Girl's Weekend!

This past weekend my friends Abby and Dana and I headed to Amelia Island for a girl's weekend. We had SO much fun! None of us had ever been to Amelia Island but we'd heard good things and we received lots of great tips and recommendations from people that had been!
We arrived on Friday around lunchtime. Dana and I drove and Abby flew down. We stayed at the Residence Inn. It was very nice and everyone was quite helpful. One of the best things was that they had a free shuttle that would take you to various places around the area so when we would go to dinner we would take the shuttle and then we would Uber back. (The shuttle only ran until 9pm)
When we arrived on Friday we walked down to the beach and had lunch at Sliders. It is right on the beach and so we sat outside. They even had live music! We had really good food as well! I had a yummy salad and pineapple casserole on the side. I had never heard of pineapple casserole but it was delish! It is a yummy combo of baked pineapple and cream cheese with crumbled crackers on top.

After lunch we walked out on the beach. It was pretty windy so we decided we would lay out at the pool for a bit. We headed back to the hotel, made a quick grocery store run, and then headed to the pool. We had a great time relaxing and coming up with a plan for the evening.

Once the sun started to go behind the building we decided to head to New York Nails to get pedicures. New York Nails had been recommended by someone at the hotel and it was great!

After pedicures we headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. Then we took the hotel shuttle to Peppers, a delightful Mexican restaurant. We were seated by the kitchen and I smelled the fajitas as soon as we sat down and had to have them. They food definitely tasted as good as it smelled. They also make their own guacamole and it was SO good.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and hung out for the rest of the evening! The hotel had a firepit going and we really enjoyed that.

Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and made a beeline for the beach. We had reserved chairs and an umbrella the day before. We had PERFECT beach weather! We also had great entertainment. People were allowed to park on the beach and we realized after we'd been there about an hour that there was a constant stream of cars having to be towed out of the sand. We enjoyed watching and taking bets on who would make it out without having to be towed!

We used beach rentals and more for our chairs and umbrella and were very pleased!

These were really great kites...a dragon and a boat. 

We had lunch again at Sliders (because it was SO good the first time...plus it's right on the beach!). This time I had the crabcakes...not as good as the ones in Boston but better than average. We had fun music this time...an electric ukulele and an upright bass.

After lunch we headed back to the beach for a bit. Around 4:30 we headed back to the room for showers and to get ready for dinner. When we were planning our trip every single person we talked to recommended eating at The Salty Pelican so we planned to head there for dinner. We ended up having an hour and a half wait so we took advantage of the time to go walk around the Fernandina Beach shopping district. There were so many cute little shops and while we were out we scouted out an ice cream shop for dessert! We arrived back at Salty Pelican in time to catch the sunset over the river...gorgeous...and then our seats were ready.

We were all still pretty full so we decided to order some appetizers and share them. We got the calamari, crab dip, and at the last minute added on the pretzel. Y'all. That pretzel was huge. And so good.  We really enjoyed Salty Pelican...it had a very laid back atmosphere and the live music was great.

After dinner we headed to the Fantastic Fudge Shop. They have homemade ice cream, fudge, and other yummy goodies. I chose an ice cream that had their homemade fudge mixed in. And ate it in a homemade waffle cone. It was deeeeelicious.

After our ice cream we headed back to the hotel and sat around and talked for awhile before bed.
Sunday morning we got up and checked out and headed to brunch at 29 South Eats. The atmosphere was lovely and it was perfect weather to sit outside. Overall the food was just ok. We had some things that were really good and some things that were not impressive at all. This was definitely our least favorite meal of the trip but numerous people had told us how good it was so maybe we just ordered the wrong things or ate the wrong meal there?

After eating we headed to Publix so Abby could get a Publix sub to take to the airport (she has an addiction and they don't have Publix in DC) and then we dropped her off at the airport in Jacksonville and headed back to Columbia!

We were worried about the weather because there were some really bad storms coming through but we managed to get out of Florida before they hit there and they hit Columbia (including a few tornados!) before we got back there...all we had was a little rain thank goodness!

We had such a fun trip and I would definitely recommend the Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach area to anyone looking for a laid back beach trip! There were lots of things to do but it didn't feel commercialized at all...exactly the atmosphere I love at the beach! If you're comparing to other cities Amelia Island reminded me of Isle of Palms and Fernandina Beach shopping/eating area reminded me Asheville.