Pensacola Beach: Holiday Inn Resort

Oh hi, I’m home from vacation. Oh… you didn’t know I was on vacation? Well, I may have kind of omitted that. I didn’t want someone to break into my house while I was gone…. haha! Yeah, we’ll go with that. Or maybe I was a little worried to wish my summer away to get to vacation because that means I’m just days away from school starting and I’m really worried about that, to be honest with you! Either way, whatever, I’m home!

I only took a little over 500 photos in 5 days. That’s a little over 100/day on average. Definitely less than the 2,500 photos we took in Hawaii, but as I continue to weed through the photos… I’ll leave you with the hotel we stayed at while on vacation.

When our plane arrived we had a car service waiting for us to pick us up and take us to the hotel. My parents were on a different flight and they had to pick up the rental car, the rental car company wouldn’t allow us to, so that’s when hubby and my mom found this company and had a service waiting to pick us up. I would recommend if you need a ride from the airport via car service to use Pensacola Airport Shuttle.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort. It was great.

Our room was on the 8th floor. There were 3 elevators so we rarely had to wait long for one. We were up high enough we had a pretty darn good view. And the hotel has 11 floors. Some rooms are Oceanside with balcony’s, the others are bayside with just a normal window view. We were bayside. Hey, we weren’t in our room all that much!

On our trip were my parents, my grandma, my mother in law, hubby, Tbug, Abug, and me. My aunt met up with us the next day. In our room were my MIL, Tbug, hubs, Abug and me. My parents shared a room with my gma and my aunt stayed in another hotel next door.

The beds were comfortable. The pillows rocked. The TV and I had issues… it said there was Nick so we could watch our Friends at night but nope, it was a preview channel :(. But then again we weren’t in the room that much so the tv was mainly for at night. I needed my Friends. LOL. The air conditioner worked GREAT! (more on that in another post….). There was a coffee pot, a refrigerator, and a microwave. All great, right?

I had a better picture where the toilet seat was down but I can’t find it right now… bummer! So ignore that ugly toilet although when are toilets pretty? Another question to ponder for another day. Abug and I used the tub one night. She had a ball playing in the tub and I guess truth be told…. so did I ;).

The view by the bay was GREAT and that’s when we saw all the parasailing. Um…. yeah we went parasailing but again, another story for another day!

While I never took a picture of the front of the hotel (had plans to, just never did) I did manage a few of the back of the hotel. This was the view from the beach. You walked through the pool area and bam, you were on the beach. You can bet your bottom dollar I went and sat in the sand and played in the ocean every day we were there. One night it happened to be 10 pm by the time I got out there, but that didn’t stop me. I sat in the sand listening to the ocean that night for almost an hour.

One reason this hotel was chosen was because of the pool area. It had a GREAT lazy river! So there had been some bad weather blow through this area before us arriving and there was a ton of jellyfish up toward shore as well as seaweed, etc. I’m pretty sure Tbug and I both got stung within 5 minutes of standing in the ocean the first day. This pool area was GREAT though. There were rafts you hopped on and around and around and around you went. The pool was open from 9 am to 10 pm so really ample time to get in the pool too. The only day hubby, Tbug, and I didn’t get in the pool was Monday. Abug was in the pool every day. It was GREAT and she LOVED it. We did take a pool float her size so that helped.

The pool water was a fabulous temperature but if you wanted a hot tub there were like 2 or 3 of them around the pool area.

This is part of the lazy river. It was only 3 feet deep. And trust me, we enjoyed it immensely.  Of course, there were also balls in the water and some of the time we went to the deepest part of the water which was 5 feet and played keep the ball up in the air. I face-planted in the water trying quite a few times as did hubby and Tbug. Abug even got in on it. It was just that great. One day the wind was messing with us and another guy kept getting brought in on our game. Sorry! but thanks!!

The bar was outside. That’s all you had to do, go to the bar. I didn’t… but other people did. Great story. So one-day Tbug and I were going downstairs and got on the elevator with one of the staff members. He asked how our day was and we told him. The next floor down another couple got on and he asked them the same question. The gal’s response was, God, is good… How is your day, God is good. Okay, I’ll give you that… but that lady was Drunk as a Skunk! No joke! Her response to every question was God is good, even when it didn’t fit the question. Then a few floors down another employee got on and this gal tried to convince her to go get a drink by the pool because there were plenty of drinks. Tbug and I might have giggled… a lot a little.

The hotel at night. Can you tell I”m walking back from the beach? I think in my former life I must have been a coastal gal!

And, if, you were cold and I say if cause dang, you walk out of the hotel and the heat hit you immediately, you could sit by the fire pit. Although I’m not going to lie, it was extremely tempting!!!

And I told you we enjoyed the lazy river… a lot!

And one last story. When we got to the hotel and checked in, hubby told Tbug we needed to go to the 14th floor. We got in the elevator and Tbug said, there isn’t a 14th-floor dad, it only goes to 11. Hubby had to recheck the floor our room was on. LOL.