Realized I forgot this one:
January 17, Saturday, still. Off to Cocoa Beach. It is still the day we left the Magic, now I can talk about it, Im getting over leaving, kind of. We needed to get Rack to the airport later in the day. We had managed to stow all the luggage fairly easily in another eight passenger van from the Avis office in Cocoa Beach. We drove back to Orlando and visited the Official Disney outlet store near Little Lake Bryan. Not much to buy here unless you had a hankering for Christmas stuff or sweatshirts with 2003 splashed all over them. Rack bought a bionic back scratcher at the Universal outlet. We all felt a little disoriented, walking with a waver and a list until we could get our land legs back. We headed over to the Disney Market Place to kill time until Racks flight departure neared. We had lunch at the Rain Forest Café, something the kids had requested when we first talked about going back to Florida. We used to get our Disney Fix by visiting the one in Denver, but it was closed a while back. Ye gads, the prices were a shocker. The food here is only O.K. for what you pay, but I guess you are not really going for the food. We hung around out front for a while and talked to the parrots out front. I made another foray into a pin shop to find the locking pin backs, still no luck. I guess those expensive pins will have to wait for another trip to get locked on the lanyards. Went into most of the stores, bought a few pins, on sale! with the kids names on them. I do miss the days when the Market Place was not just wall-to-wall Disney stores. I might buy more if there were interesting stores that stocked something without Mickey-in-the-bed-sheets-wine-glasses-toilet-paper theme. Comes a time, with enough trips to WDW, that you really just do not need another t-shirt with Disney gunk on it (Presslers philosophy lives, long after his departure). Time to take Rack to the airport, another sad goodbye. Well miss Rack, but he has to go back to school Monday.
We drove back to Cocoa beach to check in at our hotel, no, our RESORT. Lots of DISers suggested that Cocoa Beach was not the place to stay for a few days. They said it was pretty unattractive. They are right about that. But I kind of like it. It has not become trendy or ostentatious as have so many beach cities in Florida (I can remember the days when Sanibel was mile of tide flats, suitable only for the Sanibel Crouch, not the fabulously rich). We had cast around to find two hotel rooms on the beach, even pricing Disneys Vero Beach, ouch. We managed to get a condo at The Resort at Cocoa Beach, cheaper than many hotels, for a few days. It is the sister resort of the Inn at Cocoa Beach of Daves site, which was full on the dates we needed. They normally only time share for a week minimum, but the restaurant was under construction and it was a slow week. Boy was this place nice. A real oasis in this area. We had an ocean front condo. I was expecting a dinky place, similar to the cheap things we rent at the Colorado mountain resorts. The two bedroom condo was huge. A small second bedroom and bath but a monstrous master, king bed with Jacuzzi bath and separate shower, fair sized living room and aisle kitchen with all the appliances. Huge living room that you could still walk around, even with the hide-a-bed open. And! Oh! Joy! A closet sized washer and dryer! I threw in a load of laundry. Wouldnt have to open that laundry back at home after it had festered for three days. The décor was nice, bright yellow and ocean blues. But, hey, talk about your Roy or Walt Suite sized verandah. This thing was mammoth, about five feet deep and thirty feet long. It held three plush chairs, a lounger, two tables and enough room you could have thrown a few more loungers or a Mack truck out there And the view? A short stretch of dunes, then a long expanse of dun colored sand. Out to the ocean, with the Magic sailing by! We settled and watched it move out to sea. It was, again, a pretty grey evening, just as our sail-away was; I hope there was not the wicked cold wind we had. Would not look at all enticing on the TV to see people huddled, freezing, on deck 9. There were large klieg lights on the deck. Filming the deck party for according to Jim? We could not tell, even with binoculars. Gameboy went inside, he said it made him too sad to watch, but the rest of us stayed. One more final goodbye, maybe for a year? Maybe two? How bout one of those $99 specials again? How about a special just for Colorado residents? You Florida residents get all the breaks.
I felt too lousy from my cold to grocery shop and cook, which had been our original, money-saving, intention. This extension of the trip had been required to get reasonable air fare. So we went to Rustys-Bernards-Fischers, as per the recommendation of DISers and Daves DCL Tribute site. What a funky place. The building barely discriminates between the three restaurants, other than décor which is VERY different among the sections. Bernards quite chi-chi, at least as those fish restaurants for retired Snow Birds go. Rustys a little too open looking for this cold evening. We were seated in a booth in the Fischers section, already very crowded at 5:45 on a Saturday night. The bar stools already indented with the behinds of folks who looked, and sounded, as though they had been there for a while. We just got in under the wire for the cheap evening specials, we all had some kind of fish with some kind of starch preceded by a green salad. Decent wine by the glass. The fish was good and fresh, bargain prices compared to the crud we get at Red Lobster in Denver. The owners were visiting the tables, checking on their customers. A well run restaurant.
We made a quick stop at the Publix on A1A for breakfast stuff, cold medicine, coffee and laundry detergent. This is a very tourist, beach kind of grocery. The selection is limited, lots of small sizes (no sugar over one pound), but O.K. in price. Then back to the resort. I threw the clothes in the dryer and started another wash load. We took the kids to the pool, very nice, large and warm. They had the whole thing to themselves. I would have worn my suit if I had known it was so warm, but we watched the kids enjoy, understanding why this resort has problems with the folks from the tacky Hilton next door visiting the pool. Back to the room. Threw in another load of laundry. Threw the kids into the Jacuzzi bath with the light sticks we had not used on the cruise. Cheap thrills. They were happy. Watched the fishing and casino boats from the verandah, then bed.
Next, beach and Kennedy Space Center.
Carla
January 17, Saturday, still. Off to Cocoa Beach. It is still the day we left the Magic, now I can talk about it, Im getting over leaving, kind of. We needed to get Rack to the airport later in the day. We had managed to stow all the luggage fairly easily in another eight passenger van from the Avis office in Cocoa Beach. We drove back to Orlando and visited the Official Disney outlet store near Little Lake Bryan. Not much to buy here unless you had a hankering for Christmas stuff or sweatshirts with 2003 splashed all over them. Rack bought a bionic back scratcher at the Universal outlet. We all felt a little disoriented, walking with a waver and a list until we could get our land legs back. We headed over to the Disney Market Place to kill time until Racks flight departure neared. We had lunch at the Rain Forest Café, something the kids had requested when we first talked about going back to Florida. We used to get our Disney Fix by visiting the one in Denver, but it was closed a while back. Ye gads, the prices were a shocker. The food here is only O.K. for what you pay, but I guess you are not really going for the food. We hung around out front for a while and talked to the parrots out front. I made another foray into a pin shop to find the locking pin backs, still no luck. I guess those expensive pins will have to wait for another trip to get locked on the lanyards. Went into most of the stores, bought a few pins, on sale! with the kids names on them. I do miss the days when the Market Place was not just wall-to-wall Disney stores. I might buy more if there were interesting stores that stocked something without Mickey-in-the-bed-sheets-wine-glasses-toilet-paper theme. Comes a time, with enough trips to WDW, that you really just do not need another t-shirt with Disney gunk on it (Presslers philosophy lives, long after his departure). Time to take Rack to the airport, another sad goodbye. Well miss Rack, but he has to go back to school Monday.
We drove back to Cocoa beach to check in at our hotel, no, our RESORT. Lots of DISers suggested that Cocoa Beach was not the place to stay for a few days. They said it was pretty unattractive. They are right about that. But I kind of like it. It has not become trendy or ostentatious as have so many beach cities in Florida (I can remember the days when Sanibel was mile of tide flats, suitable only for the Sanibel Crouch, not the fabulously rich). We had cast around to find two hotel rooms on the beach, even pricing Disneys Vero Beach, ouch. We managed to get a condo at The Resort at Cocoa Beach, cheaper than many hotels, for a few days. It is the sister resort of the Inn at Cocoa Beach of Daves site, which was full on the dates we needed. They normally only time share for a week minimum, but the restaurant was under construction and it was a slow week. Boy was this place nice. A real oasis in this area. We had an ocean front condo. I was expecting a dinky place, similar to the cheap things we rent at the Colorado mountain resorts. The two bedroom condo was huge. A small second bedroom and bath but a monstrous master, king bed with Jacuzzi bath and separate shower, fair sized living room and aisle kitchen with all the appliances. Huge living room that you could still walk around, even with the hide-a-bed open. And! Oh! Joy! A closet sized washer and dryer! I threw in a load of laundry. Wouldnt have to open that laundry back at home after it had festered for three days. The décor was nice, bright yellow and ocean blues. But, hey, talk about your Roy or Walt Suite sized verandah. This thing was mammoth, about five feet deep and thirty feet long. It held three plush chairs, a lounger, two tables and enough room you could have thrown a few more loungers or a Mack truck out there And the view? A short stretch of dunes, then a long expanse of dun colored sand. Out to the ocean, with the Magic sailing by! We settled and watched it move out to sea. It was, again, a pretty grey evening, just as our sail-away was; I hope there was not the wicked cold wind we had. Would not look at all enticing on the TV to see people huddled, freezing, on deck 9. There were large klieg lights on the deck. Filming the deck party for according to Jim? We could not tell, even with binoculars. Gameboy went inside, he said it made him too sad to watch, but the rest of us stayed. One more final goodbye, maybe for a year? Maybe two? How bout one of those $99 specials again? How about a special just for Colorado residents? You Florida residents get all the breaks.
I felt too lousy from my cold to grocery shop and cook, which had been our original, money-saving, intention. This extension of the trip had been required to get reasonable air fare. So we went to Rustys-Bernards-Fischers, as per the recommendation of DISers and Daves DCL Tribute site. What a funky place. The building barely discriminates between the three restaurants, other than décor which is VERY different among the sections. Bernards quite chi-chi, at least as those fish restaurants for retired Snow Birds go. Rustys a little too open looking for this cold evening. We were seated in a booth in the Fischers section, already very crowded at 5:45 on a Saturday night. The bar stools already indented with the behinds of folks who looked, and sounded, as though they had been there for a while. We just got in under the wire for the cheap evening specials, we all had some kind of fish with some kind of starch preceded by a green salad. Decent wine by the glass. The fish was good and fresh, bargain prices compared to the crud we get at Red Lobster in Denver. The owners were visiting the tables, checking on their customers. A well run restaurant.
We made a quick stop at the Publix on A1A for breakfast stuff, cold medicine, coffee and laundry detergent. This is a very tourist, beach kind of grocery. The selection is limited, lots of small sizes (no sugar over one pound), but O.K. in price. Then back to the resort. I threw the clothes in the dryer and started another wash load. We took the kids to the pool, very nice, large and warm. They had the whole thing to themselves. I would have worn my suit if I had known it was so warm, but we watched the kids enjoy, understanding why this resort has problems with the folks from the tacky Hilton next door visiting the pool. Back to the room. Threw in another load of laundry. Threw the kids into the Jacuzzi bath with the light sticks we had not used on the cruise. Cheap thrills. They were happy. Watched the fishing and casino boats from the verandah, then bed.
Next, beach and Kennedy Space Center.
Carla
