Thursday, June 26, 2008

S. Padre Island - Overview - Part 5


Type of Destination: Beech

Family Friendly - Yes - 100% even if you have really young children.

Hotels: There are many hotels, but none that are top of the line luxury. The nicest hotels were the newer ones, that have not yet been abused by Spring Break College students. We stayed at the La Quinta, which is not normally one of my favorite chains, but this one was an exception. Our room, a suite with a special jacuzzi tub cost $159.00 per night. This particular room can cost as much as $209 per night though...so hotel costs were fairly normal.

Food: We found a good variety of food and ate basic American, Italian and Seafood cuisine. Every meal was delicious and as a nice surprise, discounting alcohol, we averaged about $10.00 per meal each, which we found to be very economical.

Entertainment: There was so much to do here, we could not possibly do everything we wanted to do. Included activities that we missed were, para sailing, renting jet skis, fishing charters, dolphin watching cruises, wind surfing, bunji jumping, and since it is so close to the border, going over to Matamoris, Mexico.

Shopping: There are tons of souvenir shops selling the same type of t-shirts and gag gifts. A few stores were nicer, selling more hand crafted items, like the store selling the hand made wooden pelicans. We bought a wooden sea turtle and 2 very unique 16 legged starfish to hang in our cabana. I also purchased 2 beautiful summer halter dresses that were great bargains @ $32 and $40. We also purchased a towel cover up for our Granddaughter that I could not resist.

Transportation: Excellent!!! Not only was The Wave available, which you can read about in part 2, but Taxi's were a common sight. You could rent Dune Buggies if you so desired and if you chose to walk, there were sidewalks on both sides of the road in most areas. As a bonus, we rode on a nice bus from S.Padre to the Brownsville Airport for $2.00 per person. Okay - so that is about the cost of 1/2 a gallon of gas to go about 30 miles!

Would I go back: In a New York minute..and yes, even though my bike died on me, I would not hesitate to go back with it as my transportation...after all, that was a big part of the adventure!

2 comments:

Justabeachkat said...

I'm so glad your trip has been fun...for you...and for us following along via your post.

How did your bike get fixed?

Hugs!
Kat

Kari (GrannySkywalker) said...

It just sounds so darn WONDERFUL! Food up north towards Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore was NOT a bargain...at all. We spent well over $100 per day (which isn't all that great when you consider we ate cheap, fast stuff for breakfast - sometimes even cereal in our room! - and if we ate lunch at all, it was McDonald's and such. Maybe we should look into going south next time, eh? lol

Kari

P.S. Thanks for the tips about the place, though. Wish everyone would do that (esp. with the info regarding costs - it'd help alot of people with vacation planning. I think when I do my last vacation post in a couple of days, I'll detail prices, too.