Tag: travel

Classic Resort on St. Pete Beach

Postcard Inn on the Beach — A treat for those wanting something different.

This place, along with a few other locations are the dieing breed to the classic hotel of the 50’s and 60’s. It’s cute, nostalgic you might feel that a Star from the old movies might walk around the corner.

That is what I was after and that is what I found. Was it your modern box hotel with the same old, same old? No way. This place oozes a rich history that you just can’t find everywhere but still exists here.

This 2 story walk up is located directly on the beach with a classic tiki bar style bar with live music that will have you smiling no matter what your age. While we were there we saw young couples, people living a dream, people wanting to escape and even a couple young boys where one was being deployed the next day.

At 57 years old, it was a fun night of people watching and yes, I bought the young fella a drink that was shipping out the next day. My wife and I watched the usual gang at the bar, One lady celebrating a divorce and some younger kids that couldn’t keep up with here.

In the day time, it was kiddies in the pool, people celebrating young love and the classic walks up and down the beach looking for discoveries that have yet to be found.

There are very few places left on earth that are so close and easy to get to yet transport you to a vacation spot that feels half way around the world.

Was it perfect from a travellers stand point no, but the good over rode the bad and when you are vacationing, to me that is the most important point. The beds were very comfortable, We had the usual things in the room but , here, the room should be a place to sleep and if that is what you want, this will fill the bill.

I usually work while travelling, I look for a good work station etc and you will not find that here. There was a spot to set up my gear, but you would not want to sit there for any length of time and I did not. About the only real complaint that I had on the room is that it was newly refurbished and did not have light blocking drapes. The mini-blinds gave you privacy, but did nothing for blocking out the morning light. I saw some rooms on the other side that had the drapes, but I do not know the condition of those rooms.

The food was quite good for breakfast, but a little expensive, we took leftovers back that did us for several meals. 😉 But really, you are on the strip, there are so many places to try out for food it is unreal.

Towels are available at the pool, but also available at the front desk for the asking along with bags of ice that are also available out of the machines, but the commercially packaged ice had no “flavor” so it was a plus to take the extra 2 minutes to walk to the lobby.

I should also point out that the staff was very professional and looked after us very well. When we arrived early, the place was sold out and the room was not yet ready. However, they invited us to take advantage of the resort and phoned us when the room was ready. We still checked in several hours early.

I would 100% recommend this property for your next trip. I feel you should take advantage of this and a few others that most likely will be replaced with the typical 500 room resort in the near future. At some point the land will just be too valuable for this to remain, but I dearly hope that it will be here for years to come.

The owners of this resort seem to take pride in keeping things as they were and take pride in the up keep of the physicality. Enjoy and have a blast soaking in the atmosphere.

Permanent link to this article: https://stevestravelblog.com/?p=585

NewLeaf

newleafWhile we are hoping that Canada will have a new airline that offers new lower fares, for now it has been sidelined. It seems that there are questions and the CTA is now in the middle of it. Their website is down with a holding page that states in part …

“The CTA is currently conducting this review, but during this period Newleaf decided that in order to confidently protect the interests of our customers against any potential changes that could affect their travel plans, we have temporarily postponed sales of airline tickets that were scheduled to begin on Feb. 12, 2016. All customers will receive an automatic full refund of all credit card transactions made to date within 72 hours.”

So it looks like there will not be a quick fix to this or they would hold off on giving the eager beavers their money back.

All we can do at this point is hope that they can work this out and we will once again have a new choice in flying.

Permanent link to this article: https://stevestravelblog.com/?p=540

Sailing delight in Greece and Turkey

This September I boarded a beautiful Turkish gulet, the Muhtesem A, for a week of heaven in the Mediterranean. For someone who’s pretty well travelled, I’ve discovered the beauty of Greece and Turkey late in my travelling life so I’m soaking up…

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Permanent link to this article: https://stevestravelblog.com/?p=530

Excursion Trip

How blessed are we who get to travel in our course of life? Recently, I wrote about extending your trip to include a separate stop at no cost to you if you are using travelling from most of the major point programs.

Flying over the Rocky's

Flying over the Rockies on my way to LAX


I was travelling on AeroPlan for that trip and instead of just heading to Vancouver, I booked a multi-leg trip to include a weekend stopover, flying into LAX with no other cost other than the hotel for two nights and incidental costs that most people incur while travelling.

Hotel in LA

Hotel in LA

Since this was my first trip to this end of the country, I was not sure where to stay. The choices are many and so I headed over to TripAdvisor to make my choice. I was looking for something different. I wanted to be fairly close to the Airport district as I thought many of my readers would be selecting this area for a short stop over and yet close enough to several attractions so I can see the area while I was there.

Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier — The end of Highway 66

I have to say, I had an awesome time. Between the charter local bus service for the hotels in the area, the local bus service was second to none. I was shocked that for a very low fee, compared to my local city, I was on a bus that whisked me straight over to Santa Monica Pier. It was a doubly great since I was travelling on the Memorial Day Weekend.

Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier

Now I know some may be saying that it would be too busy and if you were to travel by car, I would agree with you 100% as parking looked to be a little tight, but arriving by local transit was no problem and the areas to explore were all fine. On the pier itself, you had families sharing food, laughter on the rides and fishing from the pier. It was really nice to see.

Fishing at Santa Monica Pier

Fishing at Santa Monica Pier

Down on the beach, we had the celebrations to honour the fallen which was touching to see. A large display of crosses were arranged on the beach with several to represent other religions of the soldiers that gave their lives for the freedom, not only in the USA but for everyone that enjoys the democracy we have and the freedom to travel around the world.

Memorial Day at Santa Monica Pier

Memorial Day at Santa Monica Pier

One nice touch was the shop out at the end of the pier that marks the end of highway Route 66. Such a famous iconic place to say “we were there” On your next trip I can only urge you to take that extra step and explore the many choices you have for stop over or multi-leg trips. I am sure you will find it a pure pleasure.

Permanent link to this article: https://stevestravelblog.com/?p=521

Travel as far as you can

How Far Can You Fly?

How Far Can You Fly?

When you travel, are you taking full advantage of the connections that you have to take? Have you considered extending that business trip by a few days and taking in the sights of one of your stops?

Pacific Coast

Pacific Coast

Why not do this on purpose and take full advantage of the possible stops along the way.

Recently I had to take a business trip from the East coast of Canada to the West coast. As I thought about stopping off in Toronto or Calgary for a few days, I thought, “I wonder how far I can travel on the same number of points.

For this particular trip, I was travelling on AeroPlan points. They have an option on booking that you can plan a “Multi-Leg” journey where you can pick an extra stop along the way and chose different dates. This allow you to select the path of your journey and the duration of each segment stopover.

Yes, there are limits to how far you can journey but it is very flexible and well worth the time to investigate this great option. It seems that if the extra leg is within a short-haul flight of the farthest destination, you can easily book it at no extra points.

My flight would have seen me leave New Brunswick, fly through Toronto and on to Vancouver. But, as I looked at my options, I went from my home base, and selected LAX as my first stop. This still took me up to Toronto and then a direct flight down to LA for an awesome Memorial Day weekend at the end of Highway 66. Some of you will know this as the Santa Monica Pier.

Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier — The end of Highway 66

From there, I selected my second leg that went from LAX up to Vancouver and after my work was complete, I flew from Vancouver back to the east coast as my third leg of my trip.  You do have to love the adventure of travel and you can even make the flight more enjoyable by selecting the best craft type for your journey.

I chose to fly business class for several reasons. Most are the usual ones that have to do with comfort but this time, I selected the flights that had the most modern seating arrangements. When I booked my segments, I first looked at the craft type and then confirmed this on the SeatGuru site. I like this site because they give you tips on the best to the worst seats to select on the flights.

I wanted to experience the full sleeper seating options and I was able to select three different styles on the longer segments of my itinerary.  For the flight from Toronto Canada down to LAX I was shown the back seat on the single row side had extra space and privacy. This turned out to be an excellent recommendation and made for as close to a perfect flight as I have ever had.

Flying up the Rocky's

Flying up the Rocky’s

For the heavy traffic but shorter flight from LAX to Vancouver, I also had a great seat. This was surprising to me since it was an Air Canada Rouge flight. As many of my readers know I am not fond of Rouge and I would not call myself a fan, but, I have to admit they have really improved things. Still a long ways to go, but it is worth noting that things are getting better. Keeping in mind that my Android device still would not work on the Rouge entertainment system, but, as always, I re-loaded my tablet with a few good movies and a book or two.

I will share more on my LAX side trip later, but for now, I do hope you will consider taking a little more time booking your next flight and take the opportunity to travel to a new place. Experience what is all out there for you to enjoy and live life to the fullest.

Permanent link to this article: https://stevestravelblog.com/?p=513

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