Okaloosa Island Family Vacation Guide

Both Ryan’s mom and my mom both live within an hour of us. We are very lucky to have them both close by. For Mother’s Day weekend, we decided to plan a family staycation in a central location of everyone so we all had a place to come and hang out whenever they were available. We chose to stay at Waterscape Resort for several reasons! Waterscape is managed by Resort Quest NWFL and we always have such a great experience when renting from them!

When planning the weekend, one of our biggest concerns was boarding the dogs somewhere they would be close by just incase as well as feel extremely comfortable. My parents and brother both have rescue dogs and our two dogs have never been boarded before. So this was a first! We did a lot of research but fell in love with Primo Dog and Biscuits in Fort Walton Beach. A little bonus was that it was only about 5 minutes away from the hotel! At Primo, we paired the dogs into twos. My dogs in one “kennel” and the other two in another. I say kennel loosely because they are pretty big rooms areas with an open top that allows the dogs to not feel cramped or even like they are at a kennel. They separate all the dogs by sizes and have indoor and outdoor play areas as well as a pool for the dogs to jump in and out of.  Also, I have to say. One of my biggest worries about boarding dogs is what they are going to smell like when I pick them up. I don’t know if they gave them a bath or just applied a deodorizer on them before we picked them up, but they both actually probably smelt better than they did when we dropped them off!

On Friday after we dropped off the dogs, we checked into the resort and immediately headed down to the pool. Ya’ll should have seen the looks on the boys faces when they saw all of the pools, water play sets for kids, splash pads, mini water slide, etc! It literally was a mom and childrens dream come true because the water was so shallow I didn’t have to worry about the boys getting too deep except for when we would let an adult take Braydon to the deep side to do the monkey bars over the water!

Charli has pretty much loved all over her baths since she was born – and this pool was no exception. She crawled around and splashed the entire weekend! The boys also loved riding on the floats in the lazy river. They would race around to see who could finish first (not so lazy, right?)

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On Saturday we woke up and made a big breakfast for everyone overlooking the gulf. Ya’ll…our view was insane! We had a wrap around balcony and the entire back side of the condo was glass! It was absolutely stunning! When you book, get a corner room if you can (it sleeps more) and the amount of bedrooms with a view is unreal! We ended up spending our entire day at the pools since they had so many to offer, a snack bar to order food from, and we live by the beach so we wanted to take advantage of all of the amenities the resort had to offer. If you are coming from out of town tho, they do have beach set up provided for every room each morning! For dinner we walked on the beach down to the Boardwalk and ate at the Crabtrap which is the same restaurant group as where we went for brunch the next day.

Sunday Morning was Mothers Day and we headed to one of the newest restaurants on Okaloosa Island in the Boardwalk, Lobster Tail. The view from the restaurant is gorgeous and the food was even better. I had the lobster tacos and I tried my dads Caribbean seafood stew and I have to say, it was a toss up of which I liked better because they were both so good! On Sunday’s they now have brunch from 10-2 with mimosas and the yummiest bloody Marys! Next time your in town – make sure to grab brunch or dinner there!

After brunch – a lot of the family had to head out due to work on Monday morning but my family and my parents went back to the resort for one last day of our mini vacation! We ended up skipping nap on Sunday and letting the boys play until almost dark! We had a lazy dinner in the resort and watched the sunset on our balcony! Next time you head this way and are wanting to stay on Okaloosa Island, with just your family or multiple families – we highly recommend the Waterscape Resort!!!