Live from Vero Beach!

[nzdisneymom]

Hiya folks! We arrived this afternoon for our first stay at Vero Beach. It's lovely! DS#2 said he wants to be sure to come back here - and we had not even been here an hour So I guess that's a thumbs-up for the place!

We have a OVIR that is Ocean-Facing, just next to the Green Cabin Room... and what is nice is that we can get the free wireless internet without having to leave our room! We're on the 2nd floor and get great wireless connection.

I took a few pictures and will be posting them - forgive me if they are too big at first - if they are, I'll go back and resize them. the holiday decorations are still up and beautiful.

After we got situated in our room we took a walk around the resort to check out the pool and the beach access and the mini-golf course. The boys have plans to play tomorrow and try out the slide at the pool. We found out about getting wrist-bands for the NYE party tomorrow night, too.

We drove down A1A (DS#2 calls it AIA) until we got into Vero Beach and went to Ay Jalisco for dinner (thx to a recommendation from the board). It was not busy when we got there around 6:30 but filled up while we were there. It was good and quick and not expensive. We have plans to try out a pizza place across from there later in the week (Vincents).

We picked up some groceries at Publix (mostly drinks and snacks and sandwich stuff) and then found our way back to the resort. We went down to the gift-shop and the boys got their Mickey ice cream bars (how fun it is to get them and not be at WDW) and checked out two movies (they are watching Ernest Saves Christmas right now - good thing we only have neighbors on one side - they are howling with laughter).

Our only "disappointment" is that our room has a roll-in shower -- and that means less counter space in the bathroom. But we don't have a need for a bathtub but I miss having extra counter space in the bathroom (at least if the other bathrooms are like at OKW where the roll-in shower bathrooms have less counter space). But the room is clean and comfortable, has a dehumidifier, and a good view of the beach (and the croquet lawn).

The room is clean - I checked the corners and ledges and have no complaints. The frig was clean and plenty of paper plates and bowls and plasticware.

If anyone has any questions or wants any particular information about the resort, I'll be online off and on this week (have to sign on a couple of days for work - ugh) and I'll be glad to answer them.

And if you're staying here and reading the board this week, let me know and maybe we can meet at the pool or somewhere to say hi.

 

[nzdisneymom]

Entry to Vero Beach Inn:

Wreath outside entry to Vero Beach:

Just above the check-in desk:

The lobby Christmas tree:

 

[nzdisneymom]

Inside our room:

 

[nzdisneymom]

View from our 2nd floor balcony:

Green Cabin Room (from our balcony):

Our room from outside (bottom left):

Another view from outside:

 

[nzdisneymom]

Fun stuff around the resort:

 

[lisareniff]

Glad you are enjoying VB! Sounds like a real convenient room. Free internet and right next to the green cabin! Easy to get things to go - and relax on your balcony.

NYE at VB sounds like a lot of fun. You will have to report back on how that goes.


One favor. When we were there almost two years ago I snapped a picture of the 4th floor floor plan of the Inn that was posted on the back of the door. Do you think you could do that for the 2nd floor? I did have to go off angle to avoid the glare.


You are making me anxious for our April trip!

Have fun!

 

[angel659]

Great pics. We are thinking of staying here for a week. I have heard from the uk board that there really isnt much to do here. A week is too much. Lovely to see if they are wrong at all. Also are there bug problems. I heard that many people get bitten by insects??? I have to say mossies love me.!

Have a great trip. Please add some more pics. They are great.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Thanks for sharing your pictures! We can't wait to get back to VB, for us, it will be in June.

Bobbi

 

[squitty]

Lovely photos, everything looks so nice, we have yet to stay in VB

 

[nzdisneymom]

One favor. When we were there almost two years ago I snapped a picture of the 4th floor floor plan of the Inn that was posted on the back of the door. Do you think you could do that for the 2nd floor? I did have to go off angle to avoid the glare.

Lisa, I was able to get a picture so I'll post it later when I download photos again.

Great pics. We are thinking of staying here for a week. I have heard from the uk board that there really isnt much to do here. A week is too much. Lovely to see if they are wrong at all. Also are there bug problems. I heard that many people get bitten by insects??? I have to say mossies love me.!

Not mosquitoes, but no-see-ums. They were out at dusk last night but we weren't bothered or bitten by them. It's supposed to get cooler this week and apparently they don't like under-70-degree weather, so we'll see.

DH is out for a run and the boys are watching a DVD. I had a nice breakfast on the balcony and read for a while. When DH gets back we're heading to the pool and beach area. We are planning to get the $5/play-all-week thing for mini-golf and pick up our wrist bands for the party tonight and then get a beach-set-up for the day.

 

[princessesrule4]

Thanks for the live report- We can't wait to go back in March! We had the OVIR to the right of the Green Cabin. We actually moved because it got pretty noisy til after midnight or1am with the live entertainment. I love the OVIR's! Love to know how NYE is if you have time! Have fun!

 

[starbox]

We were in that exact room and I loved it (HA shower and all) because you don't have to wait for the elevator, we loved the internet signal in the room, HUGE balcony, and having the Green Cabin room next door was very convenient. We're going to request it next year and see what happens....

Have a great visit. Love the pictures of the holiday decorations!

 

[nzdisneymom]

Lisa - see if these will work - if not, let me know and I'll try again

 

[nzdisneymom]

Our morning view:

 

[nzdisneymom]

We got the length-of-stay sticker for mini-golf which is $5 per person vs. $1 per game. We figure if we play 20 games, we'll break-even. We've played 10 games between us so far

Here are some photos of the mini-golf course:

It took me until half-way through our second round before I realized that the course has a Peter Pan theme. Duh! It's a pretty easy course but there are a couple of holes that are a little more challenging.

 

[keys2kingdom]

Glad you are having a good time, we had our first trip to Vero in September and loved it. We had the room on the opposite side of the Green Cabin Room, number 2222 and it was fabulous. It did have a regular tub by the way.

Enjoy your NYE party tonight, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Thanks for all the pictures, it's fun to see the resorts done up for Christmas and your photos are great.

One thing I'm curious about if you get a chance to notice, one of the water canons in the Tiger Lily water play area was not working on our visit just wondering if they got it fixed.

Have a great time on the rest of your trip!

 

[AKV707]

Thanks for the report and the pics! Vero looks great. DW and I will definitely have to plan a trip there.

The ocean view inn room looks great. Is there any advantage to a studio at VB?

 

[starbox]

The ocean view inn room looks great. Is there any advantage to a studio at VB?

IMHO - NO!!!!!! OVIRs rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(but I believe you get a fold-out sofa with a studio, and inn rooms have two double beds - the kitchenette area is the same)

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Thank you , thank you...

Nice pictures. I don't remember that rock/blob thing in the mini golf couse. Maybe I haven't visited the course for quite a while.

Don't forget there are things to do across the street. Lake (large pond), grille, picnic tables, basketball courts, tennis courts, a little nature trail around the water, and an eight mile hike bike trail to Pelican Island. Your family will love walking through the tunnel to get over there.

If you find yourself running back out again... stop by Walmart and get yourself a canvas shoe organizer to hang over the bathroom door. You can put a lot of stuff in that thing and conserve a lot of counter space. A place for everything and everything in it's place. Actually, the one we have now is mesh, so we can see through and see what is in the pockets.

We're headed there in June and you got me excited to go. Looking forward to more pics as you go. Have a wonderful time.

 

[nzdisneymom]

The sun has gone down and the activity level is coming to a lull as everyone is getting ready for dinner or going out or waiting til late enough for the NYE party tonight.

We've gotten our entire $20 worth of mini-golf in today And had a nice walk on the beach - we skipped getting a beach-set-up and just played around on our own. The boys participated in the slide-race at the pool. It's been overcast much of the day. They've also enjoyed checking out and playing various games from Eb and Flo's.

I got some laundry done today - I must say that the laundry room in the Inn is pretty good. There are 3 washers and 6 dryers. The washers take about 25 - 30 minutes and the dryers can be set for up to an hour if necessary. It wasn't busy this afternoon so I was able to get our laundry done without any hassle. I must say that it was a GREAT experience because I can compare it with the self-laundry on the Magic - ay yi yi - that could get hairy-scary

Someone asked about advantages to OVIR to Studio. I will say that I will always choose an OVIR over a Studio here at VB because the studios are on "corners" of the villas and if you have a downstairs one, you have a teeny-tiny patio that we would not enjoy using at all. Also we like having the two queen-beds as it fits our family better.

And I like being in the Inn building because if we want to check out a DVD, we just go downstairs and don't have to go to a whole different building since we get them from the gift shop (Island Grove Shipping Co.).

Thanks for the tip about the over-the-door-shoe-holder - we have one we use when we cruise; I just never think about taking it for a resort stay. I'm going to add it to my general packing list for wherever we go. I have to say how much I love our pop-up laundry hamper!

Oh, I did look at the Tiger Lily to see if the water cannons were working - one appeared to be but the one on the left facing seemed a bit "dry." I didn't see anyone actually doing anything with them but did notice it looked dry compared to the rest of the area.

I went into the Green Cabin Room today and ordered the spinach artichoke dip and tortilla chips - that's what we had for dinner Spinach counts as a vegetable, right? It was really good and they were really nice and let me get it to carry-out since we're right next door. They are expecting to be slammed tonight - they were conferencing about how to divide up tables when I went in about 5:30 p.m.

Anyway, thanks for reading Happy New Year everyone!