My Visit Review (5/18-5/25)

[stuckinohio86]

Originally Posted by cmjones311

Just got back from a week in your area yesterday. And like 99.9% of visitors, had to be brought back kicking and screaming!

I just wanted to give a quick review of my thoughts for those who may be interested.

The first 5 nights we stayed at the Best Western Bay Harbor, right off Courtney Campbell. The last 2 nights we stayed at Holiday Inn Clearwater Beach. We made a bad choice with the Best Western, location wise, for what we were looking for. I wanted a water view, but didn't want to pay the crazy hotel rates on the Gulf for an entire week, so I thought that a bay view would be fine. It was a really nice hotel, but unfortunately for us, we felt like we spent way too much time driving, since we wanted to see everything from Ft DeSoto all the way up to Palm Harbor, mainly Pinellas County. Next time, I think we'd like to stay right in Madeira Beach.

So, we spent time at Ft Desoto, Madeira Beach, downtown St. Pete, St Pete Beach, Clearwater Beach, Dunedin, Honeymoon Island, and Palm Harbor, mostly. Drove through a lot of places just to get a feel for what we'd like and what we wouldn't, as far as moving down there in the next few years.

Our favorite beach by far was Ft Desoto. The water was calm, and I could go in past my thighs and still see my toes clearly. I was surprised that we preferred it over Honeymoon Island, with all the hype over Honeymoon. But the water wasn't as clear at Honeymoon, and I couldn't even see my toes clearly in water up to my knees. It was also a little bit rougher, which made shelling hard when looking at knee depth. Honeymoon was also busier, cost $3 more to enter, and had tons of rocks on the shoreline in several places. The shells also were better at Ft. Desoto.

Our favorite "total beach vacation experience" was Madeira Beach/John's Pass. The boardwalk area at John's Pass was terrific with all the shops and restaurants in a short walking distance. We went parasailing, and were the only people on the boat, for $60pp.

Our favorite breakfast restaurant was the Beach Shanty Cafe in Clearwater Beach. The portions were HUGE and cost was low. The bacon was fabulous ;-) The eggs benedict at the Frog Pond in St Pete Beach was excellent, but overall, we weren't happy with that breakfast experience. My BF got the bacon waffles, and neither the waffles nor the syrup had any flavor at all. And strangely enough, the chocolate milk also had no flavor at all. My only guess is that perhaps they have homemade syrup and chocolate? I don't know, it was really weird.

We ate at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, and let me tell you, the filet mignon was the best steak I've ever experienced in my entire life! It was so unbelievably tender that I could cut it with a butter knife, and it sliced through like it was actually going through butter! We dressed up nicely, and were rather disappointed that people had no regard for attire at such a nice/fancy place. Saw people in shorts and tank tops, guys wearing baseball hats, etc.

I had my first Cuban sandwich, and I loved it! Wish I could find them here in Ohio.

The worst experience we had for food was at Cali's on Mandalay. Other than the two of us, there were only 2 other tables, so there was really no excuse for the service we received. First, my order came out wrong. I had asked for cheese to replace the rice and guacamole that came with my meal, and when I brought it to the attention of the man that brought it out to us (not even our waitress!) that they hadn't made the substitution, he said, "This is the way it comes." Um, yeah, I read the menu. But I also asked the waitress for the substitution, and she said no problem. He looked at me like I had asked him to go out to milk the cow and make the cheese himself. After I got my correct order, my boyfriend asked the waitress for some enchilada sauce because his burrito was extremely dry, and 10 minutes later, he still didn't have it. The dingbat waitress had come back and wisked our empty glasses from our table (and was 10 more minutes before we got refills), and brought food out to both other occupied tables (and I heard her saying "I'm sorry" to the other table on several occasions throughout the meal), and we still didn't have any sauce. I walked up to the other woman (hostess? waitress?) and asked for the hot sauce, and she said she'd bring it right to us. As I turned around to go back to the table, our waitress whizzed by me and said, "I asked him to bring it out to you, he must have forgotten!" I'm not quite sure who "he" was, and frankly, didn't care at that point, because SHE was our waitress, so it was up to her to make sure it got done. It was still another 5 minutes before it came out, and since my BF could barely choke it down dry, it was stone cold before he got the sauce to try to make it bearable. The waitress seemed very ditzy and uninterested in her whopping three tables of patrons, and it was just overall a subpar experience. For the very first time in my life, I gave a less than 10% tip, and I wrote on the bill WHY we didn't tip more.

Best service was from Raquel at Crabby's on Clearwater Beach. Top notch server, and she got almost a 40% tip. The place was hopping, and she was head and shoulders above the Cali's waitress that had 3 whole tables of patrons.

We did like the "nightlife" of Clearwater Beach, and loved that we could hang out on the beach after dark. But trying to find a parking space during the day? Forget about it. Beach, streets, and shops too crowded during the day for our taste.

I visited an old co-worker in New Tampa, and we know that we DEFINITELY don't want to live inland that far. Way too far to get to a beach, and seemed very...blah. We also HATED the traffic situation in Tampa proper. My BF drives all over Columbus, OH daily for work, and even he was frustrated. Lots of "Lane ends, merge" signs that didn't give you much time to merge, lots of roads converging randomly, lots of reckless and rude drivers, and not nearly enough speed limit signs, considering how often you were on a different road from all the exits/convergence of roads. I would NOT want to get caught on most of those roads during rush hour.

Most of St Petersburg and Clearwater that we saw was pretty run down :-( Downtown St Pete was pretty nice, reminded me of our Short North here in Columbus. St Pete Beach was a way throwback to 1950's Florida for sure!

I think we narrowed it down to either Palm Harbor, Dunedin or Pinellas Park to live. My company has a location in Palm Harbor, which I would love to be able to transfer to, but that could be a needle in a haystack thing, so I'm going to have my feelers out with other companies in those locations as well. Pinellas Park was super close to our favorite areas of Madeira Beach and Ft. Desoto, and didn't seem as run down as other areas that we'd seen. Dunedin is very cute, Palm Harbor reminds me of the area that I currently work in.

Oh, and bugs in Florida? What bugs? For real. We ate outside every chance we got, and I never saw a fly or a gnat or anything. After driving over 600 miles while we were there, not once did we ever have to turn on the windshield wipers to clean off dead bug gunk. Also, not a single solitary mosquito bite, and mosquitos LOVE me. Is it just not "bug season"?

...and on to WEATHER. I'm a warm weather person. HATE cold with a passion. That said, I do still get hot in Ohio in the summer. In Ohio, the heat feels like you're in a stuffy box being suffocated in the summer when it's 80 degrees. It felt COOLER in Florida at 90 degrees than at 80 degrees in Ohio! At 90 degrees, I was barely breaking a sweat, and the only thing that really bothered me after a long time outside was that I could feel the sun sizzling my skin after a while. The breezes were fabulous, and I think it's a "better" kind of heat in Florida than it is in Ohio. And the "humidity" makes my hair wave very nicely ;-)

Gas is about 30 cents per gallon cheaper than it is in Ohio right now.

People were VERY nice, but drivers were VERY rude.

Overall, we had a fabulous time, and I'm really looking forward to moving there in a couple of years. Have to sell our house first, and then deal with the job situation, so could be another 3 years, but hopefully it will come soon!

Hi. I read your post. Very informative. Anyways I was wondering about the part where you said st Pete is like 1950's Florida. How so? Also did you happen to check out the old northeast or historic kenwood areas? If so, any feedback?

[tiff123]

Originally Posted by cmjones311

Oh, and bugs in Florida? What bugs? For real. We ate outside every chance we got, and I never saw a fly or a gnat or anything. After driving over 600 miles while we were there, not once did we ever have to turn on the windshield wipers to clean off dead bug gunk. Also, not a single solitary mosquito bite, and mosquitos LOVE me. Is it just not "bug season"?

...and on to WEATHER. I'm a warm weather person. HATE cold with a passion. That said, I do still get hot in Ohio in the summer. In Ohio, the heat feels like you're in a stuffy box being suffocated in the summer when it's 80 degrees. It felt COOLER in Florida at 90 degrees than at 80 degrees in Ohio! At 90 degrees, I was barely breaking a sweat, and the only thing that really bothered me after a long time outside was that I could feel the sun sizzling my skin after a while. The breezes were fabulous, and I think it's a "better" kind of heat in Florida than it is in Ohio. And the "humidity" makes my hair wave very nicely ;-)

Gas is about 30 cents per gallon cheaper than it is in Ohio right now.

People were VERY nice, but drivers were VERY rude.

I have to agree with you about the bugs. In New England, you practically inhale a hundred bugs just walking out to your car. And the spiders up there that lurk in the garage are just and huge as anything I've seen down here. I have to believe it is all these cute lizards running around eating them up.

[mary54mi]

Just wait til you visit the more southern beaches, such as Siesta Key Beach. Just beautiful clear calm water. Heard it said the further south you go beaching down the gulf coast the warmer the water and whiter the sand. Am a Midwestern transplant 4.5yrs love it so far.