A little Winter series – throwing it back to my sister and I’s trip from 2024 where we had ourselves a fun Florida trip! We were there for just over 2 weeks and booked and planned this over a year in advance. It was quite nice to escape the cold of Scotland and arrive to hot weather in Florida in November, it sure did feel strange with both warm weather and Christmas trees at the same time XD The first stop on our trip was the Space Coast – the eastern coastline of Florida close to Orlando. We had the weekend there before heading inland and it was such a great start to our trip.
Cocoa Beach
Because my body hates sleep (haha), I was up nice and early feeling the jetlag, so I was ready for morning walks along the beach at Cocoa Beach. A big achievement for me to get on the sand because I hate the feeling of sand on skin, it’s a whole thing, but I went to the beach more than once, and it wasn’t awful^ We walked along to the pier and watched surfers and runners. We went down to the beach one evening as well and it was busy with lots of families out enjoying the cooler weather of the late day along with the sunset. We thoroughly enjoyed shopping at the huge Ron Jon Surf Shop, and on our last morning my sister did a surfing lesson with one of their instructors which she really enjoyed.
Brevard Zoo
We spent our first day in Florida visiting Brevard Zoo. I obviously enjoy visiting zoos and my sister does too, and I read online that you can kayak around the giraffes here so we really wanted to do that! Being a Saturday it was quite busy but overall not too bad and we were able to get good views of all the animals we wanted and spent most of the day there. One of the main reasons we came here was for the kayaking, it was an extra $15 each for the guided kayak tour around the Expedition Africa area of the zoo, and we very much enjoyed it, I was able to combine both taking photos and helping to kayak too^ What’s not to like about kayaking around the giraffes! There were plenty of other animals to see as well, but the giraffes were a highlight. Later in the day we also did the giraffe feeding, there was no pre-booking for this, you just pay (price depending on how many leaves you want) and get your leaves to feed the giraffes. Overall we enjoyed the Africa section the most, the spaces were done really nicely and we liked the mixed species, plus getting to see the brand new lion habitat, even though the fences made it tricky to get pictures.
One very impressive thing for a relatively small zoo was the number of volunteers and educators out around the zoo – plenty of people to point out the animals if they were in a tricky-to-see area and to provide species-specific and conservation information. Really great to see!
Kennedy Space Centre
One of the other reasons to stay on the space coast was to visit the Kennedy Space Centre – I think space and the research around space is very interesting, but have no desire to go myself! We bought the 1 day ticket and arrived shortly after opening time to make the most of the day, and we ended up staying until shortly before closing, so even though it was expensive (around $70-80 per person) we really made the most of the cost and I think it was definitely worth the money. We went on a Sunday near the end of November and it wasn’t too busy, we had plenty of space to see and experience everything that we wanted to. There were a couple of things we didn’t get to, and we didn’t book any of the extra add-ons that you can also pay for, so maybe need 2 days to really do absolutely everything. Our favourite section was the Atlantis Space Shuttle area, so interesting, but also so many things to learn about that I had no clue on previously!
Where to stay
For these first 3 nights of our trip we stayed in Cocoa Beach itself, quite literally right on the beach doorstep, at The Inn at Cocoa Beach. The room was large and very comfortable and we had a little patio with seats right next to the pool (which we went in for all of 10 minutes one evening, it got colder quicker than we anticipated!). And next to the pool was a gate directly out onto the beach walkway – room to beach in less than 2 minutes^ Breakfast was included here and it was great, they had fruits, cereals, toasts etc. then everyday had home made muffins (carrot when we were there) and two flavours of mini quiche, all very tasty!
