Several years ago, when I started surfing on the East Coast on a regular basis, I set a goal to surf as may beaches from Florida to New Jersey as possible. So, I made a list. Last Summer, I had one East Coast beach left on the list – Cocoa Beach, Florida, home to 11 time ASP Champion Kelly Slater. While the Kelly aspect has its own allure, Cocoa Beach is its own great little surfing and fishing village on Florida’s Space Coast. It’s family friendly and has a small town feel despite being in the heart of several vacation hot spots.
My kids have reached the age where they are not only showing interest in surfing, they are actually doing it pretty regularly. I wanted to take them somewhere with small, clean, warm waves so that we could enjoy a family vacation and spend some time surfing. The summer in Cocoa Beach is great for beginner surfers because it’s not completely flat, but the waves are small and predictable and they can roll longer than many other East Coast beach breaks.
I plan all the vacations in our house. Like every vacation I’ve planned since the internet first graced our home, I got online and started looking for a place to stay. Because Cocoa Beach is a small town, it has a small number of motels and an even smaller number of hotels. I’ve reached a point in my income, personal preferences, and family size where I am no longer comfortable in “hole in the wall” motels with questionable laundry habits. I need comfort , clean linens, comfortable mattresses, toilets that reliably flush, flooring safe enough for bare feet. So I thought a chain hotel with a good reputation would be best. Booked. A month later, we arrived. It was everything I expected clean, comfortable, reliably , “hotelish”. The staff was friendly and helpful. The location was near good food, a grocery store, and a few surf shops. It was a block from the beach. It was just fine.
We unpacked our SUV and three kids. Fishing rods and tackle. Beach toys. Chairs. Umbrellas. Towels. Beach bags. Surfboards and gear. Food and cases of water. Luggage. Luggage. Luggage. I found myself looking for all kinds of creative ways to store all of our stuff in the Double Queen hotel room. The boards had to go in the corner to the left of the window because it was the only space where our longest board would fit upright in the room. We had to move furniture to make it happen. As the week progressed, we amassed more beach gear and toys, more tackle, more surf gear, souvenirs from a day at Legoland, and dirty clothes. Oh my gosh the dirty clothes. By the end of the week, I wasn’t sure we would get it all packed. I contemplated shipping things back to our house. Somehow, uncomfortably, I made everything fit, and we suffered the whole way home.
On the second day of our vacation, as we walked the block to the beach, I noticed that all of the beach front properties were condos and houses with signs advertising rental companies. By the fourth day, I was spending a rainy afternoon at my computer looking at the listings for some of those rentals. Beach front, kitchens, separate bedrooms, storage closets, WASHER and DRYER. Almost all had chairs and umbrellas and beach toys for guests. Several had board storage, and some even had guest boards on the property! Here’s where my heart sank: almost all of them were comparable or cheaper than what I had paid for a week in a standard hotel room. I wanted to kick myself. Never again. Nope. Now, I look for a rental first.