It rained from breakfast to dark, the beach was out and the children were five and eight. This is the plan that worked, in the order it worked, with the parts that did not.
Morning: the Elliott Museum
The car rack won the morning. A screen on the wall shows the fifty-odd cars stored on three storeys of shelving behind glass, you pick one, and a robot slides it out and lowers it onto a turntable in front of you. The eight-year-old picked a 1931 Duesenberg and a fire engine; the five-year-old picked the same fire engine four times. The baseball gallery and the general store filled the rest of the morning, and the museum is flat, warm and stroller-friendly throughout.
Lunch: the café at Stuart Beach
Across the road, the café on the dune at Stuart Beach does a fish sandwich and a grilled cheese and has a roof. We ate watching the rain on the sea with nobody else there, which is the best lunch the island offers and the cheapest.
Afternoon: the Coastal Center
The stingray feeding at the Coastal Center next door is timed; check the board and arrive ten minutes before. The children fed the rays by hand, watched the big snook fed in the lagoon and spent half an hour at the sea turtle hospital asking questions the staff answered properly. The mangrove trail was wet and we skipped it.
- Combined tickets for the Elliott and the House of Refuge are sold at both.
- The Coastal Center’s feeding times are on a board at the gate.
- Parking is shared with the beach and easy in the rain.
- The House of Refuge is five minutes south if the rain stops; it did not.
Total for the day, for four, under a hundred dollars and nobody cried, which on a rainy day with children is a result.
