St. Pete's Beach Vacation - Day Two
Ocean still there? Check. Okay, now we can leave.
We drove down to The Pier in St. Petersburg for our Dolphin Cruise. Along our walk up on the pier, we came across these gorgeous birds of paradise flowers. We had a little moment here because this was Bret's mom's favorite flower. She loved Florida and it made us feel close to her being there. We took this picture of the kids in front of the flowers. As soon as Ashley can string some of the sea shells that she brought home together, we're going to take the shells and this picture over to the mausoleum to leave there for her.
Okay, enough of the sad stuff - moving on. There were lots of different stores at The Pier and Ryan went bananas in Just Hats over this Indiana Jones hat. We started calling him "Illinois Jones" since we are from Illinois. 
Our dolphin cruise on the Dolphin Queen was ready to take off so we made our way down to the dock.
This was by far my favorite part of our vacation. There is just simply nothing better than a warm, sunny day out on a boat on Tampa Bay, where the wind blows against your face and the dolphins are so playful that they swim along with you. Ryan got to steer the boat. It totally made his day.
We saw many dolphins - some playful, some reserved and protecting their calf's. These dolphins in the picture below (along with 2 others) were showing off, trying to impress the female dolphin that was with them. 
There is a 96 year old man (pictured below) whose nurse takes him outside daily to watch all four of the scheduled Dolphin Cruise's go by. He stands there and waves every day.
This playful guy swam along side us as our boat cruised by, jumping high out of the water and landing with a big splash. It was the highlight of the trip for me.
When our cruise was over, we ate lunch and drove back to the resort to swim in the ocean and pool until it was time to go to the Tampa Rays game. The game that night was a lot of fun. The Rays won and Ryan got to see his first Major League baseball game.
We were exhausted by the time we made it back to the resort and quickly took showers and got to bed since the next day promised to be a long one at Busch Gardens.I'll work on Day Three later...
5 comments:
I'm still loving your trip! Dolphins are awesome, and how very, very sweet that the older guy is out there with his nurse every day to wave. That just strikes me as sweet. Also, yay for Cubs hats in any baseball stadium, anywhere. ;)
love Ryan's hat.. Looks like you had a great time...
LOVED your pictures on your site taken at The Pier in St. Petersburg, Florida. I am the Marketing Manager here and will pass them on to our tenants at Just Hats and the Dolphin Queen. Glad you had a great visit to The Pier AND enjoyed another winning Rays game!!
Susan at The Pier
Susan - Please do! We had such a great time that day. It was by far our favorite part of our vacation and both of your tenants were some of the friendliest people that we had met the whole time there.
Oops, forgot I had more to add.
Close friends/neighbors of ours have booked the same vacation package for next weekend and weren't planning on doing anything but hang out at the hotel. We've convinced them that they HAVE to visit The Pier and take a dolphin cruise!
Post a Comment