Landmark Holiday Beach Resort

Landmark Holiday Beach Resort in Panama City Beach, FL. I looked forward to going back to Panama City Beach. It is an area that I like because it feels old school. I will explain why in this article and it is a great thing.

Day One Arrival at Landmark Holiday Beach Resort

I decided to drive down and make this trip a nice long stay in the area. I had several resorts to write about on my list for Florida still so I was going to make a great trip out of it and go from one resort to the other.

If I did not write for TZort and do other work for my clients, that is remote work online this would not be possible. No one unless they are retired can just put things down and travel as much as I have in the last year. But it has been an amazing year as the writer for TZort. I have stayed at so many great resorts and visited many great towns and vacation destinations.

Today I was driving back to one of my favorites and that is Panama City Beach, FL. Panama City Beach is more affordable than many other beach towns and offers tremendous value for families and couples. There is a great deal to do, see, and enjoy.

You can even get a free travel guide from the city tourism group here.

The resort itself is at 17501 Front Beach Road Panama City Beach, FL 32413. This means from my home in Virginia Beach, VA the drive will be about 13 hours. If I did not have my convertible, I might have just taken the 3-hour flight instead and rented one at the airport. But I still have the mustang so I drove down.

The drive is not bad down interstate 95 then over from Jacksonville, FL on interstate 10. I broke the trip down into two days, doing the bulk of the drive down to Jacksonville and staying at a discount hotel near the airport just for some rest before getting up today and driving to the resort the last few hours.

As I drove to the resort on the beach road, I started to see some of the resorts I had stayed at in the past. This to me was a great sign that this resort was in a good part of the beach. The resort itself is next to the Emerald Isle Beach Resort and Landmark Holiday Beach Resort has many more very positive reviews when you look it up online.

Here are some of those great reviews you too can find online.

I liked the location and rooms. The beaches are great. Indoor pool. Quiet.

Our view was great and the rooms were big enough for 4 adults.

Great gulf views, clean and spacious beach! Lots to do and see in the area!

Great location. The room was right on the water with a great view. The room was clean and comfortable. Loved the hot tub and heated indoor pool.

Great resort & great staff!

My first thoughts were that this resort is well established, and looks like a resort you would find on Myrtle Beach which is one of my top vacation spots on the East Coast. A tall tower with most rooms has a great ocean view.

The rooms are available in 1-2, and 3-bedroom sizes. The 1-bedroom units do have a staircase to a loft-like area so keep that in mind if you are booking a trip with anyone who has mobility concerns.

I stayed in a 2-bedroom unit on my stay because it was available and offered a nice gulf-front view. I want to type ocean every time I think about the Gulf of Mexico because it is so expansive. When you look out on the water, your brain knows the difference but you often forget. The views are just so amazing here.

Things at the resort appear well maintained but the picky among you do not that the villas have older-style amenities. They are clean, working, and well-maintained, but they are older in their style. I personally like and appreciate that but I know some people who do not like to see anything that is older than 10 years in age in a room. If that is you, this might not be your first choice. But you also may want to think about Panama City Beach as a destination because part of the draw here (in my mind) is that things have not changed. The beach, the restaurants, and the local spots still look much the same as they did 10-15 years ago. I love that about this area. I hope you will too.

My 2-bedroom unit was the size of most 2-bedroom homes. It was over 1,000 sq ft in size. This provided plenty of space for all the amenities.

Villa Amenities

Then the resort itself offers all of these options.

Resort Amenities

After checking in, I took a grand tour of the resort and even made time to hit the steam room, then the hot tub. Afterward, it was back to my room to shower and change, then go get some dinner.

I went to Mike’s for dinner since I could walk to it almost right across the street. Well, not that close but very close anyway. After a 3-minute walk, I was in and ready to down something cold while I waited for my seafood. I started with some Spicy Beach Shrimp, and then for the entrée chose Mahi Mahi grilled with sides. It was a great meal.

After that, it was back to the resort for me to get some rest and get up early for the Sunrise. On the Gulf, you often can get a good sunrise and an Amazing Sunset on the same day if you are lucky with the weather. So I know I wanted to be up early in the morning, check out the Sunrise then head somewhere local for breakfast in the morning early.

Day Two at Landmark Holiday Beach Resort

Video by Wind Walk Travel Videos
I woke up early for the sunrise as planned. It was before 7 am today so it was an early start to catch it. But when you have a waterfront view from your room and balcony it is easy to catch, you just have to roll out of bed. Now it is not quite as impressive as an East Coast Beach but the Gulf still gives you a great show.

For breakfast, I headed to Sunrise Café & Bakery it went with my morning theme. This was a new spot for me and I was happy to check it out. From the menu I chose the biscuits and gravy, which also comes with 2 eggs and sides. The menu online looks underwhelming but when you are in the bakery with all the fresh bakery items that they do not list it is more than fine. I also added fresh eclairs to the breakfast, and I was a happy camper. You could say I went for the goodies and stayed for breakfast.

Next, I drove around a little, seeing the beach and the area again. Finding some of the spots that I have been to before, and wanted to make sure I would go to them on this trip as well. I stopped at the SkyWheel or Ferris Wheel for a ride. The same company owns this one and the one in Myrtle Beach, as well.

At this location, they also have a ropes course and mini golf which by default I call Putt Putt.

For $25 you can get tickets to 2 of the things you are interested in, so that meant mini golf for me and the Skywheel ride. Both were great fun and between the two, a few hours of entertainment. There was no wait for the Ferris Wheel, and only a short line of players ahead of me at mini golf. So, both were great fun.

Here the mini golf course is not as designed or visually impressive but it was still a fun course. They could benefit from building it up some as an attraction with decorations and more of a theme. Maybe add a hole that you have to get the gold ball to stay on a Ferris Wheel for a rotation and then it gets dropped out the other side or something.

Something that was new about this trip is more of a group activity but it may be right for a family or group of friends. There are many new escape rooms now available in Panama City Beach. I passed at least 3 around the beach area, and more show up in an online search on Google so that may be an affordable option for you to have something fun to do if it is a rainy day at the beach.

Here is an example of one called the Forbidden Tomb.

Me, I was headed to the beach because this day was perfect for a day on the beach. It was going to be a high of about 80, but with a slight wind on the beach to make the waves more active and cool off the beach some. This meant a trip back to the resort since that has great beachfront access.

I spent the rest of the day right on the Gulf there with the perfect white sand beach. Here the beach sand is as white as it is at the 7-mile beach on Grand Cayman Island. The water seems almost as clear as well, which is amazing. It was very nice to be able to pop back up to my room and cool off in the afternoon. I had been playing in the waves for a few hours, so even an afternoon nap seemed a proper thing to do. So I showered (taking that instant test of how sunburnt or not I was) and found only a slight case of lobster coloring from the sun. If I have not been on the beach in a while, I often forget to sustain lotion on the first trip to the beach and regret it later. This time I had limited my exposure to the water, and also with just a few hours. So my face and shoulders were red but not painful.

After my shower, then a brief nap, it was time to get something to eat. One amazing thing about having the washer and dryer in the room was that I could was my swimsuit and later dry it for my next trip to the beach. I put it in the wash with a few shirts before I left for dinner. Out of habit and good practice, I never put anything in the dyer unattended.

I headed to a new restaurant for me at least Bayou Bill’s. Compared to most vacation town eateries, this place was priced reasonably. Some items like the Alaskan Steamed Crab seemed high at first glance, but there were plenty of other options to choose from on the large seafood menu.

Everything thing I had from the Gumbo to the Fish was prepared well and tasted great.

After a large dinner and a few beers, I was ready to head back to the resort for Sunset. On the Gulf the Sunsets are amazing. When your accommodations give you direct beach front access, they are even better. Since it had been almost a year, I headed down to the beach for this first sunset on my trip. It was a great one with those layers of colors that only a waterfront view can provide in the early night sky.

Day Three life on the beach is so hard

Yeah, OK, I got you with that line for this section of my story. “Life is a Beach” is all about living laid back and taking it easy or it should be. Staying in a beachfront resort makes everything laid back and easy. I highly recommend it. There is none of the hassle of finding somewhere to park, no fighting a crowd. All you have to do is grab a towel from your room key and head down an elevator. I tell you I want to move to a beach before I retire, so I can enjoy it now. I do not want to wait until I stop work and I am too old to enjoy the beach first hand.

Most people would not want to live on a beach. They fantasize about it but when push came to shove a beach town is not for most married folks. So, while I was in town I thought I would do one of my other favorite things to do and that is looking at some real estate.

I was essentially looking for something a lot like the villa I was staying in, just one that would actually be for sale. One real estate observation is that some beaches have higher prices on real estate but much lower HOA fees so it kind of balances out. It just makes it more of a home loan if you are not paying cash for the property.

I checked out this listing which offered a nice beachfront view, and that low HOA I was talking about. It was nice and I love the area, but just more than I wanted to spend. Also, I love this area but it is a long way from my family. If I could I would like to stay within a shorter one day drive to see them more often and spend more time with them. But still on a day that started a little overcast, this was a fun thing to do for a few hours.

After my daydreams about a beachfront condo were dashed by the local prices for beachfront. I headed for some lunch. I went to David’s Snow Balls which was basically a neat sandwich shop that also offered snow cones and desserts. I enjoyed a roast beef Po-Boy and then a snow cone that included a scoop of ice cream as well. It was an interesting twist. The owner seemed like a neat guy and he spent time in between orders checking on you and just talking and being a heck of a nice guy. They also serve beignets which were too good-looking not to order extra to take back to my room for a late-night snack.

For most of the summer here in Panama City Beach, the weather is great. On this trip, things went from overcast to rainy. I headed for a museum that I wanted to go to before on my last trip, but I could not pull myself away from the beach long enough to visit.

It was the Man in the Sea Museum which offers a great deal to see in the form of its exhibits. Here the focus is on diving and submarines and it is a one-of-a-kind museum with that focus. It was interesting to see the evolution of scuba, and more specifically, dive gear and equipment. We are talking about the giant, very heavy metal dive helmets and gear here. The museum is open 10 am-4 pm Thursday through Sunday weekly. The tickets are only $5-7 based on age, and or discounts for the military and seniors. Children under 5 are free. It would be a great spot for the family to visit on a rainy day or if someone had already gotten sunburned and needed a few hours off the beach.

They have restored a full Sea Lab that was developed as an underwater lab in the 1960s by the navy. That is amazing to see and check out in detail while you are here. The tour also includes a 55-minute documentary on the sea lab so you can learn a great deal while you are here.

If you have a sense of adventure when in town, try the slingshot out. Me, I like watching people go on it, but I do not want to test my heart like that. I chose instead to check out the race track while I was here. They also have a ride here called the Vomatron this was like a 200 ft version of Davinci’s Cradle from Bush Gardens and I wanted nothing to do with it. I felt that its true namesake might happen if I did.

I picked a two-person go cart instead and just ran it around the small track, some for a trip down memory lane more than anything else. I would stick with the larger rides here since the track was tiny.

Even though it was still raining a little, I wanted to go back to the resort and at least enjoy my incredible room view of the beach for the rest of the day before I had to get up early tomorrow and head to the next resort.

Next, I was moving to Fort Myers, so that should be another neat West Coast of Florida location follow that part of my trip here.

When you need to book a great deal on your vacation, trust TZort.