A couple of weeks ago I posted about my first impressions of The Palms of Destin in my post Destin Florida – Day 1. Now that I am back from my vacation I wanted to take some time to write a full review of The Palms of Destin because I want my readers to know about this place.
I’ll start by saying we really enjoyed our stay in our condo. The 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo had plenty of room for my family of four. Both bedrooms had really comfortable king size beds and plenty of closet and dresser space for our belongings. There was a huge balcony accessible from both bedrooms and the living room with a view of the Gulf of Mexico and Destin from the 7th floor. The kitchen was equipped with everything we needed to prepare all of our meals from our condo. All we had to do was make a trip to Winn Dixie (which is less than 5 minutes away) to stock up for the week to save money from eating out all week. Another huge perk was the stackable washer and dryer in the condo. This particularly comes in handy if you are like my husband and I and forgot to pack extra pants for your husband! (We washed his one pair of jeans all week to keep from having to buy clothes while we were there.)
Oh and in my original post I complained about a sulfur water smell. The good news is that smell went away! My husband thinks the condo hadn’t been rented out in a while (since we stayed in the off season) and they changed water systems and the hot water heater still had the old sulfur water. Once we went through all of that sulfur water the water the rest of the week was fine. I know it’s not that we just got used to the smell because I’ve lived with sulfur water before and you don’t just get used to the smell.
Onto The Palms of Destin amenities. The Palms of Destin has a HUGE lagoon pool and splash area for the kids. The lagoon area has a zero entry area right next to the splash area which I could see being very nice for families with younger kids. It was way too cold for us to use the lagoon pool while we were there and the splash area was turned off for the season, but I could see this area being a popular spot in the peak season. We did get to take advantage of the heated pool right next to the lagoon pool and the jacuzzi. We are the only crazy people in the condo complex that swam in the heated pool in 50 degree weather so we enjoyed having the pool to ourselves. After swimming in the heated pool we jumped over in the jacuzzi (which was also HUGE with a small island in the middle of it) to heat ourselves up before we walked back to our condo. (You have to have a method to the madness if you are going to be crazy enough to swim when it’s 50 degrees outside.)
The Palms of Destin also had a really nice fitness center that we got to take advantage of. The fitness center was equipped with lots of treadmills, elliptical machines, bikes, weight machines, free weights and fitness balls. I can honestly say it was almost as nice as the gym I have a membership to and right downstairs from us so we really had no excuse not to work out while we were there. They also had full service spa (at an extra cost) that I didn’t get to take advantage of and a bar/restaurant downstairs in the lobby.
If you are going to stay at the Palms of Destin during peak season they have a shuttle service to take you to Henderson Beach Park across the street from the condo. You could technically walk to the beach, but you would have to cross the main highway. During off season this isn’t a big deal, but during peak season I could see this being very dangerous.
Here are some things you will need to bring for your stay:
1. Beach towels (the condo provides regular towels for condo use only)
2. Beach chairs and toys (Our condo had boogie boards, but no chairs. This may vary from one condo to another.)
3. Toilet paper and paper towels (the condo provides one roll of toilet paper per bathroom and one roll of paper towels)
4. Dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent (the condo provide one tablet for the dishwasher and nothing for the washer and dryer)
5. Anything you will want for entertainment, games, movies etc (unlike other places I’ve stayed this condo provides the cable tvs and a dvd player and that’s it)
