Hi all.

My wife and I will be spending 4 nights in Myrtle Beach the week of Memorial Day. Neither of us have been there but she has always wanted to go. This will be a pure "get away and relax" stop after spending Memorial Day weekend in Charlotte and going to the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race.

I currently have reservations at the Holiday Inn-Oceanside (ocean view room ) because I am a Priority Club member. After booking the rooms, I have done some searching and found lots of good reviews, and a few not-so-good ones (mostly around cleanliness, otherwise fine). The reservations can be changed if there are better places to stay, no problem. My taste in hotels is more toward the mid to upper mid level, not Super8, Motel6, etc. High end hotel or resort may be doable if the cost is truly justified.

In addition to lodging suggestions (on the beach?), I'm also looking for places to go, things to do, places to eat for those occasions when we decide to leave the beach.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Wife and no kids? What sort of lifestyle are you interested -- chill and enjoy or party? If it's the former, get the heck out of Myrtle proper and go further south to Surfside Beach (a family beach, so expect kids), Murrel's Inlet (a little further south) or Pawley's Island (pricey, but there are no hotels, only houses). The further south you go on the Grand Strand, the less "party" and more "chill" you get. N. Myrtle Beach is corporate, mid-to-south Myrtle is more old school and has the Pavilion. You'll be there right around Spring Break too. To make the wife happy, go south.

It will just be the two of us, we don't have kids. We're a little too old to "party"... ok, I'm a little too old to "party" (37). Basically we just want to go and "see what there is to see" since neither of us have been there before.

We've been to Vegas (MGM Grand), Disney World (usually one of the Moderate resorts on property), even Daytona Beach (Adams Mark, now a Hilton) during spring break and had fun because there are things to do/see or we could just hang out by the pool or beach and do nothing.

I'm just looking for tips on things to do and/or see, and places to eat over the 4 days we'll be there. Or if anyone is familiar enough with the Holiday Inn Oceanside there to know it either is or is not a good place to stay.

Thanks for the help.

Just checked the address, and that hotel is twelve blocks south of the Pavilion. I'm trying to think back on the two times that I went there last year, and where the sketch-border is. I think that you're near it, unless you like seeing all sorts of curse-laden pot-leafed t-shirts in the store windows all of the time. But the Pavilion also has an old rollercoaster, and there's a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum there.

I'd think maybe about moving four blocks further south unless the sounds of 18 year olds getting rowdy and puking make you sleep better. I personally like having a buffer in there where people would be too lazy to walk around at 4 am and mess up your stuff. Then again, Horry County's finest are pretty good at shaking up the buttsticks.

Must-sees include the NASCAR Cafe and doing some karting there; the food's good but at a nine dollar burger, it's pricey for what it is. That's near Boulevard at the Beach which has a bunch of cool restaurants, clubs and shops in it.

If you're into outlet shopping, there is a huge outlet just outside of South Myrtle heading inland.

North Myrtle Beach (a separate town) has more shows and ginormous Calabash (read: fried) buffets and there's a House of Blues up there too. That's about a twenty minute drive from the Pavilion area.

Golf? If so, there is no other place on the East Coast that has as many courses. Not to mention the eleventy jillion Putt-Putt courses that try to outdo each other.

From anywhere on S. Ocean Blvd you can walk three blocks inland and find ice cream joints, breakfast places, and good eats. Don't worry about bringing chairs and stuff all the way from where you are, there are places like Wings, Eagles and so forth where you can buy an eight dollar chair to sit in the surf with and just pitch it when you're done. Same with $0.99 beach towels, five dollar flipflops, suntan lotion and the like. The wifey'll probably want to bring her suit though. Those shops are everywhere, so don't bother stopping on the way down at those further away.

Thanks for the info.

We'll be flying in to Charlotte for the race and have a rental car to drive to Myrtle beach, so we won't be bringing much for the beach beyond swimwear, shades and lotion. So thanks for the tips on where to get stuff.

Stay as far away from Myrtle Beach as you possibly can. The day after we got engaged, my husband and I were making the left hand turn on 17 business in N. Myrtle beach to go to Dicks Last Resort, and a car ran a stop light, hit another car, and both cars slid into my Contour. Totaled it. So here we are newly engaged, with a totaled car and no way to get home, (or even back to the hotel for that matter). Long story short, South Carolina allows full blown drivers licenses at 15 years old. Girl was a local and she playing around and having a good time instead of watching the road. Then the taxi cab driver was hell on wheels. it goes on and on. My advice is to stay far far away from Myrtle beach nobody can drive there. Either their locals trying to deal with the tourists, or tourists who stop in the middle of the road trying to find something.

Hey my wife and I are going to see NOFX in Myrtle Beach next weekend. Thanks for the info, too.

be advised.... lived their for six years. avoid myrtle on memorial day weekend as well as the following weekend. BIKERS weekends. for some reason all of the motorcycle riders that give real riders a bad name feel for some reason that they must all congregate in myrtle this time of year and raise un-holy hell. NOT WORTH THE HASSLE. any other weekend that i can think of would be fun. but trust me, most of this bunch you don't want to deal with. they besiege that poor city by the hordes rape, mame and pillage then leave nothing but destruction in their wake

And the week after Bike Week is Black Bike Week. Businesses close for that one.

Originally posted by zm830101:

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be advised.... lived their for six years. avoid myrtle on memorial day weekend as well as the following weekend. BIKERS weekends. for some reason all of the motorcycle riders that give real riders a bad name feel for some reason that they must all congregate in myrtle this time of year and raise un-holy hell. NOT WORTH THE HASSLE. any other weekend that i can think of would be fun. but trust me, most of this bunch you don't want to deal with. they besiege that poor city by the hordes rape, mame and pillage then leave nothing but destruction in their wake

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Ummm... now this is the kind of information I need...

You mention the weekends, but what about during the week? Current plan is we'll be getting there Monday (Memorial day) and leaving Friday morning to head back to Charlotte to catch the Saturday Morning flight home. I don't mind screaming little kids or annoying students with loud stereos, but a bunch of bikers (especially how you described this particular group) is something my wife and I would like to avoid.

Thanks for the tip!

EDIT: Just did a Yahoo! search for Myrtle Beach Bike Week, and it is scheduled for May 12-21... So the week after that (ending Memorial day weekend) is the "Black Bike Week"? Or is there a week between the two with "Black Bike Week" starting Memorial Day weekend and continuing on through the time I am currently scheduled to be there? I really have no desire to be anywhere close by a "Bike Week" of any kind.



EDIT Again: searched on Black Bike week and saw that it is May 24-29 (Ends the day we're supposed to arrive?) Not looking good....