Jetty Park, Cape Canaveral
Continuing with our first year snowbirding, we spent one week at Jetty Park. I made these plans back in August in an effort to catch a rocket launch and scratch one more item off the bucket list. Trying to schedule something around NASA is mostly luck and an exercise in frustration.
NASA aside, the park is a gem. The beach is excellent, the staff is helpful and friendly and there are plenty of things to do. With cruise ships coming and going almost daily, you could sit by the water and just watch that. There's a nice walking/biking path along the perimeter with cut-throughs to the beach (right on the Atlantic) and even a feeding station for the many Ferrel cats on the property. The sites vary from sandy grass with water only overlooking the channel to full hookup shaded sites. No cable, but the OTA channels in Orlando come in fine. Park WiFi (TengoNet) is terrible. Verizon signal is 4G. The only thing we didn't like is that dogs are not allowed out of the campground area.
There are a few sea food places on the channel in "The Cove" - not really walking distance, but if you have a car, there are plenty of places to eat. Kennedy Space Center visitor center is 1/2 hour away ($50/person to get in and $10 to park), and at the Space Coast Regional Airport there are biplane rides and a warbird museum.
Enterprise picks you up on the normal loop for the cruise terminals and there's a no-name car rental outfit in walking distance.
Mid December and there were sites open until the weekend when the place pretty much filled up Friday night. It would be a great place to watch a launch from, but I think you'd have to stay a whole month to see one. An ISS re-supply rocket went up the day before we arrived, but the people who were here said you couldn't see it because of the low clouds.
Guess I'll have to come back next winter.
NASA aside, the park is a gem. The beach is excellent, the staff is helpful and friendly and there are plenty of things to do. With cruise ships coming and going almost daily, you could sit by the water and just watch that. There's a nice walking/biking path along the perimeter with cut-throughs to the beach (right on the Atlantic) and even a feeding station for the many Ferrel cats on the property. The sites vary from sandy grass with water only overlooking the channel to full hookup shaded sites. No cable, but the OTA channels in Orlando come in fine. Park WiFi (TengoNet) is terrible. Verizon signal is 4G. The only thing we didn't like is that dogs are not allowed out of the campground area.
There are a few sea food places on the channel in "The Cove" - not really walking distance, but if you have a car, there are plenty of places to eat. Kennedy Space Center visitor center is 1/2 hour away ($50/person to get in and $10 to park), and at the Space Coast Regional Airport there are biplane rides and a warbird museum.
Enterprise picks you up on the normal loop for the cruise terminals and there's a no-name car rental outfit in walking distance.
Mid December and there were sites open until the weekend when the place pretty much filled up Friday night. It would be a great place to watch a launch from, but I think you'd have to stay a whole month to see one. An ISS re-supply rocket went up the day before we arrived, but the people who were here said you couldn't see it because of the low clouds.
Guess I'll have to come back next winter.
