Dreaming of the Beach
Our family loves traveling and adventuring together to new places, but nothing beats the BEACH!!! We had the good fortune of having family members move to the Florida coast, and we have made two incredible trips as a family so far with many more to come. Since there are so many FUN things to do in Florida near Orlando, we chose one main adventure for each trip so we would have plenty of time to relax and enjoy the beach. It’s nice not having to cram in every adventure and theme park all on one trip. I can’t wait to share our ultimate family adventures and my top tips from FLORIDA!
Getting to Florida
Before diving into our incredible family adventures, I wanted to share some tips for how we have scored some HUGE savings in flying our family of 6 to Florida from Idaho. Flying a large family can add up to some major travel costs! I found a website called Flights from Home where I could sign up for free or paid email alerts for discounted flights from our local airport. The cheapest flight options for our family were out of Salt Lake City, which was worth a short drive to save hundreds of dollars. I also signed up for the free FareDrop newsletter to watch for discounted flights. These email newsletters helped me find discounted flights for our Florida vacations, one with American Airlines and one on Delta!
Although I haven’t done it yet, I learned recently about traveling nearly free using points and miles. This will help our family travel and adventure a lot more!! Thanks to this knowledge, I plan to use points and miles for our future Florida travels. I recently booked flights for our whole family to Hawaii and only paid taxes and fees!! Check out my favorite blog for learning how to do this!
Ultimate Florida Family Adventures #1 – Discovery Cove
After booking our first flights to Florida in 2023, we began brainstorming all the fun adventures we could do as a family. We found an amazing sale at Discovery Cove. Besides booking Discovery Cove, I could add the other SeaWorld parks for super cheap. On top of that, our family members who live in Florida booked our tickets for us and got us the resident discount. It was an opportunity we could not pass up.
Since our family lives about 90 minutes away, we booked a SeaWorld hotel right by all the parks and I highly recommend that! We were within walking distance of almost every park. We stayed at Staybridge Suites and booked a room that fit all 8 of us and had a kitchen. Our favorite stop for the SeaWorld parks was Discovery Cove, but we also enjoyed spending a day at SeaWorld and Aquatica.
Here are the highlights from DISCOVERY COVE:
- The FOOD is included!!! This is huge for a big family. The kids loved the variety of food options. It was nice not to pack our food or buy food for the whole family. The best part was they had UNLIMITED food and drinks all day!
- The GEAR is also included!! I loved not having to pack too much for this day because everything was already at the resort. They had towels, snorkels, sunscreen, wetsuits, and chairs.
- The Grand Reef – We all love to snorkel and the Grand Reef was our favorite hang-out spot during the day! It was beautiful and there was so much to see. I will add some pictures we took with our underwater camera.
- DOLPHINS – As part of our ticket purchase, we included the Dolphin Encounter. We got assigned a set time to go to the Dolphin Lagoon and meet a dolphin. They did tricks for us and we all got to swim with one!! We all loved this adventure.
- Animal Encounters – We saw tons of tropical birds and other animals as we walked around the gorgeous grounds at the resort. Sometimes you could feed them or watch them be fed.
Ultimate Florida Family Adventures #2 – Boogie Boarding at the Beach
Boogie Boarding is a favorite adventure for our family. We made sure to spend plenty of time at the beach and gave our family in Florida some new boogie boards for Christmas so they were ready for us!! We spent time at the beaches near Vero Beach, but I’m sure you could find plenty of amazing Florida beaches to relax and put your feet in the sand anywhere along the coast. My younger kids loved hunting for seashells along the shore and playing in the waves.
Ultimate Florida Family Adventures #3 – Kennedy Space Center
On our most recent Florida trip, we took the whole family to visit the Kennedy Space Center!! I couldn’t believe how much there was to see and do there. It is inspirational for the entire family. Here are a few highlights we enjoyed:
- The Behind the Scenes Bus Tour – We loved riding the bus to see the restricted areas and visit the Apollo/Saturn V Center. Plan for plenty of time for this tour!
- The Space Shuttle Atlantis
- Planet Play – If you have younger kids, this is the place to hang out! They have stuff to climb on and a big slide with many awesome activities. This was a favorite spot for my youngest who was 8 yrs old.
Ultimate Florida Family Adventures #4 – A Cruise to the Bahamas
Port Canaveral was our 4-night Royal Caribbean Perfect Day Bahamas Cruise! Since this was our first cruise ever, we opted to start with the 4-night length and it was just right. We visited CocoCay, snorkeled in Nassau, and had one full day cruising at sea. The kids loved the all-day feasting on unlimited food and the fun activities aboard the ship. We enjoyed a beach day at CocoCay and LOVED it. It is so nice that the food on the island was included and we brought our snorkel gear with us. There were games on the beach like volleyball, a soccer pool table, ping-pong, and Connect 4. A tram took us around the island and back to the ship when we were ready. In Nassau, we did a snorkel tour and saw an underwater statue and breathtaking coral reefs. Despite being one of my greatest fears, we even got to snorkel with sharks!
As you can see, there are so many amazing family adventures to experience in Florida! When you get to experience your ultimate family adventures in this beautiful area, let us help you bring your adventure home with our Beach photography gallery. We’d love to help your Florida and Beach adventure memories last a lifetime.
