The end of vacation. Blah.
We both were awake fairly early. I went for a quick final walk down to the ocean.
When I returned from my walk, we got ready and went down to the hotel restaurant, Rusty’s Bistro for breakfast. We weren’t expecting much since it’s a hotel breakfast, but figured it was the best way to keep on our timeline for the day.
Turns out breakfast here actually was delicious. Service was very good too. I had “the biscuit”, which was an egg sandwich...egg, two full maple “whole hog” sausage patties (was NOT expecting THAT much sausage), and smoked gouda on a biscuit, served with hashbrowns. It was delicious, and probably should have been Nick’s breakfast haha. Nick had french toast, which supposedly had strawberries done in grand marnier, and mascarpone cheese. It was delicious, but we struggled to actually taste the grand marnier. This one probably should have been my breakfast haha. Regardless, we both really enjoyed our breakfasts, and we may have taken the real maple syrup that was brought with Nick’s french toast home with us. We’re from NH. We know the value of this stuff! And although he doesn’t eat the good stuff, I sure do.
Breakfast finished, we returned to our room to finish packing. We were done ahead of schedule, so I enjoyed the balcony view for a few more minutes before it was time to leave.
Checkout was quick, and we were soon on our way to our last tourist stop of the trip. It was about a 50 minute, easy drive to ZooTampa. The most difficult part of it was driving past the ramp to I-4 to Orlando. The pull is strong from that highway!
ZooTampa was a good way to kill time before our flight. It’s really quite big. The layout was a bit confusing at times, and the map on their app is TERRIBLE, but we were pretty impressed. Well...we were impressed with the animal exhibits. The food offerings and pricing are pretty horrifying ($25 got us one oversized Sbarro quality piece of pizza, 6 mozzarella sticks, and 2 bottles of Powerade). But truly, it was a good visit. We were there for about 2 ½ hours.
Once we finished at the zoo (and rearranged our luggage in the parking lot for the flight), we headed for the airport. It was a straightforward drive, but it did take us two tries to find a gas station that actually had regular unleaded in stock.
I’ll say it again, Tampa Airport is a very well thought out airport. The rental car return was easy to find (signage at this airport is excellent), the garage was well signed and CLEAN. The return process was very fast, and the Alamo return guy randomly knocked time off my rental given my early return to save me some money.
We headed into the rental car facility and were halfway up the crazy long escalator to the train to the terminal when Nick realized he had left his hat (that he never wore after the first day of the trip) in the backseat of the car. I waited with the luggage while he raced down the escalator and, thankfully, was able to retrieve his hat. He re-joined me within just a couple of minutes, and we got on the train back to the terminal. Don’t worry, I was smart enough to sit on the train this time!
Once in the airport, we took a couple escalators down, where we found no wait for baggage check with JetBlue. We had boarding passes printed and our bags checked within minutes, and then we were on our way back up to the main floor to get the train to terminal A.
This, I think, is where Tampa really shines. We had to scan our boarding passes to gain access to the train, and then took the train to our terminal before going through security. This meant fewer people vying for the TSA and a very open main terminal concourse area. For us with pre-check it meant NO line for security. The main security line looked pretty manageable too. I can’t say that security was entirely uneventful; the metal detector randomly selected me for extra security so I had to go through the hands in the air thing and have a shoulder pat down, but, we made it through without major incident, and pretty soon were seated at our gate.
We passed the wait with phone calls from home and social media. Shortly before boarding, we got chicken nuggets and polynesian sauce from Chick-fil-a, and then I changed into jeans for the trip home. Let’s not discuss how badly jeans sucked on legs that were sunburned from my swimsuit line all the way to my feet...
Boarding started late, and seemed to take forever, but we pushed back only a few minutes late. We had a newer plane, so we had fun seatback announcements on our TV screens.
The flight was pretty bumpy, but uneventful. Surprisingly Nick stayed awake for the flight, and I listened to music and played with social media. So much for those books I packed for this vacation! We arrived back into Boston about 10 minutes ahead of schedule, to rain and cold weather. It was disgusting. End of story.
As usual with Boston, we were told one baggage claim, but got there only to find that we were at a different baggage claim, in a different section of the claim area. But, reasonably quickly, we had our luggage back in our possession and were on our way to our car. We paid the fee (which was WAY less than I had estimated, thanks to my crappy reading of their pricing chart…$190 for 4 days, 12 hours and 52 minutes of parking), found the car, and surprisingly easily, found our way off airport property and onto the northbound highway (via a southbound one, because BOSTON). It was a miserable drive home in the rain and dark, but we made it home about 9 pm. We got home to a 56* house, thanks to a thermostat that randomly decides to not engage the furnace. Thankfully, turning the thermostat off and then on again got the heat going in the house.
Final thoughts:
We liked Clearwater more than I imagined. Really fun area, really easy to navigate, and fantastic food. We would definitely go again. We would probably stay in the main beach area for convenience, however, I wouldn’t hesitate to stay at the resort we stayed at this trip again, and I’ve recommended it to my sister, who is always talking about wanting to do a beach trip.
The resort we stayed at gets kind of mixed reviews on TripAdvisor. Our experience was positive. Our room was clean, the resort was clean, and the room was in very good condition. I got the view I paid for. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the amenities offered there. Honestly our only complaints involve the bathroom. It's TINY. And Nick at 6 feet tall was not able to get the shower head adjusted high enough to really be adequate for him. The biggest reason I would pick a different resort is purely convenience. But this one fit our budget, and was perfectly good for this trip. I would stay there again, but I would definitely make sure to pay for at least a partial gulf view, as I did this time. The people with the “bayview” see the bay but they also look at the convention center roof, and that seems to be a big complaint.
I found that in public in Clearwater, generally people respected each others’ space. Masks were really only a thing indoors. Some people were definitely done with wearing their masks there too, but generally, if they saw others wearing masks, they’d put theirs on. We were generally comfortable there, but Nick’s been working with the public the entire pandemic, and I’ve been back playing with spit and working with kids in person since August, and we’ve been fully vaccinated for awhile now. Additionally, Alamo included an individually wrapped Clorox wipe in the car and both hotels we stayed at in Clearwater and in Boston had put hand sanitizer wipes in our rooms.
I knew the whole pandemic thing was intense here in the northeast, but I really didn’t realize the level of intensity until we left New England. Here if you sneeze or cough in public, you’re pretty sure an angry mob is going to attack you. As someone who sneezes when full (it’s some weird multigenerational family trait), has substantial allergies, and has a horrifying tendency to choke on spit, it’s been a rough year. In Clearwater, if you cough or sneeze in public, no one bats an eye. It was a really nice reprieve.
The dogs have forgiven us for leaving them. Surprisingly Gizmo was the best behaved of the bunch at my in-laws’. I really enjoyed a few nights of sleep without being on the receiving end of dog kicks half the night.
The Hilton Garden Inn Logan Airport is definitely the place to stay if you need a hotel by Logan Airport. Good value, super clean, and typical updated Hilton Garden rooms.
It was SO good to see sunshine and leave the New England bubble. New England gray wears on a person.
I struggled to get excited about this trip, because with all of the cancellations and disappointment of the last year, I didn’t think it was possible it would actually happen. And then it was pretty much perfect. After this success, I’m finally feeling like I can turn my attention to planning my summer Disney trip and getting excited about that, and that’s a REALLY good feeling.
We are not exactly beach people. But this trip was exactly what we both needed. We both feel human again after it.
