Cocoa Beach, Royal Caribbean Cruise and WDW vacation - Day 1 - Cocoa Beach

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Travel from Austin to Cocoa Beach

Our flight departed Austin at 7:55 AM and our travel was smooth. We landed in Orlando on time at around 11:30, collected our baggage and set out in our rental car. We stopped at a place a little ways from the airport called Nona Blue Modern Tavern for lunch. After lunch, Emmaline got some fro-yo from a place in the same shopping center, while Roger and I held out for some Starbucks down the road before we set out for Cocoa Beach.

Once in Cocoa Beach we made a stop at a grocery store to pick up some things for breakfast the next couple of mornings before checking into our accommodations: Beach Place Guest Houses. The place was cute and the property was very nice - right on the beach with small duplexes. We had a little one bedroom duplex with a little kitchen, small table with four chairs, bathroom, and a living room with a pull out sofa for Emmaline (which was very uncomfortable and she complained about loudly both nights we were there).  We liked the place very much with the exception of the sofa bed and the A/C, which seemed to have a hard time keeping up.

We dumped our bags and changed into our swimming costumes, stopping by a shed on the property to grab some beach chairs, umbrella, sand buckets/shovels and a boogie board and walked to the beach to spend the rest of the afternoon. The beach was quiet and the water was calm and clear and Emmaline enjoyed some boogie boarding and sand castle building.




Late in the day, we packed up and returned the equipment, showered and ventured into downtown Cocoa Beach for dinner. The setting was lovely at Coconuts on the Beach but the food, service and other patrons were horrible and we left cranky and frustrated and headed off in search of a better finish to our evening. We found it at a little ice cream place called Fat Donkey. It is possibly one of the best local ice cream shops I’ve ever been to and it was nice to finish our evening on a good note. We went back to our little place on the beach and got ready for our trip to the Kennedy Space Center the next day.

Click here for Day 2.

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