I know that a lot of people, myself included, were pretty shocked when we first heard that Bay Point was going to be one of the venues for this year’s Thunder Beach spring rally. The two just didn’t seem go together, and there were many understandable concerns from Bay Point and Panama City Beach residents about the potential noise and disruptions from the large number of motorcycles.
I decided to go check out the new venue for myself and believe it or not, I was actually really impressed with what I saw. The venue is located only at the Marriott Bay Point Golf Resort and Spa – so bikes are unable to enter the actual Bay Point community without either going through the guard gate or knowing the code to the newer barrier at the Reflections resort. Everything to do with Thunder Beach is contained within the front parking area for the hotel and inside the convention rooms. Inside, three or four large areas offer a huge variety of clothing and merchandise, and outside is set-up much the same, reminding me of a marketplace with just lots of really cool stuff available for purchase. There’s a tent where you can listen to live music, and the usual concession items including drinks, food and snacks.
Being a new venue and not being directly on the beach, Thunder Beach at the Marriott is not overrun with bikes, so the vroom vrooms are kept to a minimum and there’s plenty of space to walk around and enjoy the bikes. If you weren’t familiar with Thunder Beach then this would just seem like any other regular event, and certainly not the wild, noisy spectacle many envisioned. Whether the Marriott Bay Point will continue to play host to Thunder Beach remains to be seen, but if the remainder of this year’s spring rally at Bay Point is without complaint or issue then it might actually end up being a pretty good fit after all.
PCBDaily 
There were no complaints because there was no one there. Your pictures proove it. That lady that said in the paper there was going to be 120,000 people here must have been making that up to. Glad we rode down to ride the beach, but everything else was kind of sorry.
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THX – pcbdaily.com! Great NEWS Gathering – keeps this semi-absentee owner a proud member of the community. YEA for Thunder Beach, or any other public rally/event we can host. Malcots can get over their gas pains – the community needs the crowds – it’s a LEISURE Community! Smell the flowers and the MONEY!
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The only ones smelling the money are all the out of state vendors and the owners of thunder beach. I didn’t have one single biker hand me a penny. I bet most of these carnival vendors don’t even pay sales tax! Does the county audit the vendor list for tax payments?
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There were not alot of bikes there because many people I spoke with did not even know it was a venue. We rode our bikes from the west end to come to the Marriott and it didnt dissapoint. I have been to Bay Point before for the Fishing Rodeo. That got kind of wild, so yall may want to stop hosting that event. As far as money goes, we bought drinks there that the hotel was selling. We spent well over a $1000.00 dollars in your city. Buying groceries, gas, food, etc. Some of these comments about bikers are dumb and/or missinformed. If you dont want people to visit, move out of a vacation/resort town to a remote island or something.
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PCB Daily, this is a great article and for those who are under the impression there was nobody there, you are misinformed. The venue was rocking, the bikers “as always” were respectful and they really enjoyed themselves. If youd didn’t know there was venue out at Marriott ….well that funny given the coverage the media has given it and it’s all over promo materials…
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Remember that it was President Obama who lifted the ban on offshore drilling on March 31st specifically targeting the gulf, Atlantic and Alaskan coasts. Now he’s withdrawn it due to the popular outrage following this accident. He’s careful not to mention Florida. Here’s the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033100024.html
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OOps. I wonder how I managed to mis post? My apologies..
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I like bikes (motorcycles). I have had dozens over the years. It seems like the noise is becoming louder and louder and just too much. The loud noise from the exhaust is intentionally done. One argument is safety. “It lets others know we are coming”. That’s a weak argument for noise polluting the entire neighborhood. Hearing a deep rumble is sexy, but hearing them blast from a 1/4 mile away is excessive noise pollution.
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