PALM BEACH SHORES RESORT

Florida is wonderful. We come down for the sun! It feels so good away from our New York winter. We’re staying at the Palm Beach Shores Resort. This resort operates as both hotel and time share. We're here on a time share exchange. I want to keep telling you about the time shares we use because this works well for us and might for you too. Additionally, since we use RCI to exchange and book, the resorts I tell you about are open to all people with RCI access.

Hotel rack rates for our room are $309.00 nightly although we found the hotel on Travelocity for $289.00 nightly. However, the view from Travelocity’s room would not be our ocean view balcony; it would be a parking lot view, and for us that ocean view balcony is important; we love to sit on the balcony listening to the surf hitting the shore and watching the whitecaps. It's all part of the experience—the escape from winter. This resort is Gold Crown, a rating RCI uses for its premier properties often based on service and amenities as well as on location.

Our suite is nice and comfortable: one bedroom with a king-size bed and TV, a safe in the closet, a huge beautiful bathroom with a separate shower, double sinks, mirrored walls, plenty of shelves and storage space, a fully stocked kitchen with a combination convection oven/microwave, dining area with seating for four, and sitting area with couch (a convertible), a big comfy easy chair, a coffee table with drawers to store all our books, travel materials, games etc., a TV armoire with a radio, cd , dvd, and additional drawers, and a second table with internet connection for our laptop. We bring our own power strip to accommodate the assortment of mechanical devices--cell phone, iPods, Palms, etc. There is internet connection for Rob's laptop, and that's good for getting driving directions and for periodically checking our email. The TV offers 38 channels including the resort's own which enables us to access the daily activity schedule. That is very handy because it helps in day planning. We are, as you know, normally not joiners, but there are walks and talks offered along with the usual crafts and games and evening activities including movies. This is a nice suite for a family of two adults and no more than two younger children. It would be do-able but cramped for two adult couples. Rob complains, for instance that there is not an abundance of drawer space, but we are totally unpacked and comfortable.

We have daily "towel" service--fresh towels, waste removal, replacement of paper supplies. Once during the week we have full service and cleaning. That works fine, but one major difference between a hotel and a time share is that we actually have to make our own bed!

We have a balcony with a partial view of the ocean, and Rob is out there bright and early with his morning coffee. With his binoculars, he can look way up beach and check the flags, letting us know how amenable the ocean is to tourists! The ocean is a warm and inviting sea foam green and teal. There are always vessels far offshore to catch our interest. We also watch the palm leaves swaying in the soft ocean breeze--an overall relaxing atmosphere. It’s always amazing how much there is to see on the beach.

The pool is very nice, but we are here for the beach and do not spend one minute of our two weeks poolside. There is music by the pool, and it is live entertainment for much of the day--a combination of Jimmy Buffeti-ish and easy-listening reggae. Nice. We did use the spa on several occasions, and it was nice and hot! We also stopped once at the palm-frond topped poolside bar, but as I said, we’re really here for the beach and the ocean.

The beach is just a hop, skip, and a jump past the pool, bar, and spa, just over the dune on a wooden boardwalk. It’s wide and beautiful and uncrowded. There's a hut just over the dune where cabana boys set you up, offer all kinds of tours and activities like parasailing and wave runner rentals. They also walk the beach taking orders from the restaurant and bar. I like that although we don’t use their services. It’s just nice to know they’re available. We simply set up our chairs and get comfy—books, lunch, bottled water. Isn’t that all one needs?

Some of the other hotel amenities include a nicely equipped exercise room and a salon offering massages, seaweed wraps and the expected host of services. They also offer sunburn treatment. Hmmmmmm There’s an activities desk where we can make arrangements for tours, get driving directions, brochures, etc. The staff is friendly and helpful. If we wish, there is valet parking.

There are bicycles and scooters for rent, and there is a trolley that runs from early in the morning to late at night to and from the Sailfish Marina, a stone’s throw across Singer Island where we can catch water taxis, fishing boats, and tours or simply feed the fish and enjoy a good meal in the Sailfish restaurant.

They are re-building the resort’s restaurant, so it is unfinished, but we do have a meal there and it is good. The restaurant is promising but I cannot review it for you.

One of the nice "extras" here is the location. So close to West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Juno and Jupiter and an easy drive to Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton, there's no way you can be bored. The most difficult task we face is whether we want to leave the beach at all! We always travel with that Plan B, and this vacation's list has eleven possibilities. As it turns out, we only do four. Guess we’ll just have to return.

There is only one complaint we have with the resort. When we checked out we were handed a bill with a daily charge for the room safe ($1.00) and parking ($6.00). It came as a surprise to us although when we did sign in, we initialed that we knew about the charge. Frankly we didn’t read the fine print (caveat emptor), and so we were surprised. Not that we could have done anything about the charges anyway, but it is the sneaky way it came to us that is offensive.

I recommend the resort, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up there again!