Leave the day before, stay in Mobile for the night, get into Florida in AM to check into place.

you can't always check in Saturday morning. Be sure to call and ask if anyone is already there from Friday night.

In the past, we have stopped before in Baton Rouge on Friday. There is a courtyard Marriott at I-10 and AcadianThroughway, that isn't bad. Leave early that morning to avoid too much delay on I-12. I think its about 6 hours from there.

There is still construction, but not as much as last year.

Map of construction

Stinkys fish camp

Georges

Seagrove market for grouper sandwiches (maybe closed per post above?)

Question for the board: any better fresh markets besides goat feathers or sextons? Willing to drive a bit. Never been blown away by either but been going there since I was a kid.

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Duncan, other considerations with small kids and all of their beach stuff....

*If you want a house right on the beach where you can feed them a sandwich on the back deck before a nap, follow suggestions to stay far away from the primary areas. You will have a nice beach vacation, but may miss out on what makes the area so popular, IMO. In fact, if you're wanting the whole "beach house on a quiet, deserted stretch of sand", I'd avoid 30A altogether.

*If you want beach services where you're not lugging a cooler and chairs down to the beach every day, keep in mind that most homes in developments like Seaside and Watercolor include access to their beach club. ThIs means you park at a pool patio area and walk a boardwalk over the dunes to the beach where umbrella and drink services take over. The little kids end the day in the pool while you order food and drinks.

I had the preconceived notion that if I wasn't staying right on the beach it wouldn't feel like a beach trip. I was wrong; fully unprepared for how much I enjoyed staying in an extremely nice Watercolor home our first couple of years, with a short bike ride across the street to the beach club. The pedestrian/ bike aspect of the area is what makes it 30A. It's very clean, with no low-end condos or apartments like Panama City. No beach riff-raff at all.

We've done both versions; staying right in Watercolor and also staying a short drive away in a house on the beach; the trip is great either way but different vibes.

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Long-shot at you seeing this....Ringo, where did you all stay at specifically?

Initially leaning towards Watercolor/Seaside but maybe could be persuaded otherwise (Seagrove / Santa Rosa). We know very little about the area but want a good beach vacation. We are looking to take our first family vacation. Young kids. They will be 3.5 and 1.5. In-laws will be joining.

I doubt we spend a TON of time on the beach each day (kids naps, we are pale skinned, etc) but we will go each day and want the "trip" to the beach to be easy (with kids, cooler, etc).

How much for umbrella service? Is that included in the price of these communities? Guessing not but don't know. I assume drink service is just whatever you order...

Pretty ignorant on the area and what would work best so appreciate anyone's thoughts. We are going in May 2017 and hoping to book by end of October.

We've done a trip a couple times to Watercolor and if the price works for you it provides a really good value. Most of the houses available will be great for you and in-laws as they provide multiple rooms spread across nice homes. You will have privacy, they will have privacy, and there will be plenty of bathrooms. As mentioned above, staying off the beach is not a big issue here because many houses come with golf carts or you can rent one (do so early as they limit the number in the community).

When we did this, we paid for beach club access through our rental and why I initially jumped at the cost, the value was absolutely there. We bought umbrellas from Walmart ($25-45 + $8 for the screw in base) and took our won drinks. Then we walked past the umbrellas and set up for a few hours. With kids that young I'm not sure you get the value out of their umbrella rentals as the kids wont last at the beach as long as you will.

Another great thing about Watercolor is the number of community pools that you can easily hop to from your house if you just want to swim and don't want to carry stuff to the beach.

You can book a lot of this through 360blue.com and other sites that focus on this area.

Plano - In my experience, you'll benefit greatly by going in May rather than the peak season between Memorial and Labor Days. We were in Rosemary last year the week of Labor Day and were told the crowds were a small fraction of what they had been just the week before.

Of the two areas, Rosemary has a more refined feel (and the new Alys Beach next to it will have an even more upscale vibe) which is is preferable for us without kids, but Seaside goes for more of a vintage beach town feel that might be more fun for kids. The eastern end of 30A (Rosemary) is quieter than the Seaside/Watercolor area. Our favorite area by far is Rosemary since it's calmer, but if I was taking kids I might stay in Grayton to save money and just go into Seaside for meals/entertainment.

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Plano - In my experience, you'll benefit greatly by going in May rather than the peak season between Memorial and Labor Days. We were in Rosemary last year the week of Labor Day and were told the crowds were a small fraction of what they had been just the week before.

Of the two areas, Rosemary has a more refined feel (and the new Alys Beach next to it will have an even more upscale vibe) which is is preferable for us without kids, but Seaside goes for more of a vintage beach town feel that might be more fun for kids. The eastern end of 30A (Rosemary) is quieter than the Seaside/Watercolor area. Our favorite area by far is Rosemary since it's calmer, but if I was taking kids I might stay in Grayton to save money and just go into Seaside for meals/entertainment.

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Thanks for that. We want to take advantage of being able to go on our vacation before families with kids in school are able to go.

I was thinking about staying "outside" and coming in to Seaside for meals/entertainment but wife and I will likely help put kids to bed each night and then will go out after for appetizers / drinks and just enjoy the weather and being together not feeding kids....so thinking staying closer will be good so we can just take a walk for evening entertainment and not have to worry about car rides / drinking / etc.

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We've done a trip a couple times to Watercolor and if the price works for you it provides a really good value. Most of the houses available will be great for you and in-laws as they provide multiple rooms spread across nice homes. You will have privacy, they will have privacy, and there will be plenty of bathrooms. As mentioned above, staying off the beach is not a big issue here because many houses come with golf carts or you can rent one (do so early as they limit the number in the community).

When we did this, we paid for beach club access through our rental and why I initially jumped at the cost, the value was absolutely there. We bought umbrellas from Walmart ($25-45 + $8 for the screw in base) and took our won drinks. Then we walked past the umbrellas and set up for a few hours. With kids that young I'm not sure you get the value out of their umbrella rentals as the kids wont last at the beach as long as you will.

Another great thing about Watercolor is the number of community pools that you can easily hop to from your house if you just want to swim and don't want to carry stuff to the beach.

You can book a lot of this through 360blue.com and other sites that focus on this area.

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Thanks. What is the price of beach club access and what does it come with?

Also, appreciate the reference to 360blue.com. I had only been using VRBO thus far and this site seems a little better....

I don't remember the exact cost but the unit listed at $1500 for the week we had it and then the total cost included an additional $1000 in taxes and fees. Those included our club/amenity fee.

The beach club access (which is apparently included in all 360blue rentals in watercolor) includes access to all the pools, including the beach side club/pool, their beach, some water sports on the lake (additional fees can apply), camp watercolor for kids (additional fees apply), babysitting (additional fees apply) and all towels at the pools and beach. There may be more but this what we looked into.

Drinks and food are not covered. Beach umbrellas and chairs require a seperate rental and were around $50/day. We bought three umbrellas and bases that screwed into the sand for less than $100 and walked right past the beach umbrellas to an open area and set up with the towels they provided.

Our rental included a golf cart (six seater) and I'd highly recommend looking for one of those units. You can rent golf carts but they total number in the community are limited and I never saw a six seater from a rental company.

When looking at Watercolor there are a lot of houses that look far from the beach and that initially turned me off. But we found they were usually close to a pool or some other amenity that we used just as much. For instance, our was in the back of the neighborhood and we were five minutes from the grocery store by golf cart and two minutes to the nearest pool. It only took 12 minutes to take everybody by golf cart to the pool and seemed like a non-issue even with five kids and four adults.