Don't Come to Carolina Beach now, wait about 5 years or so..

My family and I have never vacationed to an area that is full of filth! Had we know this prior to coming to Carolina Beach, we would have preferred to go somewhere else. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott (8-5 to 8-9 and paid $325.00/night). The hotel was alright but the area around it was disgusting. There%26#39;s an abandoned building right next to the outdoor pool of the hotel and it was very scary and filthy. The ';Boardwalk'; was a joke.

Carolina Beach is in between nice beaches Wrightsville and Kure Beach. It is ashamed that the people in this town let this place become run down with so many abandoned, filthy, scary buildings. There are so many houses for sale (wonder why) in the area. This place has a potential to be a tourist place maybe in 5 years.

WAKE UP residence of Carolina Beach and smell the coffee....quickly fix things and you could be the #1 beach destination!!!

Don't Come to Carolina Beach now, wait about 5 years or so..

Hello,

I am so glad you feel the way you do about this beach. I can only PRAY that you do not return. I am a resident of Carolina Beach, and I have LONG been awake and smelling the coffee, which reeks of tourism. You say that if ';we quickly fix things';, we could be the #1 beach destination like it is a good thing! You can ask any long time resident how they feel about that, but I would take a step back before I did it.. How dare you even mention people selling their houses! Most of the people selling cannot afford the tremendous increases in their taxes due to rich idiots coming here and building on EVERY SQUARE AVAILABLE INCH of land! Furthermore, if all it takes to scare you are a few old buildings, I can only hope you are a woman. As far as it being ';ashamed';, (I think you meant it is ';a shame';)..The only thing we should be ashamed of is allowing such eyesores such as the Marriot being built. Boy, did YOU get taken for a financial ride! What a shame...:) BTW, where are YOU from?

Don't Come to Carolina Beach now, wait about 5 years or so..

happigirl...I for one....LOVE Carolina Beach, and its quaintness and old fashioned beach town feel.

We would love to retire there some day, but I promise you we won%26#39;t build a new house.....just buy some nice, beachy house....and live the good life.

Thank you!!!

After reading gotchaNC%26#39;s posts a few weeks ago I was more than a little worried about what we would find when we arrived for our vacation. I am happy to say that we have been here since Saturday morning and we absolutely love it. The beach is wonderful, it%26#39;s a great place for families, and my kids, husband and I are having the time of our lives. Yes, there are some areas of Carolina Beach that are not exactly vacation spots and I can see why someone might be disappointed if they ended up with a rental near the boardwalk area. But further down the beach (yes, near the Marriott), it%26#39;s just beautiful. We are in a condo rental ( a three-story building with 12 units) and we couldn%26#39;t have asked for a better place to stay. We are oceanfront with a balcony across the living room and master bedroom, with all the comforts of home.

The water is amazing, the sand warm and very clean, and it%26#39;s everything we could have hoped for in a family vacation. For those reading gotchaNC%26#39;s posts who are worried (like I was), don%26#39;t be. Carolina Beach is a wonderful vacation spot and I have a feeling we%26#39;ll be coming back year after year.

maya - so glad you are having a great time!

Wish I was there!!

Sometimes, it%26#39;s not always about money (and being #1 for well-heeled tourists); it%26#39;s about the ability for families of all income levels to have a chance to enjoy NC%26#39;s beautiful beaches. CB hasn%26#39;t had the time or resources to fully recover from the many hurricanes hitting us since 1996. Also, land prices have skyrocketed there, forcing local folks to sell. People are trying to continue their lives as they always have, both during and after summertime.

There%26#39;s nothing dangerous (causing the scariness) about the boardwalk area, just vacant. Try vacationing in big cities (NYC, CHI, BTW, PHL) to compare. We and our friends are very comfortable having our kids wander in CB without supervision.

Yes, another decade will witness a lot of development, some tasteful, some tacky, but we sure hope the character of the people and community doesn%26#39;t get sold out with it.

I just got back from Carolina Beach today 9-8-2007. I will not visit that beach again for many reasons. The beach itself has no real substanance except tons of cigarette butts, trash and toms of weeds.

There are hardly any shells. The rip currents prevent you from going out and thew waves are very very rough and will knock the daylights outof you. There we several shark sightings and no life guards this time of year.

The good thing is that food-wise---Big Daddy%26#39;s and Michaels were good.

A earlier post stated that the Boardwalk was a joke. It is. It is merely a few stores that were not open except for friday, Saturday and Subday and they have a Marqui like Britts Donuts.

We ended up going to south port, calabash, and topsail on three days because the beaches at Carolina were dirty, slanted and had a two foot drop before the wave would break. It was like achair you could sit. in. I wil not go back there. NO real fun and beauty.

The waves and rip-currents were strong the past few days along the east-facing beaches, due to Tropical Storm Gabrielle. Erosion (natural process) is taking a toll on many beaches this year, especially those without expensive sand renourishment like CB. Also, for those unfamiliar with CB, please note ';boardwalk'; should be taken literally - there is a short boarded walkway in the dunes that views the ocean, but that%26#39;s about it. The paved promenades among the buildings are very meager in their shops and activities (arcade and donut shop are exceptions). The Boardwalk connotation doesn%26#39;t compare to Coney Island or, more locally albeit not along the oceanfront, Beaufort.

On the bright side, surfing was better. Sorry the conditions weren%26#39;t better for your situation during your stay, but it sounds like you made the most of the time by visiting other towns and enjoying the seafood. Try Wrightsville or Atlantic Beaches next time (for town-oriented places), if more $ is not a deterrent. Shackleford Banks is a great place for shells (accessible by passenger ferry).

rnlorra and I must have been at very different areas of Carolina Beach because we also just returned from our one week visit on 9/8 and while there was quite a bit of sea grass washed up toward the end of the week (likely a result of churning waters due to the storms), we certainly didn%26#39;t find the beach to be littered at all -- cigarette butts or otherwise. To the contrary, as a matter of fact, we thought the beach was very nice. As for the waves, my eight year old twins and my husband and I had a fantastic time playing in the waves every single day. They certainly didn%26#39;t knock us over and we are not large people!

We had a lovely time at Carolina Beach and will certainly consider returning next year. I will post a trip report in a separate thread so that it doesn%26#39;t get lost here. This forum is rife with negative impressions of Carolina Beach lately and I would like to post something positive for others who may venture here who are unfamiliar with the area.

We are from Charlotte, NC and this is why it saddens us that Carolina Beach is the way it is, I live in the same state as the worst beach we have ever been to. Yes, it is ';ashamed'; (check some dictionary perhaps) that this place got this way. No, we don%26#39;t think we got TAKEN financially for what we paid for at Marriott, it was after all, the height of the season and to go anywhere where there is a beach, you must pay. If we can afford it, who cares?

THE REAL ISSUE here is that our family of 5 (2 adults and 3 children) had a bad vacation to remember for 2007 because we were naive to think that a beach within our state would look so sad and horrible. We are not afraid of a few abandoned buildings, we are just disgusted by it, what we mean by ';scary looking'; is just that.....it is scary to look at abandoned buildings and we were wondering how that could happen. Our family is used to going to clean places (inside the hotel and the surrounding areas). If someone can%26#39;t afford the taxes, then they should not live here. This town is lucky enough to have investors invest their hard earned money to fix this town. We truly believe that when everything is said and done, the investors are going to make a difference in this town (at least, they will clean it up and be presentable to any tourist arriving here).

I am %26#39;ashamed%26#39; of the Marriott property itself. It is an eyesore, and I can see how that area of the beach and that property might give a family a skewed vision of CB. Just a block or two north of the property are the little beach shacks and cottages that give CB that vintage, hippy vibe that calls me back every year. It is truly %26#39;a shame%26#39; that property was ever built.