beachlover99

My husband and I and another couple are looking to visit Panama City Beach for the first time for our summer vacation. What is a good resort to stay at on the beach? We are also open to condos/villas if anyone has comments on this. We are looking to visit in July or August. How is the weather then? Thanks in advance!

tcapp

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Panama City can be a little rough and very crowded. We prefer staying down the road a little in Mexico Beach. Try going to a search engine (such as Yahoo) and putting "Mexico Beach, Florida" in as the title and see what you come up with. If not, even putting in "Panama City" may come up with something in that area.
If I had my choices of beaches, I would go to Isle of Palms in South Carolina near Charleston, the Georgia Coast (Jeckyll Island and St. Simon's),
Destin, Florida, or Crescent Beach, which is near St. Augustine. Anyway, I wish you a very good time.

Marie

July and August in northern Florida? It will be HOT and humid! (Although if you stay right on the beach there will be some benefit from ocean breezes.) And the beaches in PCB remain crowded from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Sorry, I can't recommend a hotel because we also usually stay down the road in Mexico Beach - but I do know that there are hundreds to choose from. I recommend checking out the Panama City website.

beachlover99

Thanks for the help. We visited Fort Lauderdale in late August about 2 years ago and the place was pretty much deserted. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves and really enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind returning to Ft. Lauderdale but was considernig trying a different location (I would actually perfer to return to the Caribbean but can't quite afford this year!! lol).

Thanks, again, for the help. I will look into Mexico Beach.

Quinty

I wish I could tell you a place to stay, but it's been too long and on a lesser budget.

I do want to say that PCB is a very nice beach. The sand is very fine and white - the water is very warm and calm. July and August will be scorchers so plan your vacation around being in the water and take an umbrella for the beach if you are not using one of the resort's.
Many people enjoy the Destin area for a quieter retreat.
Also, that time of year (more July than August) is usually turtle time in Florida, when the sea turtles come up on the beach at night and lay their eggs. I know this happens on the East coast as I grew up in Melbourne Beach and used to go out to watch this every year.
Does anyone know if this happens on the Gulf Coast of Florida?

paige

We went to PCB twice last year. (Actually, I spent last Valentine's Day driving to PCB!). If you are looking for hotels the Holiday Inn Sun Spree Resort is probably the nicest on the beach. Marriott's Bay Point Resort is very nice (it's where my parents choose to stay) but it's on the bay not the beach. For condos or villas try Edgewater Beach Resort or Long Beach. Edgewater is a HUGE complex with golf course villas that are not on the beach and high and mid-rise condos that are on the beach. They have a wonderful lagoon pool. We stayed here the first time in 1993 and again last February. In May of last year we stayed at Long Beach. I probably liked Edgewater better. There is probably a newer highrise available now as I seem to recall one being under construction last year.

Larry1

Forgive me if I seem a little slow, but why is it a problem to schedule a BEACH vacation when it is going to be hot out?

GoTravel

Larry, some people like the really warm water temps that the gulf and Atlantic (mid to upper 80s) have from mid June through mid September.

beachlover99

Thanks for all the help. I don't mind the heat as I am from Memphis and the summers here are awful (very humid). All I need is the beach added to the heat, and then I'm fine!

I will look into Edgewater and Holiday Inn Sunspree. Thanks again!

Quinty

Larry1
It's not the "hot" so much that's the problem, but the incredible intensity of the sun that time of year.

I'm one of those super sun lovers that grew up going to the beach every single day after school (sometimes during school), on weekends and during summer break. Even for the seasoned pro, some days are just too darned hot (intense sun). Those are the days you spend partially under the boardwalk, in the shade of the lifeguard chair or umbrella, or in the water for an hour, followed by 10 minutes to total dryness on the beach and then back in the water again!

Larry1

I guess my point was that even down here in Miami you see the greatest amount of people at the beach during the summer. When I lived in the northeast, the hottest summer weekends sent people to the beaches in droves. So if the beach is such a bad place to be when it is brutally hot out (as some above have suggested), why do more people seem to go at those times? Could it be that the people who think that a Florida beach in the summer is a terrible place to be are in the minority? Looks that way to me.