Trip Report #4 Tampa, Florida

Another beach trip report!  This trip was taken in May of 2017.

Planning:

We wanted to take a late Spring beach trip with our friends and after some discussion we chose Tampa, Florida.  We have always wanted to go to the Tampa/Clearwater area for a vacation and our kids love the Dolphin Tale movies.  Those movies are filmed at the Clearwater Maine Aquarium.  We did a 4 night Friday to Tuesday trip.

Flights:

As usual we flew Southwest Airlines to Tampa.  Since the oldest kids had school we chose to leave at 5:30 pm.  We usually don't like to fly in the evenings because this provides more opportunities for our planes earlier routes to delay our flight.  If you fly out first thing in the morning it's most likely the first flight of the day for that plane.   Both outbound and inbound flights were non stop from CMH to TPA.  I used gift cards to pay for my flight.  We get $500 worth of free travel each year - $200 from our AMEX Business Platinum and $300 from our Chase Sapphire Reserve.  The round trip cash rate was $312.  I used 19,000 points for each of the oldest two kids round trip flights.  Kim's flight was free because of the Southwest Companion Pass.

Car:

We usually try to rent a mini van on vacations.  I booked the van though the Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal.  This van cost $175 total for the trip.  I usually pay with points for rental cars but Chase was running a 10% cash back promotion during March.  I took advantage of this promotion and booked the card on my Chase Freedom Credit Card to get the 10x points.

Hotel:

Our friends are like us and have three kids.  We both wanted to have 2 bedroom villas.  After some research on Tripadvisor.com we found Sunset Vistas Beachfront Suites.  This was a nice, smaller, quiet property compared to name brand resorts.  The hotel was located on Treasure Island about 15 miles south of Clearwater.  It took us a little over a half hour to get from the airport to the hotel.

It was right on the beach and had a separate pool for toddlers.  It also had a small beach bar!  Our nightly rate was roughly $225.  I paid for half of this stay with cash back rewards.  To do this I put the entire bill on my Capital One Card.  When the charges showed up on my account I used cash back to pay for half of it.

The suites were nice and had two bedrooms and two full baths with full kitchen.  We utilized the kitchen for breakfast and lunch each day.  There were a couple grocery stores nearby for food and beverages. There was also a quiet balcony.  The beach was huge with plenty of room for the kids to run around. We rented an umbrella and two chairs each day.

They had security guards around at all hours. Which can be good or bad. Apparently a couple of 30 something year olds can be pretty rowdy drinking Coronas, eating chips and salsa on the front hall walk way. We would put the kids down and meet out front of our rooms with the kitchen chairs to hang out. We got in trouble just about every night for being too loud! But this was also nice because the resort was pretty quiet for families with young kids.

The only other negative was that the beach pool bar didn't open until around noon; we were usually ready for drinks around 10 a.m..  Especially after our crazy nights sitting in the hall.

Activities:

Our main activity was visiting the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.   This is the home of Winter the dolphin that lost its' tail.  It's a pretty small aquarium but has lots to see.  There are daily dolphin training shows and talks.  It is right on the water and has some nice outdoor areas.  My favorite part of our visit was the Sealife Safari boat tour.

This tour lasted 90 minutes and stopped at a small island.  It was a narrated tour and allowed the kids to touch and see many different fish and sea creatures.  The boat stopped at a spot where the Aquarium has a permanent fish net.  They pulled the fish net on board and emptied its' contents into containers.  The containers were then passed around for all the kids to see.

Nice views from the boat

Looking for dolphins

Kids watching the net come aboard

Family picture on the island stop. 

The total cost for my family of 5 to enter the Aquarium and do the boat tour was $140.


I would like to return to Tampa and stay in Clearwater.  It looks like there is a lot of fun stuff to do.

What has been your favorite beach vacation so far??

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