Visiting the beach for the 1st time. Questions (Yorktown: park, county)

[rtandc]

Originally Posted by dawn4261

Was reading about Croatan beach, sounds like it might be a good spot for us, what do you guys think?

Unless you get there very early, and I mean very early you wil not find a place to park at Croatan, it is more of a private neighborhood beach front......The strip (va bch) will also be very crowded and expect to pay holiday prices for parking, if you can find a spot....By the afternoon when you state you plan to arrive, many people are forced to park many, many blocks away from the beach....But no place in Hampton Roads is going to be easy to get to on a holiday weekend at that time of the day.....You want to go to the beach around here you learn real fast to go as early as you can in the morning...

On a side note, you could not pay me enough money to try and cross the Hampton Roads bridge tunnel on a Sunday, especially on a Holiday weekend....You could very easy sit in just tunnel traffic for an hour or two, both ways....Maybe the water park in Williamsburg is the best idea offered yet....You could always plan another beach vacation when you can stay on the Southside...Trying to cross the bridge tunnel is going to be your major concern

[Nikki75]

Just my $0.22. Whenever I've gone on a weekday to VB, we've had enough people in the car to take HOV which bypasses the VB highways stretch of traffic. Newport News also has a HOV stretch. The traffic getting to the tunnel is the worse part of the drive but, the tunnel itself moves along unless there is an accident.

Whoever said that the river beaches do not have waves is correct! Good for your 8y/o but the 12y/o may want some wave action (boogie boards). My vote goes to Yorktown Beach. It looks very nice!

[dawn4261]

Thanks for all the info guys & for the pics caladium. Are there any good spots before I get to the bridge or do we have to cross it to get to all the good beaches? We will be there for the whole week so we plan on going the thursday or friday after memorial day too, maybe by then, we'll have figured out the best spot.

[rtandc]

If you want to go to an "ocean beach" you will have to go to the strip (Atlantic Ave) or Sandbridge in Virginia beach. The other beaches listed in this thread like Jamestown, Chicks and Buckroe are either on the Chesapeake Bay or James river etc.....

[snosurfa7]

Buckroe will probably be most like an "ocean" beach without crossing the bridge. If there is a little wind you might even be able to boogie board there.

But hey if you have driven this far just check the tunnel traffic on VA511 and choose either the HRBT or MMBT and go to a real beach if thats what you really want. But it still will be at least 1-2 hour drive from Williamsburg. The bay beaches will be warmer too, the ocean is only in the low 60s water temp right now.

My experience is that VA Beach is busy but usually not super crazy on Memorial Day weekend. Unless its 80+ degrees and sunny. 4th July is much much worse. Sandbridge is my favorite beach too but don't let people fool you that place gets more and more crowded every year and the Little Island Parking lot can fill up too.

[NEPA-x-pat]

Originally Posted by rtandc

Unless you get there very early, and I mean very early you wil not find a place to park at Croatan, it is more of a private neighborhood beach front......The strip (va bch) will also be very crowded and expect to pay holiday prices for parking, if you can find a spot....By the afternoon when you state you plan to arrive, many people are forced to park many, many blocks away from the beach....But no place in Hampton Roads is going to be easy to get to on a holiday weekend at that time of the day.....You want to go to the beach around here you learn real fast to go as early as you can in the morning...

On a side note, you could not pay me enough money to try and cross the Hampton Roads bridge tunnel on a Sunday, especially on a Holiday weekend....You could very easy sit in just tunnel traffic for an hour or two, both ways....Maybe the water park in Williamsburg is the best idea offered yet....You could always plan another beach vacation when you can stay on the Southside...Trying to cross the bridge tunnel is going to be your major concern

That is all true but you could go to the south end of Croatan, to the public beach. There you will find a paid parking lot, and restrooms. On a busy day like the holiday, street parking will be a nightmare to find and you don't want to risk a ticket so...go to the public beaches either at Camp Pendelton (Southern part of Croatan), public beach at Sandbridge, or if you want to fight parking .... go way up the strip to the area near First Landing/Fort Story.

[dawn4261]

How much is parking usually at sandbridge?

[rtandc]

Originally Posted by dawn4261

How much is parking usually at sandbridge?

Parking is very cheap, only like 5 bucks for the day, but if your not there early you wont find a spot

[LilyLady]

Be warned .. if you head down to the Oceanfront here in VB, stay away from the lots that don't have signs showing their rates. One holiday weekend, I mistakenly parked in a lot with no sign, and got an ugly surprise that parking was $20! To me, that's too much.

Here's a link to an interactive parking map for the Oceanfront area.
Virginia Beach Parking Map

[xGrendelx]

My favorite beaches are Chick's Beach and Ocean View for low-key vibes on the Bay, and the North End for ocean action. Here's some screen caps to show you where they are:

Chick's Beach:
You can see the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in the top left corner for reference...


Here's zoomed in a bit. Chick's Beach runs along Shore Drive and is basically split in half by the Lynnhaven Inlet:



Ocean View:
Not far from Chick's Beach at all, and almost always has less people:


Zoomed in:



North End:
The blue pin is the North End, red is the Oceanfront (tourist area):


Zoomed in:



Hope this helps some. All the beaches that people have said are nice, and don't let tunnel traffic scare you. It's not the end of the world, and worth dealing with for some family fun in my opinion.