Travel

St Petersburg Beach vacation rentals are just a few miles from St Petersburg, FL, and about 35 miles from Tampa, FL. St Petersburg Beach is just minutes away from downtown St Petersburg, and the area is renowned for spectacular rivers, nature preserves, state forests, world-class fishing and championship golf. St Petersburg Beach ranks as one of the best beaches in Florida, especially on the West Coast of Florida. St Petersburg Beach, on the central gulf coast of Florida, has a small town atmosphere with plenty of vacation amenities within walking distance.

St Pete Beach has so much to offer year round that unless you are only interested in sun-bathing, you cannot fail to find something fun and interesting to do. The weather in St Petersburg in many ways is on of the biggest attractions. Florida is nicknamed ‘The Sunshine State’ due to its reputation for good weather and tourists flock to holidays in Florida year round along with Americans from colder states who want to avoid the harsh winters at home.

St Petersburg Beach Wave runners offer a riding experience unlike any in the Tampa Bay Area. The Gulf beaches are known for warm, white sands, pristine waters, palm trees, and dolphins. St Petersburg Beach Hotels and Resorts offer accommodations on some of the best beaches directly on the Gulf of Mexico. The Beach is not as populated with tourists as Clearwater Beach but still offers beautiful sunsets, popular nightlife, great restaurants & plenty of day and night activities.

The Pier Hotel is located in the heart of Florida’s premier downtown waterfront district, within walking distance to many local museums and attractions, and along the same road as the world famous St. Petersburg Pier. The Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club is the only luxury Florida hotel on the West Coast with the combination of a private marina,’-hole golf course and 12-court tennis complex. The Vinoy is a fine example of’20’s Mediterranean Revival architecture that has earned it a place in the National Register of Historic Places. St Pete Beach Florida has a great assortment of hotels and resorts. Don Cesar Is the hotel resort known as Florida’s Legendary Pink Palace since’28, the luxury resort is revered internationally for its sprawling, sugar-white beach, unparalleled dining, rejuvenating Beach Club & Spa, fabulous fishing, children’s program, nearby tennis and golf. The Don Cesar has a long list of famous guests and has hosted every president since Gerald Ford (excluding Ronald Reagan) and also Franklin D. The Beach is also know for hotels and resorts like the Tradewinds Hotel/Resort. The Tadewinds Hotel/Resort is a tropical haven where guests can find peace and relaxation in style and comfort with superior service reflecting the spirit of American Samoa. Tradewinds Hotel offers a range of business and recreational facilities including a restaurant, bar, internet cafe, conference facilities, gymnasium.

Out of all the restaurants in St Petersburg Beach the Hurricane restaurant is one of the most popular. The Hurricane Restaurant: a landmark multi-storied restaurant/bar/entertainment complex is situated across the street from the beach right in the middle of Pass a Grille and keeps the hungry and thirsty beachgoers happy late into the evening. Another Place that is a great party hot spot restaurant on St Pete Beach is Jimmy B’s. Jimmy B’s Beach Bar caters to the upscale crowd so you better make sure you’re ready to roll. If you are looking for good food and good times on the water n St Petersburg beach you may consider the Sloppy Pelican. The Sloppy Pelican is one of St. Pete Beach’s newest waterfront bar & grill. A favorite for locals and visitors alike, our menu offers a wide variety that everyone is going to enjoy; from fresh seafood and pasta prepared from scratch, to the biggest burgers and tastiest nachos on the beach.

To read more by John DeLellis and sign up for St Pete Beach Today’s newsletter and take advantage of resort and restaurant giveaways and promotions!Click Here

Weather is a concern for many people on vacation. Just when we thought in July that we were never going to get rain again…we got RAIN, big time! So far, however, no hurricane warnings, which makes everyone happy I think.

At first I thought they were cow-nosed rays which I love to swim with, but these clearly had the mouth wrapping around the front of their faces (see photo) so I knew what they were, I was just totally surprised. I was around for most of this summer and I am glad to say that overall nature seems to be surviving pretty well despite our interferences. I have even seen some things I’ve never seen before. For instance, I saw a school of manta rays as I was swimming one day.

On the other hand, I have not seen any Southern Stingrays off shore birthing their young. It may be that because of the red tide last year, they are avoiding us this year. Hopefully they get straightened out and come back to our shores.

The skimmer bird made a great show this year, skimming along the shoreline with their dislocateable jaw. If they hit a rock or shell, it simply snaps back into place-the wonders of nature. And who says fishermen aren’t compassionate? I saw a man catch a huge snook at the point of Pass-a-Grille and was most pleased when I saw him de-hook it and return it to the Gulf. He said he had enough fish for the day.

Sometimes you’ll see a flock of them flying which is quite a sight. At other times you might see them carefully aerating grass as they get their evening meal. If you’ve been walking the beach or a golf course, I am sure you have seen the Ibis poking around the ground for coquinas, worms, grubs…you name it.

It rains on one side of the street but not the other. It rains on 70th Avenue but not on 60th I remember when I was ten or so I was standing on the seawall by Merry Pier. Rain was coming towards me so I waited to get drenched. But I didn’t. The rain stopped right on the bay side of the seawall so I could reach my arm in and it got wet, but I was nice and dry on the other side! Has anyone noticed how St. Pete Beach seems to be blessed when storms start rolling in? We get the beautiful view of them and then they split in half and go right around us. I have seen this happen several times this summer and it is quite a sight to behold. Let’s hope that all hurricanes follow the same path.Rain. Go figure

When I say go run for cover, however, please make it inside a building if possible. If you are caught on a golf course or in a field, find a ravine or gully and curl up inside-you want to be the lowest thing around. Do not go under a tree. If lightening strikes the tree (because it is the tallest thing around), it bursts out through the roots and you don’t want to be standing on them when that happens! Lightening. Don’t go figure, just go run for cover. We have had some awesome storms with lightening close enough to make the hairs on my arms stand straight up, but I still sit on my porch and watch every strike I can see. My Mom used to sit with me and we’d just ooooohhh and awwwwhh over the incredible patterns God was painting in the sky.

The last time I did this for my 65th birthday, 75 people showed up and some of them I didn’t even know, which was an even bigger treat. So bring your favorite dish (homemade or bought) and come join the fun. We’re going to ring the bell and bless each other that we are here, living, and living in paradise no less. Hope to see you there. And most important of all TADAH!!! On September 22nd I turn 69 and I am happy to be seeing another birthday. Please come join me at the Sea Side Grille on 10th Avenue and the beach side in Pass-a-Grille one hour BEFORE sunset for a fine celebration.

To read more articles by John DeLellis and sign up for St. Pete Beach Today’s newsletter and sign up for the newsletter and take advantage of the hotel and restaurant free stuff! Click Here

If you are planning to spend a vacation or holiday in Orlando or at Disney World, then one of the first things you need to do is to figure out what kind of accommodations are best for you. Disney World is of course a good choice for the younger crowd as the park features a fun atmosphere featuring the many Disney characters. Choose summer for the warmest days at water parks; winter holidays including Christmas and New Year’s Eve feature special events at Disney parks; and fall and spring are great times to find vacation values and smaller crowds at Orlando’s popular attractions. Orlando, Florida, vacations are practically synonymous with Disney vacations, and first-time Orlando visitors and veterans alike will agree – the attractions at the Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida are a must-see.

St Pete Beach, on the central gulf coast of Florida, has a small town atmosphere with plenty of vacation amenities within walking distance. St Pete Beach vacation rentals are just a few miles from St Petersburg, FL, and about 35 miles from Tampa, FL. St Pete Beach is just minutes away, and the area is renowned for spectacular rivers, nature preserves, state forests, world-class fishing and championship golf. St Pete Beach ranks as one of the best beaches in Florida, especially on the West Coast of Florida.

St Pete Beach Hotels and St Pete Beach Resorts offer accommodations on some of the best beaches directly on the Gulf of Mexico. St Pete Beach is not as populated with tourists as Clearwater Beach but still offers beautiful sunsets, popular nightlife, great restaurants & plenty of day and night activities. St Pete Beach Wave runners offer a riding experience unlike any in the Tampa Bay Area. The Gulf beaches are known for warm, white sands, pristine waters, palm trees, and dolphins.

The Don Cesar has a long list of famous guests and has hosted every president since Gerald Ford (excluding Ronald Reagan) and also Franklin D. St Pete Beach is also know for hotels and resorts like the Tradewinds Hotel/Resort. The Tradewinds Hotel/Resort is a tropical haven where guests can find peace and relaxation in style and comfort with superior service reflecting the spirit of American Samoa. Tradewinds Hotel offers a range of business and recreational facilities including a restaurant, bar, internet caf, conference facilities, gymnasium. St Pete Beach Florida has a great assortment of hotels and resorts. Don Cesar Is the hotel resort known as Florida’s Legendary Pink Palace since 1928, the luxury resort is revered internationally for its sprawling, sugar-white beach, unparalleled dining, rejuvenating Beach Club & Spa, fabulous fishing, children’s program, nearby tennis and golf.

The Sloppy Pelican is one of St. Pete Beach’s newest waterfront bar & grill. A favorite for locals and visitors alike, our menu offers a wide variety that everyone is going to enjoy; from fresh seafood and pasta prepared from scratch, to the biggest burgers and tastiest nachos on the beach. Out of all the restaurants in St Pete Beach the Hurricane restaurant is one of the most popular. The Hurricane Restaurant: a landmark multi-storied restaurant/bar/entertainment complex is situated across the street from the beach right in the middle of Pass a Grille and keeps the hungry and thirsty beachgoers happy late into the evening. Another Place that is a great party hot spot restaurant on St Pete Beach is Jimmy B’s. Jimmy B’s Beach Bar caters to the upscale crowd so you better make sure you’re ready to roll. If you are looking for good food and good times on the water n St Pete beach you may consider the Sloppy Pelican.

To read more by John DeLellis and sign up for St Pete Beach Today’s newsletter and take advantage of resort and restaurant free stuff and promotions!Click Here

The Salvador Dali museum is one of several local attractions including the Saint Petersburg Museum of History and the Bayfront Center Arena. The Salvador Dali Museum is the flagship of cultural tourism on the West Coast of Florida, welcoming over 200,000 visitors each year from around the world. Salvador Dali Museum is the World’s largest collection of works by the renowned Spanish surrealist. Petersburg’s Salvador Dali Museum is the permanent home of the world’s most comprehensive collection of the renowned Spanish artist’s work.

St Pete Beach is just minutes away, and the area is renowned for spectacular rivers, nature preserves, state forests, world-class fishing and championship golf. St Pete Beach ranks as one of the best beaches in Florida, especially on the West Coast of Florida. St Pete Beach, on the central gulf coast of Florida, has a small town atmosphere with plenty of vacation amenities within walking distance. St Pete Beach vacation rentals are just a few miles from St Petersburg, FL, and about 35 miles from Tampa, FL.

The Gulf beaches are known for warm, white sands, pristine waters, palm trees, and dolphins. St Pete Beach Hotels and St Pete Beach Resorts offer accommodations on some of the best beaches directly on the Gulf of Mexico. St Pete Beach is not as populated with tourists as Clearwater Beach but still offers beautiful sunsets, popular nightlife, great restaurants & plenty of day and night activities. St Pete Beach Wave runners offer a riding experience unlike any in the Tampa Bay Area.

The Tradewinds Hotel/Resort is a tropical haven where guests can find peace and relaxation in style and comfort with superior service reflecting the spirit of American Samoa. Tradewinds Hotel offers a range of business and recreational facilities including a restaurant, bar, internet caf, conference facilities, gymnasium. St Pete Beach Florida has a great assortment of hotels and resorts. Don Cesar Is the hotel resort known as Florida’s Legendary Pink Palace since 1928, the luxury resort is revered internationally for its sprawling, sugar-white beach, unparalleled dining, rejuvenating Beach Club & Spa, fabulous fishing, children’s program, nearby tennis and golf. The Don Cesar has a long list of famous guests and has hosted every president since Gerald Ford (excluding Ronald Reagan) and also Franklin D. St Pete Beach is also know for hotels and resorts like the Tradewinds Hotel/Resort.

Out of all the restaurants in St Pete Beach the Hurricane restaurant is one of the most popular. The Hurricane Restaurant: a landmark multi-storied restaurant/bar/entertainment complex is situated across the street from the beach right in the middle of Pass a Grille and keeps the hungry and thirsty beachgoers happy late into the evening. Another Place that is a great party hot spot restaurant on St Pete Beach is Jimmy B’s. Jimmy B’s Beach Bar caters to the upscale crowd so you better make sure you’re ready to roll. If you are looking for good food and good times on the water n St Pete beach you may consider the Sloppy Pelican. The Sloppy Pelican is one of St. Pete Beach’s newest waterfront bar & grill. A favorite for locals and visitors alike, our menu offers a wide variety that everyone is going to enjoy; from fresh seafood and pasta prepared from scratch, to the biggest burgers and tastiest nachos on the beach.

To read more by John DeLellis and sign up for St Pete Beach Today’s newsletter and take advantage of hotel and restaurant giveaways and promotions!Click Here

What I found out along the way was that I was good at typing, I could think and type and I liked to figure things out. On January 1, 1941 my mother, Sara Elizabeth Zahnizer Robertson, moved four children ages 2 to 12 into a small cottage on 7th Avenue in Pass-a-Grille and said, “There, now grow up.” And I did. After graduating from Boca Ciega High School, I passed up four college scholarships I had won and instead caught a Greyhound bus to Cleveland, Ohio to find my fame and fortune.

By 1973 I was working for a hospital consulting firm as a secretary. Because the principals didn’t want a lot of staff, they let me learn to do the statistical analysis for long-range plans for everything from a 1,500-bed community hospital to a 200-bed long-term care facility. I learned who reported to whom, what they needed to know for planning and what worked and didn’t work in planning health care facilities.

Day after day I watched the prompts and saw what patterns it worked in. That was my training. By 1981 I was training staff at the State of North Carolina’s Planning Department and soon after that was hired to help design an Emergency Room patient tracking system for the New Jersey Hospital Association. By 1980 I had bought my first personal computer with money from a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, an $8,000 Vector Graphics which was a real good machine in those days. I sat in a small room in the black district of Princeton, New Jersey where I was living after a divorce left me pretty broke, and learned how a computer thought.

I sent letters introducing myself to all the people I had met through my years with the State of North Carolina. I was soon developing medical staff analysis for small hospitals to help them plan for their needs. In 1983 I decided to start my own business, CBR Associates (Cleo B. Robertson) and printed up a business card and letterhead.

That same year, through very wonderful circumstances (read Whim of Iron I wrote) I met Dr. Jane Elchlepp, head of Duke University Medical Center’s Planning Department in Durham, North Carolina. She introduced me to Robert Winfree, Associate Chancellor of the Medical Center and together they hired me to run a $375K Fullerton Foundation grant to see how small personal computers could be of help to small hospitals in managing their patient data. In those days, the fact that I knew how one ran at all was valuable so no one cared that I had no degrees. The project was a great success with six software programs being developed for the small hospitals under my direction in the areas of nurse staffing, inventory control, emergency room, physician credentialing, and personnel. The Duke Foundation provided personal computers to six hospitals as part of the project.

Along the way I worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on various projects.

By 1985 these programs were running well and I decided to take one, the physician credentialing system, and develop it into a fully marketable product which Duke sold to me for $1. Today CBR Associates has close to 800 hospitals using our systems in all 50 states and three other countries.

One section allowed residents to discuss issues, so I posted the bridge as my issue. Out of twenty or so people who responded, one explained how much pollution was drifting into Vina homes from the low bridge and I made my decision for a high bridge. Of course the whole subject got sidelined, but the website had been useful. Travel called again and I forgot all about it, however. In 1993 I was retired out of my business and I moved back to Pass-a-Grille, now part of St. Pete Beach, Florida. I decided to travel, which I did for the next 15 years. Sweden, Spain, Mexico, Norway, Italy, Germany, Scotland, New Zealand-I was on the move. But by 2008 I was getting tired of not using my brain. When an issue came up in the City regarding whether we should have a high or low bridge for the Bayway, I needed clarity. Out of a need to hear from others, I hired a programmer, Woody Pelt, and we put together the first prototype of stpetebeachtoday.com.

We needed more people to find us and once here, to stay on the beach and shop and play. We also needed to feel like a friendly community again, so we added features such as an Events Calendar and Our History. Nature articles and photo albums were added along the way as were staff. Mike Hebert joined us and immediately took us to a higher level than we could have gone without him. When the City of St. Pete Beach started getting sued, I realized we needed to be able to communicate with each other. But there were other needs now.

Britany is busy visiting businesses to help support our efforts while the rest of our team is busy daily posting news, reporting sightings of wildlife and highlighting businesses. It was Woody who suggested that we put every business on a map for ease of getting around and finding things and personally that decision has been great for me as well as everyone in the City. Cory Chlapowski joined six months ago as a staff helper and within a month, told me to move over, she could handle the posting and day-to-day work herself. As she has ever since! It was Cory, realizing that marketing was not her talent, who recently brought in Britany Poole who is awesome at marketing and sales.

But what we do make from advertising on the site will go to pay overhead first. After that, we will allocate money for St. Pete Beach projects that the City will never do such as putting a roof on the fishing docks to keep people out of the sun. In other words, we are here to serve the community and we hope what we have developed is a pleasure and help to all who live in or visit our wonderful Paradise. So there you have it. An eclectic background founded on the small-town principals of fairness, openness and sharing which brought about a website designed solely for the community. We are not ever going to make big bucks.

And me? Well, the staff of St Pete Beach Today is so good, I am no longer needed day to day. I will concentrate on writing articles and taking photos of people, their pets and all the animals that share this wonderful place with us. This is your site folks, so enjoy it and please let us know how we can make it better and better for you.

To Read more By Cleo Robertson and Sign up for the St Pete Beach Today Newsletter and take advantage of the hotel and restaurant giveaways and promotions!Click Here