Tampa area hotels and restaurants

- Day trip to Cape Canaveral. Lesson learned: get there very, very early, or you won't be able to see everything.
- Going out in the Hyde Park area. Lots of good neigborhood bars.
- Dinner at Bern's (see sub-journal entry).
- Baseball at Legend's Field (Spring Training home of the Yankees, regular season home of a minor league team)
- A day at Clearwater beach, and then dinner at the Salt Rock Grille.

Quick Tips:

- Traffic on I-4 is very, very bad. Avoid it if at all possible.
- The beach area is only 45 minutes away if you aren't in rush hour. Even if you are only in Tampa for a couple of nights, try to get over to the water for an evening. You will be glad you did.

Best Way To Get Around:

There is no subway system in Tampa. You will need a rental car. Taxis are available at the bigger hotels, but you can't just flag one down on the street.
Rental car tip: After about a half-dozen rentals at TPA, I have come to the conclusion that National's Emerald Aisle is the best way to get a car here. I usually use Hertz or Budget, but TPA is not a #1 Club Gold location, and Budget was disorganized when I was there. You can go from terminal-to-road in about five minutes with the Aisle.

This is a new Embassy Suites, above average for the chain. It is located between I-75 and I-275, north of Busch Gardens, on the U. of South Florida campus. The hotel provides the expected E.S. service (evening cocktails, breakfast on the house) and also has a small restaurant/bar area where you can purchase other food and drinks. This hotel is very clean across the board, and I would definitely give them return business.

The suites are also above-average in terms of amenities and cleanliness. The hotel has high-speed data access in each room, and has 2 phone lines as well. Even if you don''t want to pay $10/day for broadband, you can get a decent data rate out of the phone (over 40K in most cases).

I booked my first stay at the hotel on the Internet, because I found a decent rate there. However, I subsequently learned that great rates can be obtained from local reservations - especially if you are a member of AAA (or something similar), or if your company does a lot of business in the area.

First of all, the only reason I stayed at this hotel was because I was in the midst of an HHonors bonus promo run and needed a "unique" stay (I had already hit the area Hampton and Embassy).

This is a very below average Doubletree property. Thank goodness I was only paying $79/night (Internet rate). It appears that this hotel was not specifically built for Doubletree, but that Doubletree took it over (perhaps from a Howard Johnson''s or something similar). The hotel did have a somewhat-nice outdoor pool.

My room was intended to be non-smoking, but it was obvious that someone had smoked in it very recently (I know...I''m picky...I notice these things). More importantly, the phone system is one of the type that doesn''t provide a normal dial-tone. Although the hotel brought me a "special" phone through which I should have been able to place a data call, it did not work. I was finally able to trick my modem by doing a manual dial, but I wasn''t able to sustain a data rate over 10K. If you need to do business from your room, you will not like this hotel unless you are set up purely wireless.

Given that this hotel is within minutes of an Embassy, a Hampton, and a Hilton Garden Inn (all of which provide competitive rates), I can''t think of a good reason to visit it again. Unless, of course, I''m entangled in another funky HHonors promo :)

The TPA Airport Embassy Suites is about average compared to others in the chain. (The E.S. in North Tampa is nicer; see that review separately.) It is a very convenient location, just a few minutes from the airport and a few minutes from downtown. The hotel has a bar and restaurant area and provides the standard amenities found at most Embassies.

The suites are typical of an Embassy Suites. Mine overlooked a mall and a waffle house. I had reserved a king, but they didn''t have any left when I checked in, so my room had two double beds. However, the manager comped one of my three nights in the hotel, which I thought was an unexpected nice touch since the beds weren''t that big of a deal to me. Overall, the staff was friendly and competent.

I booked the hotel online. A direct call to the hotel would have yielded the exact same rate, in my case.

This is a somewhat new, and very clean Hampton Inn. Definitely above-average in the Hampton chain. The rooms are large (I was able to get a "King Plus" room, which has a little sitting area in it) and clean. The nonsmoking room I was in was truly nonsmoking. The room had two phone lines, but no high-speed data access (although a sign indicated that high-speed was coming soon). This is a great location if you want to stay in Tampa, but also want to visit Orlando. You are minutes away from I-4 West out of the city.

The hotel also offered snacks and drinks in the evening, as well as a small, clean buffet in the morning. Something you don''t get at every Hampton Inn...

I would definitely return to this hotel if I need a cheap stay in the area. Good rates can usually be found on the Internet for this property.

This is an older minimal-service Hilton. It has a small restaurant and bar area, and does not have a true Executive Level (HHonors Gold/Diamond get free breakfast buffet certificates). However, the lobby and rooms are clean, and you can''t beat the location if you have an early flight.

The room was a basic hotel room with a small desk. 2 phone lines, no high-speed data. No room upgrades for HHonors Gold+, unless you really want to haggle with the front desk.

I booked my stay at this hotel directly through local reservations; they gave me a slightly lower rate than what was posted at Hilton.com.

This isn't just dinner - it's an experience that will last an entire evening. A lot 3-4 hours for dinner at Bern's. This is what I'd call an "old school" steakhouse with top-quality service across the board. The waitstaff here are clearly professionals.

We had reservations - you might be able to get in without them on a weeknight, but I would recommend calling ahead. We were dressed nice business casual, but I got the sense that on the weekends it went mostly to jackets. Again - call ahead; they may not require jackets in the summer.

Features of the restaurant:
- The "World's Largest Working Wine Cellar." Something like 85,000 bottles on premises and another half million bottles stored in a nearby warehouse. (If you are interested, ask your waiter for a tour of the cellar. Don't be shy...it's a pretty normal thing to do at Bern's. It's like the Library of Congress - for wine!)
- An amazing "by the glass" wine list. Something like 200 choices.
- An extensive caviar list. I know nothing about caviar, but this place offers a couple dozen varieties.
- Just about every cut of steak imaginable, in any size you like.
- A separate area of the restaurant devoted exclusively to dessert, after dinner drinks, and cigars. You will migrate to this room when you finish the main meal. The booths in the dessert area are partitioned so that you don't have to share smoke from other tables.
- Thousands of after dinner drink choices. I've never seen such an extensive selection of single malt Scotch. (Try the 15-year Laphroig.)
- A modest humidor - about 15 selections. (If you are partial to a specific smoke, you may want to bring your own. Or you can try what they have to offer.)

Trendy restaurant on Gulf Blvd, about 40 minutes from downtown Tampa. The restaurant overlooks the intercoastal waterway, and if the weather is nice, you can eat outdoors on the waterside deck. There's a nice outdoor bar to have a drink at if you have to wait for a table. We got in on a weeknight without reservations, but most people did have them.

The specialty of the house is fresh seafood, and you can view the day's catch in the lobby. They also have steak and chicken. I had a filet mignon with shrimp in a cream sauce, and it was very good. The wine list looked fairly extensive, although we decided to drink beer out on the deck.

Salt Rock is definitely worth the drive from Tampa!