Birthday x 2 Getaway

Second trip was the state that has my heart; my all time happy place – Florida🌴☀️🌊

My mom and I are December birthdays, so with all our frequent Flyer miles built up on Southwest, we were able to do a 5 day getaway Birthday celebration strictly using our mile points on our flights! We chose Ft. Myers Beach and it definitely was one of the most relaxing trips ever. It was so relaxed, that all we did was eat and sit by the pool 🙂

The weather was warm and mostly sunny, but extremely breezy.

We planned this trip about 5 months in advance, to allow us time to save, find the deals, research handicap accessible spots, and get our ducks in a row with dodging town close to the holidays. I was more on top of my to-do lists than I’ve ever been. I started buying little things as Christmas prezzies in October- which is big for me! Big pat on the back for this🙌🏻

We left STL December 11th, and arrived around 8pm. We rented a car from the airport and drove to our resort which was right on the beach. It’s called ‘Diamond Head’ and we were able to get a good deal🙌🏻

My mom took more of the reigns of planning this trip, so I got off the hook for a majority of the researching. My mom went to the ‘Chamber of Commerce in Ft. Myers Beach’ website to find the high ratings and affordable resorts. Once she found a couple that caught her eye, she went to their site to find ADA rooms available during our planned dates. Only one of the resorts had availability and was offering a one night free stay for booking within the next 24 hours. My mom called to inquire details about the ADA room to make sure it was just what I needed. It sure was! She went for it and we were booked!

The next thing my mom inquired about, which I have never thought of doing before, was contacting the ‘Chamber of Commerce’ for getting a “sand wheelchair.” It’s pretty rad. Commerce said they allow you to rent the chair per day for $25, so we wanted to wait til we got there to figure what day would be “the day.”

As I stated earlier, most of this trip was planned 4 months ahead of time, so now the countdown begins…long countdown…

August.

September.

October.

November.

December…finally!

A few days before we left, I did my ‘Trip Advisor’ search for restaurants near our resort to have as some possibilities. Vegetarian/vegan/handi friendly – I’m high maintenance, eh😜

We had a nonstop flight (my favorite) to Ft. Myers December 11th. We arrived at night, got our rental from the airport and drove 30 mins to our resort. We settled in for the night and started fresh the next morning. December 12th – Happy Birthday Mamacita!!

Sun was shining and the warmth was so nice! We stopped at Target for a “quick” 2 hours🙃 went in for sunscreen, but left as new owners of sunglasses, clothes, jewelry, beer, food, you know…just a few essentials

We went back to our resort for some sun and chillaxing. Our biggest problem was trying to pick a restaurant for din #worldprobs

For my moms birthday dinner, we did it up at The Beached Whale, ha😂

And being the best daughter in the universe, I put in a good word to the guitarist serenading the restaurant to give Pammy a Birthday shoutout. 🙌🏻

The next day was pretty much a lot of the same …just being bums. windy af

Third day we switched it up a hair to be beach bums. This was the day we rented this bad boy…

It was pretty neat, but a lot of work for the pusher. My mom is a little peanut, so she was running in place til she got the momentum to get me rolling😂 probably one of our funniest moments.

Once on the sand, it’s very convenient to get around and pretty great to actually roll up to the water.

Friday was our exploration/shopping day. We were super fortunate to have our resort right on the strip of the shops and restaurants, so we just strolled around and found hot spots to shop and eat.