Plan the day
A Daytona day before dinner
How to fill the hours before the luau: the beach you can drive on, the boardwalk and pier, the speedway, and alligators inland if you want a change.
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Spend the day by the sea and the evening at the luau. Daytona Beach has more than 23 miles of public beaches, some of them open to cars at low speed, plus a boardwalk and a pier at the east end of Main Street. Motor-racing fans can make for Daytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500. For alligators, Gatorland and a wildlife park lie inland near Orlando, and Gatorland also runs a night walk.
The beach in the morning
Daytona Beach has more than 23 miles of public beaches and more than ten waterfront parks, and its wide, smooth, compacted sand is the reason the town became famous. By the 1920s it was being called the World's Most Famous Beach. Cars may still drive on some stretches, at no more than 10 mph, which is part of the novelty of the place. A morning on the sand, before the afternoon heat of the warmer months, leaves you time to rest before dinner. Bring sun protection and water, since the sand is wide and open.
The boardwalk and the pier
The Daytona Beach Boardwalk sits on the beach at the east end of Main Street. Despite its name it is a concrete promenade, laid in the late 1920s and finished with a bandshell and coquina stonework in 1938. Shops, arcades, restaurants, bars and fairground rides line it, among them a Ferris wheel, and free concerts are held at the bandshell in summer. The Main Street Pier, built in the late 1800s, runs about 1,000 feet into the Atlantic, and walking out along it is the easiest way to see the beach from the water's side.
The speedway
Racing began on the beach in 1902 and moved to Daytona International Speedway when it opened in 1959. The speedway is home to the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR and its season opener, and also to the 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race; it describes itself as the World Center of Racing. Its main tri-oval is 2.5 miles long, with 31-degree banking in the turns. NASCAR has its headquarters in the city, so racing is woven into the town's identity as much as the beach is.
Alligators inland
If you want a day away from the coast, two alligator outings lie inland near Orlando. Gatorland, founded in 1949 and billed as the Alligator Capital of the World, is a theme park and wildlife preserve south of Orlando, with a breeding marsh, a boardwalk and an observation tower. Its flashlight tour takes you onto the marsh after dark to feed the alligators. Wild Florida, at Kenansville, is a wildlife park with a live alligator demonstration, a bird aviary and a boardwalk through cypress swamp. Either is a full outing, so keep it for a day without the luau.
How to shape the day
The luau runs about two hours from its start time, which the calendar shows for your date, so build backwards from it. Beach in the morning, a slow lunch, the boardwalk or the pier in the afternoon, then back to the hotel to change before the drive to dinner. Parking is included at the luau, so you can drive straight there. If you would rather see the speedway, give it the late morning and keep the beach for after lunch. Trying to fit an inland alligator park and the luau into one day turns both into a rush, so split them.
Rain and heat
Daytona Beach has a humid subtropical climate with two seasons: a warmer, wetter one from late May through October, and a cooler, drier one from November through April. In the warmer months, plan the beach early and keep shade and water close. If the weather turns, the luau itself does not care, because it is an indoor dinner show. The Museum of Arts and Sciences, the city's main cultural centre, is the obvious indoor stop, with collections that include a large holding of Florida art. Either way, the evening's fire knives go on regardless of the sky.
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