Aside from my home state of New York, the state I know best and have spent the most time vacationing in is, far and away, Florida. When I think back on all the places in Florida I’ve visited since my youth, I still feel pleasantly surprised at what a far-ranging list it is—encompassing both the epicenter of family tourism, Orlando, as well as places as different and divergent as Pensacola, St. Augustine, Delray Beach, Miami, and beyond. I’m also pleasantly surprised to consider that for all I’ve seen in Florida, there’s much I haven’t seen that I still want to. One of my best friends now lives in the Tampa/St. Pete area, so it’s on the list. And for all the times I’ve visited southern Florida to see family, I’ve never made the drive to Key West. I keep promising myself that I will.
Last spring, during my kids’ school break, my family and I had a week’s vacation in Florida that was the perfect mix of old and new, of pleasurably familiar and breathtakingly, mind-openingly exciting. You could say we travelled from a luxuriously Earth-based family oasis, then onto the moon, and back. Care to guess our destinations?
The first half of the trip was the familiar part. Two of my closest family members, my sister and my aunt, live in Delray Beach. My wife and I have found that the most agreeable formula for visiting with them (or anyone) is to find nearby lodging and make plans to see them a lot, rather than staying with them and trying to mix and match everyone’s preferences. So the four of us—my wife and I and our two children, Elena (15) and Adam (11)—stayed at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, a sprawling mix of old-Florida grandeur and 21st Century amenities with 835 guest rooms in Boca Raton, about a half-hour drive from my family in Delray. The resort, which adjoins the Florida Intracoastal, is the inland sister property to the Boca Beach Club (212 guest rooms) which reopened in 2009 after a $120 million renovation, and has the feel of a stylish and sophisticated boutique hotel of the highest-order—just one that looks out on the ocean and is super family-friendly.
Guests at either property have access to all the lovely features and services at both places, and there’s a regular and convenient shuttle bus between the two. Having stayed at the Beach Club once before, this time we opted for the Resort & Club, with the assurance that the experience was equally wonderful and well-suited for families. And here’s the big takeaway: It was! In fact, we had such a good stay that every morning we agreed to discard our plans to speed over to the Beach Club to secure poolside seating, and instead just walked over to big pool at the Resort to claim four chairs for the day.
As you might imagine, the pool is the place to be for most families when they aren’t enjoying other aspects of the resort, like golf, tennis, boating, or just walking around the lush grounds. A few parts of our time there merit special shout-outs: 1. The dual-sided Flow Rider wave simulator, a short walk from the pool, was endlessly popular with children of all ages. 2. My wife loved the ritual bath and massage at their heavenly spa. 3. An easy (and affordable) way of starting every morning is with a grab-and-go breakfast at the in-house Serendipity; and of course you want to end the night there too, with all their crazy ice cream treats. 4. At the top of their circular high-rise lodging, known as the Tower, is the restaurant “the blue,” with resplendent views of coastline and ocean and equally wonderful food—their own tagline (“elevated American cuisine”) is perfect. 5. We like staying in the part of the main complex called the Yacht Club, which adjoins a marina that berths the kind of yachts so big they’re fun even just to gasp at and make sarcastic asides about being too tired to take ours out today.
I’m on a mission. I’d like to persuade all families who plan to visit Disney World and Universal Studios in the course of their children’s youth to make sure they also include a two-day trip (or one-day, if need be) to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, which is only an hour’s drive from Orlando. I went there wary of discovering an important part of history presented in a dated, hoary fashion which I’d have to awkwardly try to sell to my bored children as fascinating. Just the opposite happened: I loved it. We all loved it. I was captivated the whole time—as were my children, for much of it. I left so much better informed about our country’s accomplishments in space, and so enthused about its future. My children voted with their purchasing power, picking up history books and tee-shirts that said: “Occupy Mars.”
We spent about a day and a half there. One lasting impression is the physical awesomeness of the experience—of seeing (being right up under) the largest rocket ever made (the Saturn V) which was America’s transportation to the moon, and the Space Shuttle Atlantis—and of standing in the actual room of the mission control center for all the flights. The other impression is the deft job they did of explaining everything with interactive exhibits and rides and movies, and with the help of an informed and passionate volunteer team, many of whom had worked at NASA. After asking one of my innocent questions, I learned more about the skin of the Space Shuttle than I needed to know, but it was fascinating to hear it from a woman who actually worked on it back in the day.
As much as I loved revisiting my memories of the big Apollo missions, the big surprise for me was learning more about the Space Shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope—the incredible achievement, through triumph and tragedy—of creating a spaceship, and then the ingenious and incredible heroics it took to make the Hubble fully functional, and the astonishing payoff it has had for science and for our understanding of the universe.
Here are my big shout-outs for a visit to the Kennedy Space Center: 1. The Apollo/Saturn V Center. 2. The Up-Close Launch Control Center Tour, which got us our access to the building with mission control, and also a close-up drive to the launch pad. 3. The Space Shuttle Atlantis. 4. The Hubble 3D, and Journey to Space 3D in the IMAX Theater. 5. The outdoor Rocket Garden. And 6. Journey To Mars: Explorers Wanted.
When we weren’t at the Space Center, we stayed in Cocoa Beach, which is a 15 minute drive away. “I Dream Of Jeannie” fans will remember that Major Nelson and Jeannie lived in Cocoa Beach. Now it’s a beach community devoted to tourism and time-shares. There are no luxury resorts in Cocoa, but Trip Advisor will steer you towards the better hotels and motels—and make sure to have dinner at a fish shack called Jazzy’s Mainely Lobster and Seafood, and make a stop for mini-golf and baby alligator petting at “Golf N Gator.”
To learn more about Boca Raton Resort & Club and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, visit bocaresort.com and kennedyspacecenter.com!
