Friday
Aug042006
FAMILY FUN: Portofino Island Resort & Spa
Friday, August 4, 2006 at 06:26PM
We are on a Rebel Housewife Family Fun Adventure at Portofino Island Resort & Spa in Pensacola Beach, Florida. So far, it is amazing. I should say, AMAZING.
We arrived after a very long road trip from Atlanta -- actually, only a little more than five hours, which is very good time. (It just seems much longer with three kids getting antsy in the backseat.)
Portofino Island Resort & Spa is marketed as "The Island Within Reach," because of its close proximity: It's about five hours by car from Atlanta. The resort is a short 20-minute drive from the Pensacola Regional Airport.
I would agree with General Manager, Ryan Christopher:
"We are the only resort destination within driving distance that provides a true island experience without having to leave the United States."
We've been visiting Pensacola Beach for several years, always having preferred it to Destin and other, more tourista beach areas. (If it's got outlet shopping and more than a half-dozen miniature golf facilities, it's tourista!) Over the last three years, as we've driven our favorite stretch of the Gulf, from Pensacola Beach to Navarre (before the road was washed out by hurricanes), we watched Portofino Island Resort & Spa develop.
We were devastated to witness the destruction in Pensacola Beach from hurricanes over the last two years. Just when the beach area was rising up in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, which hit the area in September 2004, Hurricane Dennis delivered the knock-out punch in July 2005. Through it all, though, construction on the five towers of Portofino Island Resort & Spa has steadily progressed.
With the Grand Opening of Portofino Island Resort & Spa this summer, Pensacola Beach is beginning to come back -- the commercial area and restaurants are up and running; the hotels along the beach have been rebuilt; but once you hit the residential stretch from the edge of the business district to Portofino Island, the loss and devastation is still all too apparent.
Sara Rothfeder, Vice President of Marketing at Portofino Island Resort & Spa, offers reassurance that the area is definitely coming back: Much of the clearing and construction along the road to Portofino Island is part of a project to widen the beach road and add lighting and landscaping and erosion control measures, including palm trees.
We definitely see more progress, and you can drive further along the beach road from Pensacola Beach to Navarre each time we visit. (The road used to end abruptly at Portofino Island. It now extends further into the Gulf Islands National Seashore, with access to Opal Beach, but not all the way to Navarre.)
Portofino Island Resort & Spa is built midway between Pensacola Beach and Navarre, nestled between the Gulf of Mexico and Santa Rosa Bay on an impressive 28 acres bordering the Gulf Islands National Seashore nature preserve and Opal Beach.
[We didn't realize Opal Beach is named such because it was the landing site of Hurricane Opal in 1995. The Pensacola Beach peninsula could be named Hurricane Alley for the number of times the area has suffered a direct hit. *** HISTORIC TRAJECTORIES: There is a very cool link where you can see the paths and landfall of past hurricanes -- I will link here when I can relocate that link. ***]
But enough of history -- Portofino Island Resort & Spa withstood it all through the last three years and the five 21-story towers here are solid, built for the worst Mother Nature can deliver. And here we are, during the Portofino Island Resort & Spa GRAND OPENING summer. As I said, AMAZING.
More soon--gotta go play!
We arrived after a very long road trip from Atlanta -- actually, only a little more than five hours, which is very good time. (It just seems much longer with three kids getting antsy in the backseat.)
Portofino Island Resort & Spa is marketed as "The Island Within Reach," because of its close proximity: It's about five hours by car from Atlanta. The resort is a short 20-minute drive from the Pensacola Regional Airport.
I would agree with General Manager, Ryan Christopher:
"We are the only resort destination within driving distance that provides a true island experience without having to leave the United States."
We've been visiting Pensacola Beach for several years, always having preferred it to Destin and other, more tourista beach areas. (If it's got outlet shopping and more than a half-dozen miniature golf facilities, it's tourista!) Over the last three years, as we've driven our favorite stretch of the Gulf, from Pensacola Beach to Navarre (before the road was washed out by hurricanes), we watched Portofino Island Resort & Spa develop.
We were devastated to witness the destruction in Pensacola Beach from hurricanes over the last two years. Just when the beach area was rising up in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, which hit the area in September 2004, Hurricane Dennis delivered the knock-out punch in July 2005. Through it all, though, construction on the five towers of Portofino Island Resort & Spa has steadily progressed.
With the Grand Opening of Portofino Island Resort & Spa this summer, Pensacola Beach is beginning to come back -- the commercial area and restaurants are up and running; the hotels along the beach have been rebuilt; but once you hit the residential stretch from the edge of the business district to Portofino Island, the loss and devastation is still all too apparent.
Sara Rothfeder, Vice President of Marketing at Portofino Island Resort & Spa, offers reassurance that the area is definitely coming back: Much of the clearing and construction along the road to Portofino Island is part of a project to widen the beach road and add lighting and landscaping and erosion control measures, including palm trees.
We definitely see more progress, and you can drive further along the beach road from Pensacola Beach to Navarre each time we visit. (The road used to end abruptly at Portofino Island. It now extends further into the Gulf Islands National Seashore, with access to Opal Beach, but not all the way to Navarre.)
Portofino Island Resort & Spa is built midway between Pensacola Beach and Navarre, nestled between the Gulf of Mexico and Santa Rosa Bay on an impressive 28 acres bordering the Gulf Islands National Seashore nature preserve and Opal Beach.
[We didn't realize Opal Beach is named such because it was the landing site of Hurricane Opal in 1995. The Pensacola Beach peninsula could be named Hurricane Alley for the number of times the area has suffered a direct hit. *** HISTORIC TRAJECTORIES: There is a very cool link where you can see the paths and landfall of past hurricanes -- I will link here when I can relocate that link. ***]
But enough of history -- Portofino Island Resort & Spa withstood it all through the last three years and the five 21-story towers here are solid, built for the worst Mother Nature can deliver. And here we are, during the Portofino Island Resort & Spa GRAND OPENING summer. As I said, AMAZING.
More soon--gotta go play!
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