A Day Vacation: Stay-cation at The TradeWinds Resort in St. Petersburg

A few of the Tampa Bay Bloggers were invited to spend the day at The TradeWinds Island Grand Resort – a beachfront resort located directly on the Gulf of Mexico on St. Pete Beach, just 30 minutes from Tampa in Florida. I was very excited to be one of the bloggers chosen. It meant I got to take my son, Bryce to spend an entire day participating in all of the events that The TradeWinds has to offer.

I have grown up in St. Pete and spent many days on St. Pete Beach. I have seen the slide set up and heard about all the fun, but I didn't realize that it would be so easy and that The TradeWinds are so accommodating to all of their patrons. Now that I have spent the day there, we will definitely be back! What fun!
When we arrived, we were greeted by a fellow blogger, Katie, in the lobby. She was our point person. We were given a swag bag with a beautiful TradeWinds towel, Beaker, the TradeWinds mascot, a drink coozie, and a thumb drive. What a great start! We were directed to our Hospitality Suite that was donated by GoGo SqueeZ! What a relief to be able to go into the room to cool off with a delicious GoGo SqueeZ! Some of the kids put them into the freezer, and I have to say that it was probably the most refreshing treat after lunch. 

We dropped our stuff off in the suite and Bryce couldn't wait to go on The Trippo which is the giant slide behind the resort. We stopped off to get our cabanas though. That wasn't the best move since we never sat the entire day :) Too much fun to be had.
Then Bryce hit The Trippo! I was waiting at the bottom for him with my camera, but the first time he went down the side slide and I missed him. He ran around and got right back in line. He was so fast, I almost missed him. Then he talked me into going too. Holy cow! It was so fast! I loved it!
We really had a great time on the slide. We had a bracelet pass that let us go on as many times as we wanted. I snuck away to go over to the Adventure Center to get our passes for Splash Island.

photo courtesy of TradeWinds Facebook page

We had no idea what Splash Island was, but we couldn't wait to get out there and try it. We got tickets to the 11:00 time, which was perfect because lunch was at noon. I was relieved to see that all of the participants were fitted with life vests before they went out to the water. Being a teacher and a mom, I get really stressed out when children swim. I can't relax. This certainly helped! We had a blast! Bryce wanted me to do EVERYTHING with him which made me a very happy mommy! There is something about your child wanting to share every moment of fun with you! Thank you TradeWinds!

We then had a great BBQ lunch provided by the resort. Before I could even finish, Bryce was ready to go find the paddle boats. He and Ronin (Jenny Metamorfit's son) ran to the paddle boats with me trailing behind. They got on their boat and started paddling. It was not as easy for me. I think I should have ridden with them. They were masters. They left me in the dust, but I ran back into them when they came back to the start.

This smile says it all! #blessed

Our next plan was paddle boarding. We had passes for 2:15. It was 1:30, so we had some time to kill. We heard that they were doing pool games, so we headed towards the pool. I did participate in the adult swimming race, but sadly,  I stunk! LOL... I think I may have embarrassed my son. Jenny Metamorfit was the winning female! Yay for her.

Bryce and I headed out to paddle board! That was fun but much harder than paddling at Crystal River. The waves made it really tough to get started. We had a blast though. It was getting late, and we were wrapping things up when Bryce realized that we hadn't bungee jumped yet. He ran to the line and waited. Bryce was so awesome jumping! I loved watching his excitement! I grabbed a video of him flipping! So cool!

Have you ever been to The TradeWinds? Which of these things sounds like something you would like to try?

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Disclosure: The TradeWinds Resort did not compensate me for this post. They did offer the services, but all opinions are my own.