Best Family vacations on a budget Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Style
This was our first trip to an East Coast beach and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina did not disappoint! The first thing I’m gonna go over for your Family vacations on a budget Myrtle Beach Style is flights. We are from Houston and were not able to find a direct flight to Myrtle Beach. Had a short layover in Nashville, which was actually a really nice airport. It was an early flight so got into Nashville by lunchtime and grabbed a bite at that airport. Houston to Myrtle Beach is a pretty cheap flight and my Southwest Points covered it completely, which was nice.
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We stayed at The Ocean Reef Resort in Myrtle Beach. We chose this resort because it’s BEACHFRONT and we really liked the outdoor kids waterpark area and the pool. Of course when we got to Myrtle Beach we quickly realized that MOST of the Beachfront resorts on Ocean Drive have a kids waterparks. If we go back we will not be staying at the Ocean Reef, honestly I have a few good things to say about the resort, but most are negative.
Family vacations on a budget
Ocean Reef Resort Positives
1.)Kids “waterpark”- I wouldn’t really call this a waterpark, there is just 1 slide in a shallow pool, and a lazy river. It is nice to take a break from the beach and let the kids run wild and wash off the scratchy sand.
2.) Ocean Reef is oceanfront and has private access to the beach, which is so much easier than trying to stay at airbnb and driving to and from the beach everyday. You just walk out onto the beach! So the location is pretty perfect, but there are MANY family resorts with amazing location.
3.) The pool was big and nice with a walk up bar (not swim up). DJ at the pool every afternoon, He was amazing at getting the crowd involved!
If you wanna head over to my Post on Everything you need for a Family Beach Vacation Click HERE!
Family vacations on a budget
Ocean Reef Resort Negatives
1.) The reception staff is completely clueless and a bunch of airheads. We made our reservation 4 months before we arrived, but 1 week before our trip the hotel cancelled our reservation. I only found out about the cancellation when I called a few days before the trip. I was calling to see if they had an extra cot for the room, as my sister-in-law was visiting us for a day. That’s when I found out they cancelled the reservation for “suspicion of fraud”. WTH? They had no apologies for me and tried to make me pay DOUBLE the original price for the exact same room.
Ended up finally getting ahold of a customer service manager (not the hotel manager) and got a suite for the exact same price. It all worked out, but just to let you know, they cancelled this reservation without a call or email to us (NO NOTIFICATION). Thank goodness I called before the trip, August is is a popular time to visit beach towns. Despicable.
2.) Staff is in no rush. I understand Beach towns are more “laidback”, but this was on another level. When we checked in at 1PM our room was not ready, and they said it wouldn’t be until 4PM. We were early so that was OK. We asked if we could store our luggage at reception so we could walk to a restaurant and then let the kids at least swim because they had been on flights since 7 AM. The 15-year-old front desk boy told me “NO, we don’t have a place to store them”. We thought that was odd, but the kids were hungry, so we walked to the closest food place (carrying 4 suitcases and 2 travel case golf clubs).
After we ate it was about 3 PM and we headed back to the hotel to at least let the kid’s swim. My husband spoke to another girl behind reception, and she said the room is still not ready, but she’d be happy to take our luggage for safe keeping in the office. Meanwhile, the dumb 15-year-old who told me no is just grinning at me like we have entertained him. Weird and Creepy. The kids swim for an hour and at 4PM we check on our room…still not ready and bonehead boy says we will text when it is ready. 5PM… still not ready “you will receive a call when it’s ready”.
By 6PM my husband is pissed, the wind is picking up and the kids are cold and wet. We are officially DONE WITH THIS GAME. Husband goes to the front and basically tells them open up the room now or you will start refunding me money. They said, “your room has been ready for 30 minutes; didn’t anyone call you?” Nobody damn called. If the kids weren’t with us and cold as hell we would have left right then and found a new place to stay. The reception at this place just does not give 2 $#!ts about anything.
3.) No free breakfast, you have to purchase this in a package when you book your room. Just making you aware. The resort has a pretty good breakfast buffet.
*****You must pay for buffet separate or when you book your room. It is NOT included in your stay.
4.) The decking around the lazy river and covered pool area is SO SLIPPERY. My husband slipped and fell, and we needed an MRI when we got back to Houston…Grade 2 sprain of his ACL. It’s one of those situations where the hotel needs to badly pressure wash the grime… This one really pissed me off because kids were slipping all over the place, skinning knees and elbows and mixing blood all in the water. The one lifeguard seated texting did not seem to think this was a problem at all.
5.) The hotel is outdated. Like really outdated. Maybe I’m being a jerk, but I expected more for the price we paid. Our toilet clogged up every.time.we.flushed. E.V.E.R.Y.T.I.M.E. There are SO many choices for beachfront resorts on your Family vacations on a budget Myrtle Beach Style. Do your research and read through online reviews!
6.) Nobody will provide turn down service. I requested extra towels about 3 times, finally I grabbed some off the maid’s cart…. that somehow never made it to our room in 4 days. I asked for turn down service as the beds were filled with sand. NO ONE came the entire 4 day stay. So irritating. The toilets clogged CONSTANTLY, I called the front desk day 1 to send maintenance and they never did. We ended up buying a plunger the first day.
Closing Comments on accommodations while on your Family vacations on a budget Myrtle Beach Style
STAY AT THE DUNES. We visited the outside kids’ area and pool while on our vacation. SO much better than Ocean Reef…I also heard from people around the Dunes pool that the Dunes customer service is stellar. Now, each resort will give you wrist bands so your allowed to swim and play in their pool, for this reason you can’t really resort hop. BUT we did take a walk down the beach and the kids followed another family into The Dunes Resort pool, it was awesome, the kids didn’t want to leave. We didn’t want to leave. So DON’T STAY AT OCEAN REEF! Rant over.
If you wanna head over to my Post on Everything you need for a Family Beach Vacation Click HERE!
Family vacations on a budget Myrtle Beach
THE GOOD STUFF!
Family vacations on a budget
Restaurants and things to do on your Myrtle Beach Family Summer Vacation
1.) Grocery Store– If you’re staying more than 2 nights then I’d take a trip to Wal-Mart (about 2 miles away) and get some snacks and breakfast foods. We are just not huge breakfast eaters over here, so my kids and us can do with muffins and fruit and be good till lunch. Keep in mind that each meal adds up! We went to Mariner’s pizza across the street from the hotel and ended up spending $67 on one lunch. It was ok, but not worth $67 omg.
I personally would rather eat breakfast and lunch in the hotel room and go out to dinners at night…again that’s just my preference. If you’re a family that eats out a lot and you plan on doing that for 3 meals a day, then I’d at least get some snack foods and drinks from the grocery store to keep in your room. The beach sun gets hot, and your kids will be snack monsters the entire day! Strawberries, apples, grapes, bananas, granola bars, chips, muffins, bread for PBJ’S and ham sandwiches. Those bakery muffins and cinnamon rolls are great for a quick breakfast in the morning.
2.) Myrtle Beach Boardwalk– I’d do at least one late afternoon and dinner here. We came around 3PM the 2nd day. Groan. This place is SUPER crowded in early August since it’s before school starts back up. It’s reminiscent of a family style bourbon street. All the place below are at the boardwalk.
–WonderWorks. It’s a kooky place with a lot of weird stuff. My kids loved it. The price a ticket for a family of 4 was a bit hard to digest, but my kids had fun so overall worth it.
–Rode the SkyWheel and other rides and walked around. You have to purchase tickets for this, which for 5 people (us 4 and my sis in law) it was about $60 (to ride a ferris wheel ).
–Restaurants There are so many good options for food at the Boardwalk on the Beach. We ate at Hard Rock, but I would not suggest that. The food was not that great, but the experience was fun for my kids, so it was fine. The boardwalk has some great restaurants, but we were super limited (husband dropped the ball on reservations that night). So definitely get reservations, it gets crowded in the summer. We got a daquiri from Hurricanes and walked around the boardwalk.
Got the kids some airbrush shirts made, fed the crazy catfish and went crazy at the ice cream/candy store. Boardwalk is a cool place, and I definitely recommend taking a day to go, wear comfy shoes…lots of walking. I have heard they have firework shows on certain days, but they didn’t on the night we went.
3.) Lulu’s at Barefoot Landing in Myrtle Beach– Our FAVORITE! Make a reservation online so you don’t have to wait, the tables fill up weeks in advance during the summer high season. Goodness, we LOVED this place. The food was amazing. I had a fish po’boy, fries and a peach margarita. My kids had fried shrimp, they gobbled them up. We got here at 4pm on day 3, after a beach day, and let the kids climb the ropes course while we sipped on margaritas. This restaurant is right on the marina so the kids loved to run around the marina and look at all the boats. We stayed till 7PM or so and the kids were wiped out from the day and we headed back to the resort. This place is a MUST DO on your Myrtle Beach Family Summer Vacation
4.)Beach Day– We did Beach days on day 2 and day 3 from 9AM till about 1 PM, my kids had enough salt and sand on those days. We are used to Destin beaches, warm water and calm waves so this East Coast beach sure was a shocker! We were so surprised that the water was COLD! It was awesome! Also, the waves are intense and definitely have some energy, we learned in the first 5 minutes out there that we HAD TO find a boogie board. That’s another thing, don’t buy beach shovels, pails, toys or boogie boards…. families leave them on the beach by the beach walks.
***I mean it doesn’t make sense to pack them up to go home. We also scored some awesome beach chairs (the low ones that sit on the shore) from some guests that were heading home as we were arriving!
If you want to head over to my Post on Everything you need for a Family Beach Vacation Click HERE!
5.) Wax Museum, Ripley’s Aquarium and Myrtle Waves Water Park– The wax museum was super interesting, but my kids (6 and 8) had no interest at all…so they were a bit difficult to control in there. All in all, I’d pass on the wax museum if I had it to do over again. Ripley’s Aquarium we did not do as my kids were chomping at the bit to get to the waterpark, but I did here the aquarium is a lot of fun.
We got to Myrtle Waves Waterpark after lunch and stayed for a few hours, it did not disappoint. My kids had a blast, and it was great getting away from the sand and salt for a few hours. I’d bring water shoes; the cement here is hot. We brought our backpack cooler with some drinks and snacks in there, the front gate did not check it (I guess cuz it looked like a backpack…)
6.) Nighttime Beach walking with Flashlights– My kids had so much fun walking the beach at night and kicking up water. We had flashlights and nets for them, so they were running around trying to catch crabs and flounder. They didn’t really catch much, but they had so much fun running around. That last night we stayed we ended up getting some fresh scallops and shrimp at the seafood market across the street and we cooked a seafood alfredo in the hotel for dinner. Our hotel (Ocean Reef) had plenty of cooking things, but if you plan on cooking make sure you ask about kitchen utensils in the hotel suite.
7.) Weather: We are native Texans (Houston), so we are used to 106 degree heat and 90 % humidity so heat is nothing for us. The numerous islanders we met kept talking about the heat and we actually thought it was kind of fall weather lol. The one thing i’d be prepared for is rainstorms, almost every night and day there was a passing rainstorm. This was the radar for our first night… So I’d bring a windbreaker, small umbrella (I keep this mini-umbrella in my purse, travels well.
If you want to head over to my Post on Everything you need for a Family Beach Vacation Click HERE!
