This week for our Corolla Vacation, Lizzie rented us a house that is dog friendly from Atlantic Realty. Its not a really huge house, with only four bedrooms, it is a pretty minimal beach house compared to many of the other huge beach houses in Corolla.
The Corolla Beach Report
The Corolla Beach is pretty big, and compared to Delaware beaches it is great because there is so much space for beach goers. I hate when you are at a beach and you have inches between your towel and other beach goers. Personal space while beach going is very important to me.
On this trip, I learned the importance of going to the beach during high tide if you want the good waves for surfing or boogey boarding. You can usually pic up a tide chart from any local fishing company or look for the fishing phamplets where they have tourist info.
On Monday, we had to put up with tons of jellyfish, but aside from the jelly fish, the waves were awesome.
On Tuesday, the jellyfish were gone..I was thinking about buying jellyfishing nets so we could be like spongebob. The water on Tuesday was as I said jellyfish clear, and with some ok waves.
Wednesday, saw a westerly wind which brought both cold water(60 degrees) and little black flies that would not go away. We did go in for a bit, but not long as the waves were not very good for bodyboarding.
Thursday, was the worst beach day of all, since the weather was stormy much of the day. We did get into the water briefly, but left due to an upcoming storm and the waves were kind of wimpy.
Friday, was an awesome day at the beach, with high tide bringing some of the best waves we had on our Corolla vacation. In addition to the great waves, there were few jellyfish, and no black flies.
Saturday, we tried to get to the beach by the early high tide, but we got side tracked while shopping for presents and what not at various stores in the area including the Farmers Daughter and Mustang Sally’s. Hightide was at about 1130am, and we got down to the beach shortly after noon and the waves were awesome again. No jellyfish, and no flies. I caught one huge wave and dropped me into the waves for a yaddy yaddy of a ride that brought me up to the beach.
Sunday, we departed early in the Am, so we had to say bye-bye to Corolla’s beach.
Corolla Dining
Monday night, we ate at the Sunfish Grill, which is located in the same shopping complex as the Corolla Foodlion. It was an Ok meal, nothing to brag about and certainly nothing I would recommend to anyone else, unless of course, like us, you are really hungry and nothing else is available.
For breakfast and lunch most days, we ate in, and bought groceries at Harris Teeter and also at the FoodLion for incidentals since it is located so close to our Corolla Beach House. We also got bagels at Lighthouse Bagels, where I also became foursquare mayor. We ate ice cream at several different ice cream shops..there are numerous ice cream shops including a DQ, which we have yet to visit. We also went to the Duck Donut Shop and got several dozen of their donuts. These donuts are the shape of O donuts but they can come with multiple toppings. The sugar coated donuts are highly recommended.
Wednesday night we had reservations at Oceanfront Grille and we then ate on their porch in the middle of a very active thunderstorm. I took numerous pictures and made a video during the storm.
Thursday, we rented 4 beach cruisers for three days from Justforthebeach rentals. We went to the beach briefly, but due to inclement weather, we did not stay for very long. We also ate at home for the most part..Lizzie made baked ziti for dinner.
Friday, we went out for breakfast to FirstLight Breakfast & Burgers which is located in the TimbuckII shopping center, which has about 60 different shops and restaurants as well as activities for the family such as bumper go cart racing, water sports rentals, and mini-golf. We also did a bit of shopping at various shops, but did not eat out for dinner or lunch. For dinner, Grandmom made one of our favorites, Tater-tot caserol..yum…
Saturday morning, prior to going to the beach, we did our gift shopping, and finished up the Zitti for dinner for everyone except Lizzie and I, and egg sandwiches for lunch. Lizzie and I ate dinner at the Corolla Brew Pub..delicious and highly recommended.
Corolla Shopping
For an OBX beach town, Corolla has some nice venues for shopping.
- TimbuckII Shopping Center – TimbuckII has over 60 shops..one of our favorites was Mustang Sally’s
http://www.outerbanksace.com/
- Monterey Plaza which houses not only a grocery store, but several places to dine including Lighthouse bagels and the Corolla Brew Pub, surf shops, an ice cream parlor and a movie theatre.
- Harris Teeter Grocery Store – which was the prefered grocery store even though we had a Food Lion with in walking distance due to political interests.
- The Farmers Daughter had a nice selection of beach stuff.
- There is an Ace Hardware store that has a huge red beach chair that you can feel free to take your picture on.
OBX Vacation Review
All in all, I think we had a pretty good week in Corolla. Our Corolla vacation went by so fast that it almost seems like it never happened..good think I have been writing this post.
The kids loved the beach, and enjoyed riding the bike rentals around the different shopping areas.
The wide variety of dining establishments means we had lots of places to choose from, and especially had easy access to ice cream..yum..
Other than all the Corolla Jellyfish, a few rainy days, and black flies, I think we had a good week in Corolla.
Corolla isn’t Lizzies first choice of OBX beaches, because she prefers Hatteras Island towns which are less developed and less crowded. But she said she would gladly come back again. She would however, not stay in the same house again as there are so many beautiful beach house rentals in Corolla, that it would be a shame to stay in one more than once. I will be doing a blog post about some of the available Corolla Rentals.
Our Corolla Vacation Pics on Flickr.
Tags: Corolla beach Report · Corolla OBX · Corolla OBX Dining · Corolla OBX Shopping · corolla vacation blog · jellyfish Corolla · OBX · OBX Beaches
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