Disney Cruise Vacation Day 1 : Cocoa Beach, FL

After much anticipation, the day had finally arrived to head to Florida for Spring break.  We planned to fly out the day before our cruise left so that we didn't have to rush the morning of our cruise or worry about delayed flights.  Back when we booked our flights months earlier, we didn't realize that Sunday was daylight savings time.  We had booked a 6 am flight to Tampa, FL because we had enough SWA points to make it free.  So waking up for a 6 am flight that really felt like 5 am was no fun at all, but luckily we were all excited about what was to come, so that helped a bit.

We arrived in Tampa around 9 am and made the 2 hour drive to Port Canaveral.  After stopping for lunch at a restaurant right on the beach we checked in to our hotel.  We stayed at the Hilton Cocoa Beach which was super close to the port. Our room wasn't quite ready, so we decided to just change into our swimsuits and head out to enjoy the afternoon on the beach.  We ended up with beautiful weather.  Evan was soo excited about seeing the ocean again, that it didn't even bother him that it was a bit chilly and it wasn't the super clear ocean water that he was used to.  He spent the entire afternoon swimming in the ocean and searching for sea shells.  Shawn and I enjoyed lounging on the beach watching the kids swim.  This was really the first time we've been to the beach where we were able to sit and watch the kids swim from our chairs.  It was awesome!

After several hours of swimming in the ocean, we hit up the pool for a bit before eating an early dinner at the hotel.  Since we had been up so early, we called it an early night.  We were all so excited to board the Disney cruise the next morning.