Live from Emerald Isle, NC – Grande Villas
Monday, May 25th, 2009
My family and I arrived on Sunday, May 24th at the Grande Villas in Indian Beach, NC which is right in the center of Emerald Isle. Thus far everything has been perfect. The team at Emerald Isle Realty really does an incredible job of considering your every need. Our check in was smooth and our unit is beautiful.
We have two first floor units, 1-K and 1-L. These units each have stairs which leads right to the grass and then to the beach. It is so so convenient. We worried a little about if there would be a privacy or noise problem, but this would never be an issue due to where the units are located. It is just so nice to quick go to the pool or the beach or each others unit, without have to go into the building.
The units themselves are brand new and first class. Tile everywhere, 13 foot ceilings, granite countertops, walk in showers, walk in closets in each bedroom and three very nice flat screen TVs. There is high speed wireless Internet in each unit! I mean there is an actual wireless router in our unit! 2.5Mb/s according to speedtest.net, so very nice!
The exercise room overlooks the ocean and the equipment is brand new. There are two ellipticals, a couple of treadmills and a stairmaster, as well as some strength training equipment.. There is also a game room with a huge flatscreen, free pool table and free video games including Galaga!
The closest grocery store is on the east end of the island, a Food Lion, and it’s about 9 miles away. There is a convenience store about 100 yards from Grande Villas, just across the street, that has the basic staples and also also bait and tackle for fishing! The bait is frozen however. But if you take a right out of the resort and go a 1/4 mile or so, there is a place called Homer’s Point which sells fresh shrimp (among other fresh seafood). We stopped by there on our way out and picked up three very nice Mahi Mahi filets which we grilled up when we got home!
One night we drove about 10 miles to the west end of the island and ate at Rutger Johns. It doesn’t have an amazing view, and it’s in the back of a strip mall, but the food came recommended and it was very good and economical. Great place to take a 15 month old. Kid friendly, nice atmosphere and excellent food. A word to the wise, if you are in a hurry to eat, and want to eat on the water (or really eat period) don’t go west (turning left) out of the resort, there are no restaurants for 15-20 minutes. However, if you go east, there are quite a few restaurants in the first two miles. This is good to know if you have kids and need to eat. Carleton’s is just a 1/4 to 1/2 miles to the west (left out of Grande Villas) but we never ate there mostly because it seemed like it might be a bit too fancy to take a kid.
On Tuesday afternoon we had lunch at The Big Oak, where we all had our first shrimp burgers. They were amazing, and we had a really nice time. For most people, I would consider getting the large shrimp burger, I ordered the regular shrimp burger initially and ended up ordering two of them!
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