I fell in love with Panama City Beach when Richie and I took a trip there two years ago. I am not sure what originally prompted us to choose Panama City Beach but I am so glad we did. The part that had made our first trip to PCB so special was that it was our first real vacation that we took “just-the-two-of-us” since we had been married. We stayed three nights and by the end of the trip were already planning our return the following summer. Unfortunately, the BP oil spill which occurred in April of 2010 kept us wondering if it would be okay to return. We wanted to go back and wanted to support the economy in that area but we were afraid to spend all that money and get there and not even be able to use the beach. When the weeks turned into months and they still hadn’t capped the spill we decided to go instead to Virginia Beach since we would already be out that way visiting my parents. We had a great time in Virginia Beach but it is just a different atmosphere than PCB. We missed it and knew we would be going back in 2011…no matter what!
This post is NOT sponsored.
We booked four nights at the Holiday Inn Resort (formerly the Holiday Inn Sunspree) the same hotel we had stayed at the first time we had visited. HIPCBeach is a GREAT hotel! I really can’t say enough nice things about it. We called to book our vacation and told the reservation attendant that we were returning customers and they offered us a rate that was about 10 bucks cheaper per night than their lowest advertised rate and it also included 25 Beach Bucks per day. Beach Bucks are basically just like cash and can be used in the hotel restaurant, snack bar, beach side bar, the Sunset Lounge or to rent beach chairs and umbrellas! What a great deal! Additionally, since we are Priority Club members we also received USA Today delivered to our room every morning and two free drink cards for the Sunset Lounge.
The hotel offers a lot of great things that many other hotels do not offer. The hotel is designed so that every room has a balcony with a gulf view. The room itself is equipped with two queen size beds, a full size fridge, a drink fridge, a microwave, a coffee maker, a full bathroom, plus an additional extra sink near the fridge area. It has a table with chairs, a lounge chair, a large screen TV with a DVD player, an armoire for storing your clothes and a good size closet with a safe.
Beyond the room there are loads of additional amenities. The hotel has a huge outdoor pool, two hot tubs and a little “water-park” for the kids. They offer tons of daily activities for kids including “Kids Night Out” where the kids are supervised with activities for several hours allowing the parents a night to go out and enjoy themselves, kid-free! There are nightly family-friendly “Dive-In” movies. They set up a huge movie screen, pool-side, where they show movies and offer free popcorn! The movies that showed while we were there were Tangled, Toy Story 3, Voyages of the Dawn Treader and Despicable Me. There is a Polynesian Fire and Dance show four nights a week, plus Karaoke and Nightly entertainment for the adults in the Sunset Lounge. Additionally you will find dispensers of fruit water and sweet tea through out the resort and they are often serving free watermelon and punch, pool-side.
Of course the hotel is just steps from the beach where you can enjoy sunshine, sand and waves. Just don’t forget the sunscreen!
Come back tomorrow for more juicy vacation details!
Enjoyed the heck out of your post and pictures. We use to go every year ourselves. Loved the Sunspree Inn & Resort (1997). Hope you all are doing well.