Virginia Beach Vacation

A few weeks ago, Bob spotted a deal for a Virginia Beach package at the Hilton. As a sort of birthday present, he got us reservations for 3 nights starting Monday night. We had a really fun time, all except for Faith who pretty much didn't like any of it--the sand, the ocean, the pool, etc.

Here is a picture of our hotel from the beach. We were up on the 15th floor, facing the ocean. The Hilton was really quite a nice hotel--much nicer than ones we usually patronize, LOL. And it was obvious we were not the sort of family that usually stays at the Hilton! It was also the kind of hotel that would nickel and dime you to death. I guess that's how the other half lives, LOL. For example, it doesn't have a free breakfast. Bob was astounded when he realized this--"What? All hotels have free breakfast!". Well, actually they DID have a breafast buffet. It cost a mere $9.95 per adult, and $6. 95 for kids. We laughed pretty hard at the idea of spending $60 a day on BREAKFAST! Ha! Also it charged you each day for internet access. Well, not us--that was part of our package deal. So was valet parking! We could get used to that: "Please bring the van around . . . we are going out." I didn't envy the valet people, parking our van in the parking garage! Another part of our package was a $100 gift card good for some local Hilton-owned restaurants. Some of them were way too pricey and fancy, but we found a nice pizza place and went there for dinner the first night, and lunch before we drove home.

When Bob called to make reservations, no one asked him how many people. So he reserved one room . . . with 2 double beds. My big fear was that we would get unceremoniously booted from there, but as it turned out, no one cared at all that we had people stacked like cordwood in our room. So Bob and I, and Nathan and Luke, were on the 2 beds. Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and Grace were all in sleeping bags, and Faith was in her pack-n-play. It was a lot of togetherness, but we managed. My secret weapon for these sorts of stays is a small "air purifier" from Walmart. You crank it on the highest setting, and it is a constant white noise, so everyone can not be disturbed by everyone else's little snuffles, turns, midnight potty trips, etc. It's a real lifesaver. I NEVER travel without it.

We also brought a ton of food, thanks to the plug-in cooler we borrowed from the L's. For our breakfast buffet, we brought 3 kinds of cereal (crunchy raisin bran, bran flakes, and apple cinnamon cheerios), milk, soy milk, oatmeal packets (we made hot water in the room's coffee maker), hard-boiled eggs, and banana bread. For lunch, we brought peanut butter and soy butter, jelly, ham, turkey, American cheese, colby jack cheese, spinach from our garden, mayo, grapes, apples, carrot sticks, and pretzels. We could have made a mint by selling our food, LOL. Combined with our gift card, we really didn't spend much money down there on food, so that was really nice. We ate at Golden Corral the second night, and Chick-Fil-A the third night.

Here is the view from our balcony. You can see a big statue of Neptune there on the left, and behind that is a nice playground. The Hilton area, where you can rent cabanas for $20/day and pooshy lounge chairs for $18/day is to the right. We made our little camp to the left of all the Hilton stuff, closer to the playground. The girls really liked playing there. You can see from this picture that the beach was pretty much empty. And that right there is what made it a nice vacation for me. I do NOT like crowds, and I can't fathom going to VA Beach in the middle of summer, when everything is jam-packed. The water was cold, but everything else was so nice!

The first day we were on the beach, it was really cloudy, so we didn't need the umbrella until the afternoon, when the sun started breaking through. The second day it was very sunny and hot, and so we needed the umbrella, plus our shade thing that Bob brought and set up. That made it nice and comfortable. It folds down into this tiny little carrying bag, so it was not a hassle toting it down to the beach. I'll post more pictures of everyone actually on the beach in a later post, since we have Bible study tonight, and I am running out of time!

The Hilton had 2 very nice pools on the rooftop level. This is the outside one, which was freezing cold, so we didn't bother putting trying it. There was also a hot tub. Luke was totally freaked out by the pool, with the drop-off edge and the glass walls, so he was not sorry we didn't go in there.

We did spend time in the indoor pool. It was also very nice, and it was surrounded by these really comfortable lounge chairs. Some of them were like loveseats with big ottomen. I enjoyed sitting there with Faith (who HATED the pool) and looking at the view of the city out the big windows. It was our own private pool--no one else was there while we were swimming! And the towels were very big. Definitely a finer touch!