San Antonio Anniversary Mini-vacation!

This year for our anniversary we decided to actually go somewhere. I had been bugging Chuck for months now  take me to Sea World, so it seemed like the perfect time. Unfortunately, even with all the planning I did, I didn't notice that Sea World is closed during the week in the winter until the day before we left haha! This might be a super long entry by the way, with lots of pics!

 ~Here's some pictures of our suite with Chuck relaxing already!~

 ~This is the Drury Plaza Hotel lobby. It had beautiful gold molding and marble everywhere.~

We splurged on the hotel and decided to get a jacuzzi suite. It was totally worth it! The room was HUGE and the jacuzzi was amazing! We were on the 12th floor in the new San Fernando tower at the Dury Plaza Hotel. The main portion of the hotel used to be a bank and is 23 stories tall. We went up to the very top to where the pool was and got to look out over San Antonio. Too bad it was too cold to swim! Our tower had its own pool too, but it wasn't quite as neat. It had its own tower as well, over looking the San Fernando church.

 ~The view from the very top of our hotel.~

 ~Chuck by the Alamo Tower pool. he really wanted to swim but is was super windy and cold!~

 ~The Drury from the street, and a picture of the old vault that is in the basement.~

The drury used to be a bank a long time ago. It still has several parts of the old vaults down in the basement. As you walk out to the river walk you can see lots of them on display, as well as pictures of the hotel when it was a bank. We were able to walk directly out onto the Riverwalk and were very close to the busiest part.

Our first full day in San Antonio we went to the zoo. I was super excited because they have a new area called Africa Live! My most favorite animal in the world is an African elephant, but most zoos don't seem to have any. I assumed Africa Live! would have African elephants, but alas they were Asian elephants. They did have an absolutely awesome hippo area. The hippos were under water when we went through and it was so awesome to see them! The San Antonio zoo turned out to be HUGE! But they really didn't have a whole lot of spectacular animals.

One super fun thing we did was go into the butterfly house. There were hundreds of butterflies fluttering around us and we were the only ones in there! I got to test out my new camera on some pretty little ones posing for us.

The Riverwalk was undoubtedly my favorite part of the trip. It was charming and oh so pretty. We went down at night and took a boat tour after our day at the zoo. Everything was beautiful all lit up.We then went and ate our official anniversary dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse. It was so delicious! I don't really love steak but I certainly did that night!

The next morning we got up bright and early (11:00am lol) and went back to the Riverwalk. We took another tour so we could see the city more clearly in the daylight. I could probably sit on one of those boats all day and look around. It is just so pretty there!

Now one of my favorite pictures of my Granny and Papa is of them at the Riverwalk. I really wanted to get a picture of Chuck and I at the same place their picture was taken at. Well the only problem was it was a restaurant but we didn't know which! One our night tour I found what I thought was the correct place. Chuck study my picture and looked around the restaurant a ton to make sure it was the right place. We sat and ate in almost the exact same place they had almost what I think was two decades before. The only thing noticeably different was the table tops. The restaurant is named Casa Rio and is famous for its colorful umbrellas at the Riverwalk, and is the oldest restaurant there. It meant so much to me to get this picture!

~Casa Rio from the boat cruise.~

~Papa and Grandma years ago at the Riverwalk~

~Chuck and I at the same place!~

Then we went to the Alamo. We couldn't go to San Antonio without going to the Alamo right?! I didn't really expect much out of this potion of our trip. We did go inside and look around and go to look at a lot of the artifacts recovered from the Alamo. It was definitely a good piece of history to see.

 

 ~The Alamo~

After the Alamo it was time to head home. I was sad the vacation was over but we had a wonderful time. Little did I know we weren't done yet! Chuck had made reservations at our local Melting pot for when we got back to town. It was an awesome surprise! It's my favorite restaurant but we never go since it is so expensive! 

~Yummy!~

Well that's it for our trip. It was an amazing 2 1/2 days and the best anniversary I could have asked for. I took a ton of pictures and they can be found here: Ashley's Smugmug Gallery