Bilmar Beach Resort

For Spring Break, I desperately wanted to get away, preferably to the beach for some much needed rest and relaxation. To me, the beach is the ideal destination to really relax, have fun, and come home 100% refreshed.

Luckily, I live in Florida, and generally, a beach drive is only about an hour away, with traffic. For anyone that doesn't live in Florida, or hasn't traveled here, what you need to know is that there isn't the transition of seasons that other states naturally exhibit: a seasonal incline in the temperature, with more spring showers that bring the May flowers. We go pretty much straight from cooler weather to scorching heat. This year, in April, we had unusually low temperatures, which meant excellent beach weather, without the humidity. We were definitely called to the beach shores.

We wanted to find a resort that fit our family needs, and after searching through numerous online travel companies, we found The Bilmar Beach Resort. The Bilmar Beach Resort received high ratings on Expedia and Hotels.com. They have numerous rooms to choose from, all facing the Gulf of Mexico's white sand beaches. We stayed in a Gulf Deluxe Studio, which had two queen beds, a flat-screen television, kitchenette with microwave/stove, coffee-maker, small refrigerator, and dining table. We also had a patio that faced the beach, and we stayed on the fourth floor of the resort. The Bilmar Beach Resort was a great find for us. The rooms were maintained well. We stayed for three nights and every day the rooms were cleaned superbly. We had purchased some groceries to minimize our eating out during our stay, and the kitchenette was a perfect find for our needs. We have two small boys, that eat a great deal and eat small meals more frequently than the traditional, breakfast, lunch, dinner, so it was important for us to have food items handy.

The rooms at the Bilmar were spacious for our family of four, the beds were comfortable, we had plenty of pillows. The only negative about the room layout itself was that the bathroom had an angled doorway, so it was a little awkward to go into the restroom all the way to close the door; but this did not in any way inhibit our positive remarks about the hotel.

The Bilmar Resort is priced well. Our room was $220 per night and there were other room selections that were less expensive as well as more expensive than ours, however we felt that the room met our needs. Our goal, of course, was to spend the time on the beach.

We spent our morning getting ready, eating breakfast, and had the patio/balcony door open to see the beach and hear the waves. Two of the days we stayed at the Bilmar Resort we rented the beach cabana's for $20.00 for the whole day, which was covered with several chaise lounges that allowed us a great place to store our items, eat lunch, and shade ourselves as needed. The beach, was very clean, well-maintained, and great for activities, like making sand-castles and walking along the shore.

The first night at the Bilmar Resort, our family walked the beach and we saw dolphins swimming up about 500 yards from shore, which was an incredible experience.

To make our stay more comfortable, the Bilmar Beach Resort had two restaurants on-site for us to eat, a Café and Sloppy Joes, which we ate at twice. They had a great selection of seafood, sandwiches, salads, and kid meals. We enjoyed our meals on both occasions. They had live music several nights of the week outside on their outdoor eating area, which sat on a deck on the beach front. We did go shopping for some groceries, which we traveled about 15 minutes door to door, reading our map, finding our way, which wasn't difficult. There was a lot outside of the hotel to do as well, with St. Petersburg, and Clearwater within miles from the Bilmar Resort on Treasure Island.

All in all, we had an excellent stay, excellent experience, and would go back to the Bilmar Beach Resort for another vacation.