Tourists look for indoor diversions

DESTIN — The tourists are certainly here, but the wet weather has pushed them from the beach to shopping destinations in massive numbers.

Destin Commons and Silver Sands Premium Outlets report huge crowds.

“We’ve been pretty much slammed,” said Bob Perry, general manager of Destin Commons, who talked to the manager of Bass Pro Shops on Thursday.

“Other than Black Fridays, these last two days have been the busiest days he’s seen since he’s been in Destin,” Perry said.

Jeff Thomas of Newbern, Ala., has spent a lot of time at Destin Commons this week. While it’s not the vacation his family was anticipating, he said they still were having a good time.

“You know you’re going to come over (to Destin Commons) with the rain because you can’t hit the beach,” Thomas said.

“We’ve had a good week,” he added. “We came here last Saturday and the weather was good. We sat out on the beach and read a couple of books. We always come (to Destin Commons) at least once, sometimes twice a day, and then we’ll drive down to Sandestin. The restaurants are great. We love every place we’ve been.”

Sean Gilliland, manager of Panera Bread at Destin Commons, said the shopping center has been “insanely busy” since the rain started Wednesday.

“Wednesday we were up 80 percent in sales over last year,” Gilliland said. “There’s a lot of people in town. If they’re not able to go out and do stuff, see fireworks and go to the beach, then they’re going to go to the mall. It definitely drives them in.

“Our job is to adapt and evolve as quickly as we can,” Gilliland added. “We definitely did not expect Wednesday to be what it was, but we were able to shift some things around and that way were better staffed and more prepared on Thursday for it.”

Like many tourists, Tod and Sonya Jones of Pell City, Ala., have made several trips to Destin Commons this week. Sonya Jones said it’s been so busy that it has been difficult to get around at times.

“You couldn’t move,” she said. “It was even busier (Wednesday) than it was (Thursday).”

This is the Joneses’ second trip to the area this year, and it has rained both times. Despite that, they were not going to let some bad weather keep them from returning.

“This whole area and especially Destin has done a lot to build more than just the beaches and the boats for people to do,” Tod Jones said. “I think they’ve done a real good job.

“You can’t control the weather,” he added.

Target in Destin saw throngs of shoppers getting ready for the July 4th holiday with traditional food and beach purchases. When the rains came they bought indoor entertainment options.

“They couldn’t really make it to the beach or Crab Island or any of those places,” said Hristina Teeva, one of the managers. “We’ve been selling a lot of board games, CDs, DVDs, playing cards.”

Indoor attractions such as Blast Arcade and Laser Maze at Baytowne Wharf have been popular hangouts.

“If the weather is good, our evenings are busy,” said Kitty Whitney, who owns the arcade along with a new ice cream shop. “If weather is questionable to bad, we are slammed. Yesterday was the highest revenue days for Blast and Moo La La since we opened.”

The rain also has driven people to local movie theaters.

On Thursday afternoon, the line to buy tickets at the United Artist Theater at Santa Rosa Mall started outside the building, snaked down a hallway next to the lobby and led back out to the ticket window.

AMC Destin Commons 14 had 10,000 guests Wednesday, at least 25 percent above normal, Perry said.

Jim McDonald of Knoxville, Tenn., and his grandchildren were among them.

After finding out the first two showings for “Monsters University” were sold out, he managed to get tickets for the third.

“It’s been beautiful until Wednesday, and then it was a lot of rain,” McDonald said. “We did the movie thing and fought the crowds there. There was 10,000 people trying to see five movies.”