Ahhh ... Destin

Back to the beach...

We spent six nights at our condo in Sandestin. I had been massively overwhelmed with the choices for vacation rentals on the Emerald Coast, but I eventually settled on Destin since it was known as the beach town with lots happening.

And since I have kids who are happiest being where the action is, I settled on the resort of Sandestin. Its a huge complex, on both sides of the highway. Our condo was in the second to the left tower at the bottom of the map in the yellow section, along the Gulf of Mexico.

Once the Sandestin decision was made, I had to narrow it down further.

I finally settled on the Beachside II towers. I tend to think that if you are going to the beach for a vacation, you should actually be on the beach.

 Where you can walk out the door and find a boardwalk with a shower to wash the sand off. Not a car ride away, so that your car gets all nasty and wet suits and towels go in the car.

So once the Beachside II decision was made, we had to pick the best unit for us. I considered one like this, so that I could sit on the balcony with wine/margaritas/tea and see the ocean. But once again, I remembered I have kids, so I booked a ground floor unit that opened to the pool.

I couldn't see much of the beach from our patio, but I could hear it. And the kids LOVED the pool. Not sure how/why I don't have pictures of them in the pool, because they swam in it 3-6 times a day. (You'd think they don't have their own pool the way they acted with this one. And it wasn't even a particularly attractive pool, either).

I loved being able to just dump all of our sand toys, beach chairs, and boogie boards right on our patio without carrying through the condo to get to the balcony.

I even felt secure enough to let them run back to the patio from the beach a few times to get the shovel/fishing net/snorkeling mask we had forgotten to lug down and which they absolutely, positively could not live without a second longer.

And it was perfect for us since we had much more rain than I would have liked on this vacation. It made it easy to run to the beach for an hour and then back to the room for an hour, and then back to beach and then to the room and...

The beach was absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.

I'd heard that the water was a beautiful sea-green/aquamarine and that the sands were soft and white, but I'm often disappointed to arrive somewhere and find lots of seaweed gunking up the place, and the water is darker than expected.

Destin was just as lovely as advertised, and as close to a Caribbean beach as I've ever seen in the States.

Through the magic of facebook, I've watched friend after friend head to Destin from Texas for the past few years, and I see why. And speaking of the magic of facebook, we had two separate groups of friends also in the Destin area the same week we were there, which we found out through status updates. We even ran into one family in New Orleans on our drive back home. Some days, it truly is a small world.

Despite all there is to do in the Sandestin resort (golf, mini-golf, renting bicycles, fishing, and more), we stuck to our beach and to Baytowne Village.

It was a drive across the highway, but the kids loved this place. There were over a dozen different restaurants and bars, a great playground, and more exciting for the kids, a huge climbing wall, ropes maze, bungee jumpoline, and a zipline across the water.  That's my fearless Ryan below, crossing the very top wires of the ropes maze. He rocked! These pictures don't quite do justice to how far off the ground he really was.

Plus, they had special events like a magic show one night, a Mardi Gras parade, face painting, an outdoor movie one night (Winnie the Pooh), and fireworks twice a week.

 

 

We'd definitely go back to Beachside in Sandestin, although I *might* book a two bathroom condo next time. Let's just say there is a reason that little boys don't get to use my toilet at home, and I should have thought this out a bit more clearly before writing that check.

And in all fairness, I should add that most of these pictures were taken in the early morning one day. Most times we were at the beach, it was crowded. Very crowded.