ANNA MARIA ISLAND, FLORIDA – One of you wants style. The other wants space.
Travellers often are forced to make tough choices when booking a holiday hotel. One of you craves modern, artful surroundings, a bright, modern restaurant, and a sexy pool. The other wants a couple of rooms so they won’t have to step over bulky suitcases on the floor or so that the kids can have their space.
You won’t have that kind of issue if you bed down at the Waterline Marina Resort and Beach Club on beautiful Anna Maria Island.
I recently had a couple of nights at the property and found it a fantastic resort; with spacious, two-bedroom units in a sleek and stylish space that was a short, five-minute walk to a fabulous beach.
The Waterline Marina Resort and Beach Club, a Marriott Autograph Collection property (great for Marriott Rewards members), is located in the Holmes Beach district of Anna Maria Island, a lovely, low-key spot that’s west of Bradenton and maybe an hour from the Tampa Airport. It opened last November, so it’s new and fresh.
Waterline Resort is a great spot for families on the gulf coast of Florida. JIM BYERS PHOTO
It’s a stylish property located alongside a quiet marina on the Intracoastal Waterway side of the island. The lobby has just the right touch of Florida; brilliant white starfish, pretty candles and vases in a lovely shade of aquamarine. There’s also a cool light fixture with suspended glass fish hanging from the ceiling.
There’s a decent-sized pool and pool deck in a courtyard in the middle of the property. The hotel also has a small gym with new equipment (I loved the stationary bike, which allowed me to race against folks from around the world as I took a virtual reality-style ride through the Irish countryside, complete with sheep and lakes and narrow country roads). The hotel will rent you bikes for four hours for a mere $10 if that’s more your style.
They also have a covered entertainment with bean bag games, a giant checkers game, and a ping-pong table.
The on-site restaurant, called Eliza Ann’s Coastal Kitchen, features a New Orleans/Cajun menu with a heaping helping of Florida seafood. We had lovely shrimp in a tasty Worcestershire-butter sauce and a slightly spicy gumbo packed with veggies and andouille sausage straight from the bayou.
Should you choose, there also are several restaurants and pubs within walking distance of the hotel, as well as a handful of casual stores selling beachwear and Florida-style knickknacks.
Waterline Resorts has massive suites with all the amenities a family needs for a great vacation. JIM BYERS PHOTO
The resort, which has 37 suites in all, supplies an ample breakfast included in the price of the room; everything from yogurt and a huge bowl of fresh fruit to oatmeal, cold cereal, and pastries, as well as juice and coffee. You can eat inside in air-conditioned comfort or take your meal out to the pool area and breathe in the fresh air.
The folks at the front desk can help arrange boat rides or fishing trips from their 50-slip marina. The hotel also has a shuttle to take you up to their beach pavilion, which is only about a 15-minute walk up the road (better yet, walk along the beach until you see the small signpost for 66th St.). Or you can take the free Monkey Bus, a shuttle that runs on a “tips only” basis and shuttles folks around Anna Maria Island.
The rooms are enormous; 1,200 square feet in all. The main bedroom had a king-size bed and dresser and end tables and a large adjoining bath with double sinks and a shower big enough to hold the starting five of the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team. If you love a big bathroom, and I do, this is one you’ll remember for a long time.
The second bedrooms at Waterline have a nice-sized bathroom and either another king beds or two queens, which makes it great for families with kids. On top of that, the living room sofa opens into a bed.
The marina at Waterline Resort on Anna Maria Island. JIM BYERS PHOTO
The living room area featured a large TV and a balcony overlooking the marina. Other units I noticed had views of the pool.
They also have super-large tables (shaped a bit like a surfboard) that whole family can gather around, plus shiny new refrigerators, stoves, blenders, coffee makers, microwaves and an in-suite washer and dryer: another huge benefit for families.
I loved the small nautical touches, such as a coiled rope for a doorstop.
Staff is super-friendly and welcomed us with a lovely drink featuring sparkling wine, orange juice, grapefruit juice and a dash of cranberry.
The resort also has space for weddings and meetings. On top of all that, there’s free parking and free Wi-Fi, with plenty of charging outlets and USB ports to keep your phone or personal device powered up.
Waterline Resort has a beach club that’s a few blocks north of the property on a fine stretch of sand. JIM BYERS PHOTO
We didn’t want to come to Anna Maria Island without spending time at the beach, so we took a nice walk along the water up to the resort’s beach club, where we were given towels and cold glasses of water and were able to use the washroom. They don’t have food on site, but a nice young man at the desk phoned down to a deli near the hotel and had them deliver us huge, tasty sandwiches for $10 apiece. We also spent $20 for a couple of chaise lounges for the day and had a snooze on the beach. They have paddleboards and kayaks for rent, as well.
Anna Maria is a real throwback kind of place, with only a couple of high rises (moderate at that; maybe five or six stories each) and a long, pretty beach. The north end has several casual shops and galleries that feel very much like 1950’s Florida. The north end also is home to one of the most famous restaurants in Florida, the Sandbar, where some tables are on the sand and where they invite kids to come up and shake a maraca while a fellow plays bright tunes on the steel drum as the sun goes down.
All in all, a smashing new addition to the gulf coast of Florida. And a fabulous family destination.
