Anyone stay at the beach?

[snickerboo]

We are thinking of staying at a beach hotel on the ocean side, next time, then driving into Disney for one day at MK and one night in a Disney hotel, then back to the beach for the rest of the week. Anyone done something similar? This past trip was Disney, Disney, Disney (6 days in a row of Disney parks). We absolutely loved MK but we didn't do much plain old relaxing and we never got to the beach. We're thinking of the next trip as more of a beach vacation with a little Disney thrown in (after all, you can't go to Florida withnout at least doing a day at MK! )

 

[connorsmom911]

I can still recommend the place my parents have stayed every April/May for 13 years. We were just there are part of our "Disney" getaway, 3 nights at ASMo, 2 nights at the beach and then back to Orlando.

The Coral Beach motel...http://www.coralbeachmotel.com/

It's nothing fancy, but it's great value for the money, right on the beach and the views can't be beat. There is plenty of restaurants in the area (I recommend Stonewood, TGIF, Boston Market on Granada up by the Walmart). If you have any Nascar fans you can visit Daytona USA, the mall is great shopping, and the Walmart is open 24 hrs. We also have a tradition of driving south down to Ponce Inlet and eating at Inlet Harbour. There are great day trips you can take going north too, like St. Augustine (there is a pretty good gator farm just south of St. Augustine we enjoy).

I have to admit that the area seems a bit more downtrodden than in recent years. Apparently this was due to the hurricanes last year. A lot of the little hotels along the coast were either damaged too badly for repair, or the loss in income forced a lot to close their doors. There seems to be a bit of construction and renewal, but at a slow pace.

Any other questions, don't hesitate to ask or pm me.

 

[F4disneyfan]

We are thinking of staying at a beach hotel on the ocean side, next time, then driving into Disney for one day at MK and one night in a Disney hotel, then back to the beach for the rest of the week. Anyone done something similar? This past trip was Disney, Disney, Disney (6 days in a row of Disney parks). We absolutely loved MK but we didn't do much plain old relaxing and we never got to the beach. We're thinking of the next trip as more of a beach vacation with a little Disney thrown in (after all, you can't go to Florida withnout at least doing a day at MK! )

We have gone to Cocoa beach for a weekend but honestly we are not beach people so the 2 days there was more than enough for us it was about an hour and a bit for the drive so not to bad. Now we just stay at Disney and drive to the beach for teh day if we feel the need LOL...

 

[riu girl]

Have you considered the Siesta Key area? If you do a search for Siesta Key, a lot of threads will show up. We really love this part of Florida (the beach is amazing). For us, it was about a 2 hour drive to Disney.


We stayed at the coral beach hotel in Ormond Beach 12/2004. Yes, it is a pretty basic hotel. We had an ocean front efficiency unit (with a full kitchen) and the unit was very large (felt especially large after staying the week before in a value resort in Disney) . What we liked about this resort was that they had a heated indoor pool. The week we were in Daytona was very cool, so this was a real bonus. If you do decide on this hotel, I found that by calling the rates were less then what is offered on the web site (was for us anyway).

Have you considered checking www.vrbo.com or www.vacationrentals.com. These web sites offer a ton of Florida beach rentals (houses or condos) and some seem quite reasonably priced.

 

[snickerboo]

Thanks everyone. At this point, we're loooking at everywhere. It's actually only been a month since we left for our last trip to Disney! LOL Guess we've been bit by the bug. Dh has Holiday Inn platinum and travels a lot for business. We tend to use the points for a night here or a couple of nights there. We just realized that we should be saving them for Disney (what were we thinking?!). We love the beach so we're looking at staying out and just doing a day or two at Disney next time. The day(s) we do Disney, we'll stay over on-site. we're also going to switch our CCs to something that will get us points towards Disney. Right now we have an alumni affinity card that gives a % of our purchases to our alma mater but we'd rather give a one-time donation and get a CC that will allow us to earn flight miles or Disney dollars or something.

 

[F4disneyfan]

Thanks everyone. At this point, we're loooking at everywhere. It's actually only been a month since we left for our last trip to Disney! LOL Guess we've been bit by the bug. Dh has Holiday Inn platinum and travels a lot for business. We tend to use the points for a night here or a couple of nights there. We just realized that we should be saving them for Disney (what were we thinking?!). We love the beach so we're looking at staying out and just doing a day or two at Disney next time. The day(s) we do Disney, we'll stay over on-site. we're also going to switch our CCs to something that will get us points towards Disney. Right now we have an alumni affinity card that gives a % of our purchases to our alma mater but we'd rather give a one-time donation and get a CC that will allow us to earn flight miles or Disney dollars or something.

We stayed at the Holioday Inn Cocoa Beach it was on the beach and very nice and not to far from Disney only an hour and a bit. For a CC that provides rewards I would reccomend teh TD gold travel visa the travel points can be used for any airline and for hotel and car rentals etc no black out dates and no restriction and it is all done through teh TD rewards department which is run for them by Carlson Wagonle (sp) so it is an actual travel agency and as I said we love the no blackout dates and we can choose the carrier we aren't locked into it being AC or Westjet etc.

 

[CanadianPaco]

We did a similar thing last summer: 5 days at WDW and 4 days at Clearwater. We'll probably do the same thing next time but onthe ocean side- we loved the gulf side but Clearwater-St Petes is becoming condo haven! Not for us!

 

[shaycamp21]

If you want that Disney magic with relaxation thrown in I would recommend going to Disney's Vero Beach Resort. It is an absolutely beautiful resort, it reminds me somewhat of the Beach Club at WDW. They have a huge Mickey pool with an amazing slide and pirate ship themed splash area. The beach is lovely white powdery sand, blue green water. They also have great kids activities so we got a little break (some are free--we took advantage of the free "Unbirthday Party"--they also have sing songs around a campfire too). We just stayed in a basic Garden View Room which was huge as it is a Deluxe resort, it had a fridge, toaster, coffee make, miscrowave so you could make some meals and the beds were really comfy. We went in March after our cruise and rented someone from Canada's DVC points and paid $150 US (including all taxes) per night but it is as low as $100 (assuming you paying about $10 a point) depending on what time of the year you go. I looked into several resorts around Cocoa Beach which IMHO were not as nice (you can't beat that Disney Magic) but would have cost us more since it was March Break. I would go again.

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Disney Wonder / Vero Beach March '06
POFQ Aug' 05
Plus numerous trips to Disneyland 1972-1992