Pre-Cruise Hotel - St. Pete Beach/Clearwater Beach

[Kellyccz]

We are getting ready to book our pre-cruise hotel stay for our Thanksgiving Miracle Cruise. We will be staying 3 days before the cruise and want to stay in either Clearwater Beach or St. Pete Beach. We are passing on Priceline, due to the fact that we want to do 4 people in a room (on the cruise, it will only be 2 per room - so we are doing all in one room in the hotel to have more spending money for the cruise).

We are avoiding Priceline due to the fact that they only allow 2 per room, and the cost for 2 rooms would be higher than the hotels we are looking at.

Anyway, we are looking at the following hotels:

St. Pete Beach: Dolphin Beach Resort, Sabal Palms Inn

Clearwater Beach: Clearwater Beach Travelodge, Red Roof Inn, Howard Johnsons

Has anyone stayed at any of these or does anyone have any suggestions for a like hotel? We would like to be ON the beach, but directly across is fine too. We would like restaurants (at least a few since we will be here 3 full days), shopping and other activities within walking distance.

Any advice, comments, suggestions will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you!

[Dan]

That Dolphin Beach Resort sounds like the name of the place we stayed at in St Pete's in 1993. It was nice, the rooms were big (we had an efficiency, with a kitchenette), and it was on the beach. Nothing upscale or anything, but nice for the 5 or so nights we stayed there.

We've also stayed at the Adams Mark in Clearwater Beach, but it might be a little pricey for a pre-cruise stay.