Tampa and St Pete Beach

It was actually sunny this morning, unlike the other mornings when it's been raining or at least cloudy, so I took a couple of last photos of my ocean view before having breakfast and setting off for the airport. I had my Supershuttle van booked for 9.30am this morning and that's when the driver came. He was friendly, and asked me to sit up front so he had somebody to chat too, as I was the only pick-up and the last of his shift. He dropped me back at the airport for the one and only American Airlines flight on my itinerary which was from Miami to Tampa. This was a decent sized plane and less than half full, so I was allowed to take all my carry-on baggage on with me instead of having to gate check it.

The plane had wi-fi (for a small fee) so I was able to chat on Skype for a few minutes whilst we were en route, which wasn't for very long, as we only spent about 40 minutes in the air in total, arriving well before our scheduled arrival time - helped by leaving early from Miami. I didn't have to wait for my bag in the carousel either, and it was just next to the Supershuttle booth where I checked in for my van to the hotel. I had to wait about 20-30 minutes for the van to come, because they don't send many vans to St Pete's Beach and there was somebody else who had pre-booked who was arriving just after me and we went on the same van. It's quite a long way from Tampa to the hotel - the journey took half an hour!

Since I had turned up 2 hours early, my room wasn't quite ready although after waiting for about 15 minutes, it was then available. This room has an ocean view. This photo was taken from my private balcony, on the 7th floor:

After taking in the view for a while, I decided to visit the rotating restaurant, called 'Spinners', at the top of the hotel - in fact, just a few floors above. This was, somewhat surprisingly to me, more of a fine dining restaurant than I was expecting. The food was excellent and the views of St Pete's Beach and the Gulf of Mexico as they went past were stunning. Here is a small selection: