Day 7 - Cocoa Beach

Well it was our long awaited free day today - and I think we know for next time that we will only do a couple of park days at a time with a free day/pool day afterwards! It's been pretty go go go around here, so we took our time this morning getting ready.

We had breakfast downstairs here at our hotel and had to catch our ride to the rental car place at 10:20. They were a little late showing up (10:45 or so!) so it was well after 11 am by the time we were on our way.

First stop - Orlando Premium Outlet Malls. I probably could have spent two days and $2000 here! But nobody else was much in the mood for shopping but me, so I did some good damage in the Disney store (yes I refuse to pay full price for anything at the best of times, why wouldn't I buy Disney souvenirs at a discount too?) and we had lunch in the food court and that was about it. I didn't even make it to the Gap store - which was maybe a good thing for our trip budget anyway (not to mention the fact that they are going to be weighing our baggage too so best be careful!)

After lunch Oakley was on the verge of yet another meltdown so we hit the road in our rental (a cute little 4 door Toyota Corolla). We hadn't even left Orlando and she was passed out cold!!! So our destination was Cocoa Beach - about an hours drive away. It was a quick and quiet, uneventful drive, except for the Toll Booths that we weren't sure how they worked - we drove straight through a few of them! (anyone who's been down here care to enlighten us? Do you pay every time or just once?) Wish someone would have explained tht to us!

Oakley was still sleeping when we got to Cocoa Beach so we just drove around town looking for a good spot to hit the beach and see what else was there. It's a pretty small town, but we did see a few little stops that might be worthwhile to make! We were driving away from Cocoa Beach when Oakley woke up, so made our way back and just followed the directions our GPS was giving us (when I entered "Cocoa Beach" as our destination I didn't have a street address in mind so I just hit enter enter enter so it randomly picked an address like #1 10th street or something like that. (First in numerical order I guess). So when we were cruising around looking for a spot to hit the beach when Oakley was still sleeping, everything we found was private, or you had to pay to get to, which we didn't want to do until we knew what we were getting! Well we followed the GPS and wouldn't you know it - #1 10th Street had a little beach access with a bridge and we had NO PROBLEMS hitting the beach!

Ahhhh the beach. Worth every penny of the rental car, gas, and every minute that it took to drive out there. I love the beach. Even tho the weather was garbage, the winds were high, the seas were choppy and the rain was coming - I still loved the half hour or so we spent at the beach. Oakley loved the water. We were all soaked by the time we left. We got some great pictures, played in the sand, watched the birds dive for fish... picked shells...ahhh the beach. It was sad to leave but oh those clouds... looked pretty scary! And the rain hit when we were in the car just blocks away, so we did pretty good for the time we had.

Then - we went to the Dinosaur Store & Museum. We did not last long here. The signs posted were very clear that if your child broke anything you would pay for it. Normally not a problem if you have regular old gift shop merchandise. $400 fossils are not what I consider regular gift shop merchandise. They had some cool stuff though and it would have been fun to check out the museum. Next time... when Oakley is older.

Next stop - the Publix grocery store for some snacks. I was running low on snackies for Oakley for the parks and for the trip home, and I really love grocery stores in other countries (my sister can attest to that!). I was really on the lookout for cool hot sauces for my mom but was pretty disappointed there, so hopefully I will find something by the time this trip is over!

Then off to Ihop for supper - we were the ONLY people in there (who really goes for pancakes at 5 pm on a Wednesday anyway??) so we had quick service and pretty good food, and yes even Oakley ate! A quick stop for ice cream and we said goodbye to Cocoa Beach!

I really wanted to see where the space shuttles leave from as Cocoa Beach is right beside Cape Canaveral. So off we went following the GPS to the Kennedy Space Centre, which unfortunately closed at 6pm - we arrived at 6:05. Bummer!! Something else that would have been cool to see. So back to Disney we went.

An uneventful trip home - filled the car with gas ($17.04!) and returned it to Alamo, and grabbed a shuttle home. We were back here just before 8pm. Bathed Oakley and put her to bed. Jason and Abbey went for a quick walk (it's so much easier for her to fall asleep if it's dark and no one else is here!)

An early night for us - and two big days left. We do day 2 at Universal tomorrow, and then Magic Kingdom on Friday.. and home Saturday! It's going by quickly but not so quickly that we aren't ready to wrap it up. Oakley has asked a couple of times to go home and Abbey has been homesick too. I am definitely going to be ready to go home by Saturday but for now I'm looking forward to two more big days. I wish I had a couple more days off before going back to work though - I'm going to need it!