The Vacation Blog!

Day 1 (Saturday August 23, 2008)

We’re off! A quick stop at the CVS and we are on our way south. I do feel a little sad because I am going to miss the game tomorrow night at the new stadium, but it will be cool to see it on TV. Also, we know we are heading into the teeth of TS Fay. The bitch has just been sitting over the northern part of FL for days and shows no signs of leaving. From what I’ve seen on The Weather Channel the whole week is going to be a wash. I’m not in a particularly good mood about going because of that. Linda on the other hand is ready to get there and so we go.

We make pretty good time for the bulk of the trip. Before stopping for gas and lunch in Franklin, TN we were even getting nearly 26 mpg in the Escape. Eventually that would go down to nearly 24, but still more than a mile per gallon more than I was expecting.

We had a nice lunch at the Cracker Barrel and got some excellent peanut brittle. We’re stopping on the way back for more of that! I told Linda we had to do the Cracker Barrel and the Waffle House if nothing else on the trip. One down, one to go!

We stop for gas south of Birmingham and the rains have started. The farther south we drive, the worse it gets. By the time we hit Montgomery it is a full blown storm. Google’s directions suck and we take some twisty 2-laners from Troy, AL to Panama City Beach. Normally I wouldn’t mind but there was so much water on the road that I was hydroplaning all over the place and visibility sucked ass.

Finally we hit FL and the weather seemed to break a little. We listened to the NASCAR race and drove into PCB. That last 16 miles was grueling. I was so ready to get there and it just seemed to take forever.

Finally we arrived at about 8:30. We gained an hour so it took us about 14 hours to get here. With an hour for lunch, a couple of gas stops and the rain slowdown it wasn’t bad, but I was glad to be here!

We were here a day early and figured we could get a room somewhere for cheap and go to the Wyndham on Sunday. We stopped in the Wyndham Emerald Beach Resort and explained our situation to the girls at the desk. The checked and much to my surprise they let us check in right then and didn’t charge us for the night! We were tickled pink at this and I vowed to send a letter to the resort manager and the corporation telling them how much we appreciated their customer service.

The weather still sucked but we were here. We popped out to the beach for a second and came in, had a drink and watched the end of the race.

Let the vacation begin!


Day 2 (Sunday – Sales Day)

Yep, sales day. We knew it was coming and they said we could get a $75 Visa card if we listened to their pitch. Linda had her fixed week in Orlando and wanted to convert it to points so we thought what the hell, we’ll talk to them about it.

The first thing I did was head down to the Purple Haze and get some swim trunks. It was all downhill from there!! Just kidding.

Sunday was a nice day, but we had our appointment at 11:00 so we knew that was going to take a chunk of it. Fay was still around, but she wasn’t too mean today. Didn’t help us though. Frankly all I cared about today was the condo and catching the Colts game.

When we arrived for our appointment they were overbooked as some of the crew couldn’t get in from Destin due to the storm. They asked us if we could come back at 1:30 and they bumped the gift card to $100. We agreed and decided to run out to the store to get in our supplies for the week. Of course we found the Wal-Mart. We also looked around town a little. Found Pineapple Willy’s and saw what appeared to pretty much be a ghost town.

We got the supplies back and it was time to talk condos. Our sales guy Joey looked about 15, but was pretty knowledgeable and didn’t try to BS us too much. When we had a question he didn’t know the answer to he found someone who did. After much wrangling over the package we eventually bought. They played some games with us, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. Regardless, it’s a good deal. Me and Linda were up at the Blue Green offices a few months ago and except for price we would have loved to have taken advantage of it. For us it makes sense. We now have a myriad of vacation choices and the room prices don’t go up. Having her condo at Star Island was what allowed us to take advantage of Wyndham’s deal rather than the Blue Green deal earlier in the year.

Finally after talking to the manager and closing the deal we were free! We ran upstairs and freshened up and headed to BW-3’s to watch the Colts suck again. Oh well! I enjoyed some wings and beers and we watched football from the new stadium. It looked beautiful on TV! Can’t wait until the Bears game!


Day 3 (Monday)

Fay was back, and with a vengeance. I popped down to the Starbuck’s to get a latte and to call my dad. While I was reading the paper and talking on the phone it was raining sideways. It eventually slowed down, but not much. Watching the radar it was clear that this day was not going to be very nice.

We decided we’d run out and look at the new Pier Park mall where the BW-3’s was and see if they had anything we couldn’t live without. Of course they did! We stopped at the Ron Jon’s and spent a quick $100. A lot of the stores were tourist traps and kind of expensive so we didn’t really buy anything else. We had thought about going to a movie, but I guess we kind of forgot about it.

We hit a few more stores, got some ice and decided to get a Hungry Howie’s pizza for lunch. It was tasty, but Linda felt a little bad after eating and eventually puked.

We just hung out the rest of the day in the room. I went walking around and got drenched by another storm. It was crazy and my mood was not improving. The bitch Fay it seemed was going to prove me right and not move all week.


Day 4 (Tuesday)

I was in full meltdown mode about 9:00 am. The skies had cleared and it looked like it finally was going to work out for us. We got ready to go for the pool and as we were doing our final packing for the day it started to rain. We flipped on the radar and it looked bad for PCB. I was pissed, Linda was mad at me for being pissed and I was ready to go home. I considered packing up the car and heading east to the beaches at Apalachicola.

We decided against it and we were eventually rewarded. We drove around the east end of town and had lunch at Pineapple Willy’s. I had some fish and Linda had the ribs. Both were very good. We also bought some souvenirs at the gift shop.

By the time we got back to the resort however the sun was peeking through so we headed down to the pool. We had purchased some cheapie chaise lounges at Wally World on Sunday and took them as it appeared there were no seats to be had.

We stayed out for a while and got a lot of sun in a few short hours. The week was looking up as the radar pretty showed the storm finally moving north and west!

That night we went down to Margaritaville for dinner. I had the conch fritters and a salad (not just a plain old salad, but a fancy schmancy one!) and of course a keeper glass drink and Linda had the Cheeseburger in Paradise which she really enjoyed. I had had a bit too much to drink by the end of dinner and went home and pretty much went to bed. I would live to fight another day!


Day 5 (Wednesday)

Wednesday dawned just as we had hoped for all week! Beautiful sunny skies, temperatures in the upper 80’s and no forecast of rain. Fay was still wreaking havoc just east of us, but her tail was the last remnant and it wasn’t coming to PCB!

We hit the pool deck around 8:15 and waited the requisite hour and 45 minutes for the sun to cover the area. It was well worth it even if we only did a 10 to 2 stint. We were both pretty fried so we didn’t want to ruin the rest of the week. We came in and laid around until we were hungry.

We went to a little joint called the Pasta Grill just west of town. I had a pizza that was okay, and a glass of pretty good Chianti as well as some calamari. Linda was wanting lasagna and wasn’t disappointed.

I was beat and pretty much crashed when we got in. The debauchery of Tuesday had caught up to me!


Day 6 (Thursday)

Another beautiful day and this time it was not going to be a four hour tour in the sun. This time I was out from 9 until 4. Linda made it to 3 and we both got a shitload of sun.

We really didn’t do much while we were out there other than listen to music, swim in the pool and the gulf and have a couple of cocktails, well I did anyway!

When I came in I got ready and I had been wanting to go to a place called Sharky’s. Despite the name I had a fantastic cheeseburger and one of their specialty fruity drinks. Linda had a sample platter, but looking at what she ate of it she must not have liked it very well. We picked up another T-shirt for me, that made about a dozen so far this week along with several pair of swim trunks and other sundry items.

When we got back we took some flashlights out to the beach and took a quick swim and a walk and checked out the crabs on the beach. As usual I was acting a fool and was flashing my light all over the place. When we got back to the Wyndham the guard gave us shit about shining our lights at the building. He was acting like a real dick and Linda wanted to call about it, but we decided just to let it go. Still he was an ass when a simple ask would have been fine.


Day 7 (Friday)

We got up this morning and went to the Waffle House for breakfast. It was really good. I had eggs, grits and a waffle. Linda had an omelet that was real good and hash browns.

When we got back to the resort we got ready to go to the pool. When we got down there we were informed that the pool was closed for at least an hour due to them spraying for ants. I’m not sure why they decided to do that on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, but they did. This gave us an extra hour of sun as we went to the beach. Linda took a walk while I swam and took a little nap until the pool opened.

Finally about 10 the pool opened and we headed up. We hung out until around 3:00 and decided to head in as we had maxed out on sun for the day.

It was Linda’s turn to pick the dinner place. She had talked about Breaker’s most of the day as she wanted a steak. She had a change of heart later in the day though and we went to a place called Angelo’s. It was a big place and the parking lot was nearly full when we got there so we figured that was a good sign. Not sure if it was, but the food was very good. Linda opted for a New York that wasn’t really done enough for her, but she seemed to like it. I had the steak and shrimp which consisted of five large shrimp battered and deep fried and an 8 oz. filet. It came with a baked potato, a very good salad and hush puppies that were excellent. It was kind of pricey, but I’d say it was worth it.

We topped off the evening with ice cream at Kitchen’s. I had the pineapple coconut which was superb. Linda had something and butter pecan. By this time we were both stuffed and pretty sleepy. No beach walking tonight!

One last day tomorrow :(


Day 7 (Saturday, the last full day)

It was going to be another great day, but it looked like we were going to get out just in time as Hurricane Gustav was bearing down on the Gulf Coast. By all indications it would be a busy day at the pool so I ran the towels down about 8:30 and by 9:00 there were no more chairs.

We went down about 9:30 for the day. It was another hot one. Temperatures were at 90 by now so it meant a lot of time in the pool. They were serving hot dogs and chips at the pool so we had our lunch there.

Later we took our last tour of the gulf. It was sad, but all in all we had had a really good run at the weather!

There were some drunk hillbillies who came down to the pool about 3. They had a cooler which was a no-no. They tried to hide it but I guess the chugging of the vodka got the best of them and they left it uncovered! One of them was so drunk she crashed into a table and just about fell over the fence. Her girlfriend wasn’t paying much attention to her and I thought she might drown, but the pool seemed to help her. It was pretty funny.

They also had a beer special on Friday at the Tiki bar. A couple of draft Bud’s for 2.50!

By the time we were heading out for dinner a storm blew up and dumped a shitload of rain on the beach. We went for a drive and ended up getting Hungry Howie’s pizza again. No one got sick this time! Unfortunately I had one too many and tripped and fell into a rack at one of the beach stores. I’m sure my wife thinks I’m an idiot. The store owner stuck some band-aid’s on me, but hell they were nicks. I felt pretty stupid myself!

At least I got some pizza for the last night!!


Day 8 (Homeward Bound)

We weren’t going to be in any hurry to get out today, but as it turns out we hit the road about 8:00. The clouds were pretty thick and it looked like a good day to get out of town. We checked out and loaded the car. Unbelievable how much shit just the two of us had!

We returned the chaises we bought at Wally World earlier. We only used them once and only at the pool. With that accomplished we blew town. We came back a little different route. It was a more direct route, but maybe just a little longer in distance. We had cloudy weather the early part of the day and finally around Birmingham the sun broke through.

We had lunch at MacAllister’s Deli in Prattville, AL and some ice cream in Decatur. Other than that we stopped for gas just beyond Nashville and we made it home about 10:15. I already miss the beach, but it’s always nice to be home!


Conclusion

In general this was a really nice place although it doesn’t have the amenities of the Ocean Walk we were at last year, but this is a work in progress. They do have a bar but it’s only open from 5 until 11. They also have a tiki bar by the pool. Draft beer was $2.79, but the frozen Pina Colada’s and other frozen drinks were $8.50!

We used the valet service all week and for the first 4 days it was great. Unfortunately the service slowed way down by Wednesday. Linda was pretty put out by it. It didn’t really bother me, but it was a noticeable difference.

I had read that the elevators were slow, but we did not find that to be the case until the last couple of days. Of course there was a big influx of people for the Labor Day weekend.

The pool is real nice, but there aren’t many chairs so if you want one get there early. If you tarry, you can carry in your own chair. Of course there is always the beach.

The beach was pretty nice, but you do get a lot of seaweed coming on shore and near shore in the water. It doesn’t bother me, but it doesn’t look real good. One guy we talked to wondered how they could claim “The World’s Most beautiful Beaches” with the seaweed. He probably has a point.

Again, the resort is a work in progress. They are putting up another building with a couple of restaurants, another pool and a lazy river as well as a fitness room in the buildings across the street. You get plenty of walking especially if you use your car a lot as the parking areas are across the street. I’d go back to the Emerald Beach Resort, but I’d wait a couple of years.

If you are looking for a relatively quiet time to head down this seemed to be it. Maybe it was the weather, but the entire town seemed quiet. We were on the west end of town which we heard was quieter anyway, but it was very relaxing.

You can check out the pictures of the trip at http://flickr.com/photos/mboxm/sets/72157607055541867/ if you wish.