We celebrated the end of the longest spring break ever and our retirement from teaching (kids went back to school in person when we got home) with a fun getaway to 30a Florida with family and friends. If you follow me on Instagram I shared a bunch of behind the scenes of our trip, but I had lots of requests for a recap when we returned home of what we did, where we stayed, etc. Here are all the details.
Every summer we take an adults only trip to Mexico with some of our best friends. We also take a family trip . . . well, both of those got cancelled this year thanks to Corona. When we found out the first 3 weeks of school would be virtual we decided to make it fun and take a little trip to Florida with our friends. I have been dying to check out 30a so this seemed like the perfect time. We figured it would be less crowded and we could do virtual school in the morning and then enjoy our time the rest of the day.
Southwest Airlines was wonderful. Braden was a little nervous to fly and they let him and Avery check out the cockpit and see everything. THANK YOU SOUTHWEST! YALL ARE THE BEST!
Thank you all for the suggestions on places to go, see, eat, etc. We tried to get in as many as we could, but we definitely need to go back. Since this was our first time we were just trying to get an overview of the area so we could pick more specific things when we go back. We ended up staying in Watercolor, right next to Seaside. We loved our location. We rented the most amazing house that was directly on 30a and right across the street from the beach. We seriously got so lucky it was still available. It was an amazing layout for our 3 families with tons of room to spread out. It was 3 stories with a 4th story balcony to take in the views and it had a pool and a guest house. You can see a video tour of the home and lot of behind the scenes of our Florida trip HERE.
The owners of the house we rented, Happy Place Beach House, were lovely. They gave everyone a cute metal water bottle gift and sent us donuts our first morning there from the Donut Hut. Best glaze donut I have ever had! THANK YOU!
Here was our house. The street in front is literally 30a. We were just a few blocks from downtown Seaside and directly across from the Watercolor Inn and Beach Club.
View from the 4th floor lookout balcony. You can see the water behind the girls, the street below is 30a and the building behind is Watercolor Inn.
1st Day
We headed out on Wednesday around 10. It was so funny because Mallory from Style Your Senses was on our flight. I just love her! When we arrived we headed to our house to unload all of our stuff and then walked down to Seaside. We had lunch at Bud & Alleys, had treats at Heavenly, shopped at Duckies and got our photo in front of the adorable Seaside Post office!
My kids are bad about wearing sunglasses and it makes for some beautiful family photos . . . haha!!
After touring Seaside we headed back to the house to unwind. One of our friends had family photos on the beach so the guys and the kids ordered pizza from Brunos (AMAZING PIZZA!!!!) and Leslie and I went next door to Wine World and had some wine on the patio, a cheese board and some pizza. Then we went back to the house for a relaxing evening. The kids played and the adults played. We LOVE the game Sequence. We brought it with us and played every single night. We would come home, have wine, some snacks and play boys vs girls Sequence for hours. I will have you know the GIRLS WON FOR THE TRIP!!! It was the perfect 1st day.
DAY 2
We did virtual school in the morning and the moms snuck away to brunch at The Great Southern. Yall recommended it and said I had to get the grits. . .you were right, so so yummy (thank you)!! After brunch we came home and loaded up for a beach day. We headed to the Watercolor Beach Club and enjoyed the pools for a bit and then went down to the beach. 30a is famous for the beaches and water and it did not disappoint! WOW, I mean, I have never seen sand and water like that. The sand actually squeaks when you walk in it.
Our rental house had chairs and umbrellas so we just used those. We didn’t rent anything. One question I got a lot was about the crowds. I honestly didn’t think it was crowded at all. Keep in mind we went “off season” during a pandemic. I was worried with it being Labor Day it would be crowded, but it really wasn’t bad. We did hike a decent distance down the beach so we had our own area, but there were very few people around us.
After spending the day at the beach, we headed home to get cleaned up for dinner. We wanted to check out the other towns so we went to dinner in Rosemary. I will say one of my complaints about our particular situation was the transportation. We had a large group with young kids so getting around was tricky in my opinion. You are only allowed 1 golf cart per house in Watercolor and the largest golf cart seats 9. We had 13 people. I know many people bike around there, but we had little kids so that wasn’t easy. We didn’t rent a car because we thought Ubers would be easy, but they are SO HARD TO COME BY IN 30A. It was really difficult to find an Uber and we needed 3!! Just something to keep in mind if you travel here.
Our Uber took us down 30a on the way to Rosemary Beach so it was fun to drive through all the towns and see the different architecture, etc. Alys and Rosemary seemed like we were in a different country. So beautiful! We had the yummiest tapas dinner at La Crema and then hit up Sugar Shack (the kids favorite).
4th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, Kinder and Pre-K . . . we have a wide range covered!
After dinner and treats we headed back to the house for . . .games and movies!
DAY 3
We decided to try out Camp Watercolor this day. It is one of the pool areas that you have access to when you stay in Watercolor. It has several pools with slides, etc. Due to Covid they didn’t have towels so you had to bring your own and you couldn’t have more than 4 lounge chairs together for social distancing. I thought this was a little strange since you could have as many as you want on the beach, at the restaurants, etc. They were even making families with more than 4 split up?! Found that very odd and a bit annoying. Oh well. The place was beautiful and the kids loved the slides. We spent our afternoon here and then went back to the house to get ready for dinner. We decided to head out to Seagrove for dinner at La Cocina (different than Mi Cocina) and it was delicious. Honestly some of the best queso I have ever had and this is coming from a Texas girl!! Seagrove is right next to Rosemary so we decided to walk back over there after dinner and get more Sugar Shack for the kids. Rosemary Beach really is absolutely beautiful. Everything looks like a movie set!
Day 4
We went back to the beach this day. The beach was all of our favorite thing to do. We packed lunch to bring with us and spent all day swimming, building sand castles, etc. We went to the Old Florida Fish House for dinner. Again, this is where transportation became an issue. We had to take 2 trips on the golf cart to get everyone to dinner. When the first group of 8 arrived there was no wait, 10 min later when the remaining group arrived they said there was a 45 min wait. That 45 minutes turned out to be 1.5 hours. That was just to be seated. Then we waited another hour to get our food. The restaurant was good and so picturesque, but if you decide to go, arrive early, with your entire party. We got there at 5:15, but by 5:30 the wait was long!!
LAST DAY
This morning the ladies headed back out for our last brunch at The Perfect Pig. Another yummy breakfast! Then back to our final day at the beach and this was the best day! The kids seriously had so much fun. We found a spot with a sand bar and the kids could play in there and trap tons of jellyfish that don’t sting! I didn’t even know this was a thing, but they were able to pick them up and play with them. They also caught crabs, found seashells and we saw dolphins! Such a fun day and the perfect way to end the trip. We decided to stay late at the beach and make the night easy. We headed home, got in PJs, ordered pizza from Brunos again (I am telling yall, it was delicious) and relax.
I cannot thank you all enough for all your great suggestions. I only wish we would have had more time to do more of them. I have a list of things I want to do when we go back. If you are thinking of going to 30a be sure to check out this post, this post and this post for lots of great recommendations.
We had such an amazing time and I know it is a trip my kids will remember. There is something so fun about traveling with friends and having a 5 day slumber party! While, I didn’t want to leave I was so excited that when we returned the kids would be going back to school in person. They were so exited too which made it easier! If you love 30a and have additional suggestions, please leave them in the comments so everyone can learn about great places to go. Thanks so much!