Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Cocoa Beach, Florida

After taking last week off to share what I did during Easter weekend, I'm back with my adventures from my Florida vacation I took in February.

When planning out all the things we wanted to do while in Florida, beaches were a top priority.  I only had the opportunity to go to one beach the last time I was in Orlando (Daytona Beach), and I really wanted to investigate more beaches in the area.

We scoped out all the beaches in the area and decided to go to Cocoa Beach because a) it was the closest, 2)  a relative recommended it, and 3) it had non-stop billboard advertising everywhere so it got our attention.


Cocoa Beach has a lot of vintage elements like their Cocoa Beach Pier sign.


Parking was a major issue at Cocoa Beach.  There is coin parking everywhere, but it is quite costly and unless you have a roll of quarters in your purse, not very practical if you want to spend the whole day at the beach.  Your next option is a pay parking lot.  There are several of these, but they all cost $15.00 in exact change or a credit card.

We chose the lot right next to the entrance of Shepherd Park, but there was also another large lot right next to the pier.


My favorite part of the beach is always the waterfowl.  I absolutely love sea gulls.


We saw so many of these pelicans too.


Sand Pipers are my favorite birds to watch on the beach.  I love watching their little legs move at a quick speed.


Cocoa Beach attracts a lot of surfers, which surprised me because I never thought of the Atlantic Ocean as a surfer's ocean.  But we saw many people with surf boards in the water and there are also several huge surf product stores in town.


There are cabanas, umbrellas,  and beach chairs available for rent.


This is Cocoa Beach Pier.  It looked a little run down to me.  It's mostly gift shops, taverns, and restaurants.  You can only walk through the blue building and then you have to pay a fee to walk further out or to fish.


This is the bar that is inside the blue building.  It is open to the ocean and has a great view of the ocean and the beach.  They serve food here too.


This fun sign is located right off the pier.


I loved the color of the beach chairs and the umbrellas.  It really adds to the aesthetics.


We sat for a little while just soaking up the beauty and majesty of the ocean, but we mostly walked up and down the shoreline taking lots of pictures.



Before we left, I wanted to check out what was in walking distance of Cocoa Beach Pier.  I had seen so many advertisements of Ron Jon's Surf Shop I really wanted to check it out.  It is quite the large, modern establishment!

Are these bicycle racks outside the shop cool or what?


I just love the color, the architectural design, and all the fun sculptures.


We did go inside, but only for about five minutes.  If you surf, you would love this shop.  They have everything you could ever imagine.  But I'm not a surfer, so there really wasn't anything of interest to me.  I wanted to be outside soaking up the gorgeous Florida sunshine, not inside shopping.




I really didn't see a lot of luxury hotels or condos at Cocoa Beach other than this one;  but I could have been on the wrong side of town (or the beach) for that.


Finally, Coca Beach is near Port Canaveral,  one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, so if you visit Cocoa Beach your bound to see a cruise ship like this one!


Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE and Travel Tuesday!


5 comments:

  1. Oh Amy! How fun!! Cocoa beach looks so relaxing!! Wish I was there right now, lol. It was 17 degree wind chill yesterday!! You'll have such great memories of this paradise!!

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  2. Looks like a fun time at Cocoa Beach! I wish I was there now instead of in 30 degree temps!
    Rachael
    http://www.threadsforthomasblog.com

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  3. I have never been to Cocoa beach, but your photos look amazing! We used to vacation at Daytona Beach a lot when I was a kid, my parents loved going there!

    Carrie
    curlycraftymom.com

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  4. Looks like fun! Thanks for sharing with the Thursday Blog Hop!

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  5. We went to Cocoa Beach last year for the afternoon, and had so much fun. We hit up Ron Jon's, but mostly spent the time at the beach. Being from Washington, it was fun to dip our toes in the Atlantic ocean!

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