New Smyrna Beach

We arrived at the resort a little before midnight on Friday night. The front desk closed at 10pm that night, but they had left our keys and other information in a lock box and told us the security code to access them. We finished the check-in process on Saturday morning. They provided a free breakfast (donuts from Dunkin Donuts, OJ, and coffee) on the pool deck at 9:30 on Saturday. The main building is on the beach. Our units are in the building across the street from the main building. We both have two bedroom units whereas in Orlando we had a two bedroom and Paul's parents had an efficiency. In Orlando one bedroom had a king size bed and the other had two queen size beds. In this resort one bedroom has a queen size bed and the other has two twin size beds. We could have opened up the sofa bed in the living room, but instead we opted to have Nadia sleep on one of the twin size bed in Grandma and Pop Pop's unit, and the boys are sleeping in the twin size beds in our unit. If my Aunt Tina comes down to visit us, we'll have Ian move over to the other twin size bed in their unit, and Tina could sleep in the bedroom with Oliver in our unit.

Our current units have most of the same amenities as the last one, but they don't include a washer or dryer. We did all our laundry on Thursday in Orlando so we should be okay this week. There is a dishwasher. This resort does allow us to exchange our bath and kitchen towels twice in the week, but this excludes the pool/beach towels. In contrast at our last resort we never were able to exchange the towels in our unit, but we could exchange our pool towels multiple times a day, if we wanted. They did give us 12 pool/beach towels since we have two units, and there are towel drying racks on the patio outside every unit.

After we ate our donuts on Saturday morning we thought we'd take a dip in the pool, but it turns out the swimming pool's water is very cold. Ian and I were not interested in getting in. Paul, Nadia, and Oliver swam in there a little bit although Oliver cried when he first went in because of the temperature. After lunch we headed out to the beach and were very relieved to find the water temperature was nice and warm. I went to Cocoa Beach a few years ago for a conference, but I don't think I've ever been to Daytona  or New Smyrna Beach. I was surprised to see cars driving on the beach! The speed limit is 10 MPH for the 23 miles cars can drive on hard packed sand.

Our resort provides lots of toys to play with in the sand and chairs to take out to the beach. We had brought an umbrella from home. There isn't a boardwalk, but there are some food trucks on the beach. We had plenty of time in the swimming pool in Orlando, and considering the difference in water temperature here between the ocean and pool (Paul and I guessed the ocean is about 15 degrees warmer than the pool), we'll be spending our time on the beach! All three kids had a blast playing in the sand and in the ocean on Saturday afternoon. Oliver has NO fear of the ocean, which is actually unhealthy so we have to keep a very close eye on him. We brought two kites. Paul had trouble getting Ian's to fly. We'll buy him another one, but Pop Pop got Nadia's up in the air. She loved flying it! I am embarrassed to admit this was the first time the kids had flown a kite. Oops! Better late than never.  We had pizza for dinner on Saturday and did grocery shopping at Publix. I made dinner on Sunday night.

The kids are really, really enjoying playing in the ocean and also playing in the sand. At one point on Sunday afternoon Oliver was playing in the sand with me and then said to me while pointing to the ocean, "Mommy, I want to go in that puddle." Ha ha! The Atlantic Ocean is just a puddle to my two year old. Ian fell asleep shortly before we left the beach to have dinner on Sunday. We are looking forward to a few more days at the beach plus a trip to Kennedy Space Center today and a lighthouse on Wednesday.

Let's go fly a kite!