Oregon Coast adventures

Best Things Nearby:
The tide pools! Exploring the tide pools at low tide is awesome. Giant green sea anemones, purple sea urchins, orange and purple sea stars, chitons, limpets, and mussels are everywhere. There are harbor seals on the rocks close enough to walk up to--however visitors are asked not to get closer than 50 yards. Walking inside the Devil's Punchbowl is awesome.

Best Things About the Resort:
The condos in this resort were placed among large old trees and situated so that most of them have ocean views. Cars are not allowed to drive to the condos, but are parked near the front office. Resort personnel will transport people and luggage to their condo in golf carts. This keeps the resort area very quiet and private. This is the prettiest location of any resort we have seen on the Oregon Coast.

Resort Experience:
We love this place! The restaurant on site looks out to the ocean, every view is awesome. The kids love the swimming pool, the tide pools and beaches, and the nearby attractions in Newport, Depoe Bay, and Lincoln City.

• Unit Type: 3 Bedroom
• Activities: Excellent
• Amenities: Very Good
• Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

The Cape Perpetua Visitor Center is open mid-May through mid-September. They have maps of several different hiking trails which branch out from the visitors center. There are hikes of all levels of difficulty. Our favorite was a 4-mile loop into the old growth forest. The huge old Sitka Spruce trees were awesome. At the beginning of the hike, the trees were smaller and packed together, than at the top of the hill, the ground leveled out and more sunlight filtered into the trees. The trees up there were up to 400 years old with trunks up to 12 feet in diameter.

Our kids enjoyed this, but it's not something we would do more than one time. If you are short on time, I would not recommend this activity as there are a lot of free things to do that are more interesting.

Save your money and skip the actual wax museum. The part our kids liked the most was the gift shop attached to the museum where they make wax impressions of people's hands. This was far more exciting than the wax figures. It was about $8 to make a wax copy of one hand.

This was pretty cool, although rather a quick way to spend your money as it takes only 25 minutes to see everything. We spent far more time outside the attraction (for free) watching the sea lions on the piers. They were barking and chasing newcomers off their territory. People were also catching crabs off the pier. Our kids were entertained longer on the pier than they were inside the paid exhibit. The best part of the inside exhibit was the scuba diver playing with the wolf eel.

Each time we return to the Central Oregon Coast we discover new areas of interest. There are so many beaches to explore and hiking trails to discover. The coastal towns are sparsely populated and people are friendly. Our favorite activities are the tide pools near Devil's Punchbowl/Otter Rock Beach, the Newport Aquarium, the OSU Marine Science Center, the Sea Lions at the piers on Newport waterfront, hiking in the Cape Perpetua area, visiting the shops in Depoe Bay, and whale watching. The sand dunes south of Florence are also very cool. We have stayed at the Inn at Otter Crest three weeks out of the past 5 summers, and we plan to keep coming back.