Virginia Beach Trip Recap

I wanted to do a recap or review of my recent trip to Virginia Beach.  First of all, the hotel was amazing!  We stayed right on the ocean on the top floor of the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront with a partial ocean view.  The hotel has valet parking in a garage across the street, and except for one day when we drove to a lighthouse and the Eastern Shore, we left our car in the garage and walked everywhere.  So the hotel is convenient to everything you might need.  There's a rooftop pool and bar, and for those staying on the 18th - 20th floors there is a lounge that offers breakfast, snacks, evening dessert, and water, coffee, and soda all day, in addition to a sunset view across the city skyline.  The hotel also has a fitness center and conference center.  There were two conferences while we were there: a firefighters convention and a Shriner's convention.  The only issue with this was the day we checked in.  There was a long line for check in, and we ended up checking in using the Hilton Honors app and accessing our room with a digital key.  The only issue with the digital key is that there is no wifi in the elevator so you have to have the key already up before you enter the elevator.  Later in the day when there was no line, we returned to the registration desk and got two regular keycards.

Having been to other beach destinations, the Virginia Beach boardwalk wasn't what I was expecting.  The boardwalk is primarily bordered by high rise hotels.  There are a number of restaurants on the bottom floors of the hotels and a smattering of ice cream shops.  Otherwise, all of the shopping is block off the boardwalk on Atlantic Avenue and some of the perpendicular streets.  Unfortunately, both the boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue are havens for apparently homeless people.  Many of them appear to sleep on the boardwalk benches overnight.

Speaking of the boardwalk, the boardwalk itself is intended for pedestrians only, with a parallel bike path.  There are signs denoting this at every intersection, and the boardwalk rules specifically state that bikes, skateboards, and scooters are prohibited.  However, it doesn't seem as if these rules are enforced.  We never saw a single police officer patrolling the boardwalk area, and only once did I see any of the "Ambassadors."

The beach itself is nice.  It is kept very clean, and there are a lot of lifeguards.  There are many trash cans so no reason at all for trash to collect on the beach.  There are also many beach amenities such as playgrounds for children, exercise equipment for adults, and accessible paths onto the beach.

One last issue is the helicopters and planes from Oceana Naval Base that fly over several times a day.  The first few times it's interesting, but unless you're interested in trying to photograph them, it can become a nuisance.  By the same token, there is a constant stream of container ships on the horizon with an occasional Navy vessel interspersed among them.  Lastly, two 600-foot tall wind turbines are visible 27 miles offshore.  These are the trials for up to 176 turbines that will be 800 feet tall that are scheduled to be installed by Dominion Energy.