for hotels with 24 hour gyms. This gym was a bit larger than some of the other hotel gyms we’ve used. They didn’t have gym towels readily available so we stopped at the front desk to get a few.

 

[Noreen411]

Monday 3/17/25 Continued
We did our normal morning routine a bit out of order today and went to the hotel breakfast right after our workout, stopping to wash our hands from touching all the gym equipment.

There was a very nice setup with hot and cold items, both soda and juice machines, and I loved the waffle maker. We were there right around when they opened so they were still putting a few things out. These included breakfasts in a hotel isn’t a deal breaker if they don’t have it, but it’s really nice when they do.










My breakfast was the cute waffles I made in the waffle maker. My syrup is on the side; I prefer to dip into condiments and don’t like my food covered/soggy. Another little food quirk of mine.


Scott’s breakfast plate with a few items from the various areas.

 

[Noreen411]

Monday 3/17/25
After breakfast we went to our room to shower and get dressed. On our way out we stopped at the front desk to let them know the drain in the shower was very slow and could someone take a look at it/fix it.

Since this was an extra day in Alabama as our original plan didn’t have us arriving until later tonight, we started out driving to Mobile Alabama and went to the USS Alabama Battleship.

We had a lot of fun exploring.

 

[Noreen411]

Monday 3/17/25 Continued
We drove to Big Daddy’s Grill for lunch. This was also recommended to us. When we got there it looked like a dive and we almost didn’t go in.


We took a chance and went in and are really glad we did. The place was very cute and welcoming. You could sit outside along the water or inside. We ate inside not being a fan of eating outside with bugs and stuff. The waitress was great at explaining things on the menu. We learned about a new fish called Triple Tail, which was the special fish of the day. The waitress described it as a light flaky white fish.


We shared our food as we like to do.

They had the blue crab claws here that Scott wanted to try at Lulu’s and the waitress suggested the kids order of it so we can try it but it won’t be too much. It came with hush puppies. These were very tasty. So were the hush puppies.


We also ordered the Make Your Own basket with fried shrimp and grilled triple tail. This came with fries and hush puppies, and we told them to hold the Cole slaw. We were really impressed with the Triple Tail; it was delicious.



We shared the fried apple pie dessert which was OK. It kind of reminded me of the Apple Pies you used to get at McDonald’s in the little cardboard sleeve.


Guess this really shows that you can’t judge a book by its cover. We almost skipped Big Daddy’s Grill but are really glad we decided to give it a try. My only complaint is that the seats are hard.

 

[Noreen411]

Monday 3/17/25
We spoke to the realtor confirming our plans for tomorrow.

We drove around a bit exploring some different areas.

We drove to Gulf State Park Beach. We enjoy walking along the beach and spent some time here walking along the water. There were a lot of groups with photographers doing family type pictures.





Later we drove to Lulu’s to go to their arcade and play some games


For dinner we planned to go to De Soto, another restaurant that was recommended to us, but when we got there we weren’t really in the mood for it. We also weren’t super hungry after our big lunch.

We decided to head back to Lulu’s and sat at the bar.


Scott had a Martini and I had a Pirate Princess


We shared the Pa Menna burger with the sauce on the side; this was very good. Scott also wanted to try the Gouda grits which he liked; I thought they were a weird consistency, but I think it’s just the consistency of grits.


We didn’t have dessert as we were too full. We really enjoyed Lulu’s

Back at the hotel, we watched a movie, Suicide Squad, before going to bed.