Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach, FL

After a fantastic three day visit with our friend Barnes in Phoenix, James and I were off to Daytona Beach Florida via Orlando. We were to visit the main campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University after visiting their second campus in Prescott, AZ. The map below shows where Daytona Beach is in relation to Orlando.

Now I should probably start off by mentioning that it was a depressing, gray, drizzly day in Daytona Beach, and it was actually 85 degrees and sunny back home when we visited. However, Daytona Beach is not my kind of town. Daytona Beach didn't impress me nearly as much as Prescott, AZ did. Which is strange because Prescott is more isolated and smaller than Daytona Beach is. Plus, Daytona Beach is only about an hour from Orlando which everyone knows is next to Disney Mecca. Daytona Beach also failed the two tests we came up with for me while in Prescott (see my post from Prescott, AZ about my criteria for choosing a place to live). Without ranting about it too much, it just wasn't for me. That and the admissions counselor at Riddle made the fact that Volusia county Florida is the fourth poorest county in Florida a selling point for its cheap housing. I wouldn't have thought that factoid as a selling point.

The campus tour itself wasn't bad. Our tour was done by a nice student from Oregon. A couple of things that did strike me in the tour were that unlike in Prescott, we weren't allowed into any of the classrooms or facilities (except the simulation building). At the Prescott campus, we went into all of the classrooms/labs/shops where at Daytona Beach, we just walked the halls looking into dark rooms. The Daytona Beach campus did have a pretty impressive "super computer" on display which you can see below.

The other thing that struck me as really strange about the Daytona Beach campus was that we didn't even go out to the flight line. At the Prescott campus, we went out to the flight line, grabbed keys for an airplane, and took a look. At the Daytona Beach campus, we just looked out of buildings and around the outside, fenced, edge of the line. Pretty disappointing tour of the aircraft for those who flew across the country to tour the campus.

Anyway, needless to say, the Prescott campus impressed me much more than the Daytona Beach campus did. So my school decision just got a little easier: if I do go to Riddle it'll be at Prescott.
The next couple pictures are of the area around or hotel. Nothing too fancy, just a nice little view and a picture of me on the boardwalk. Our next stop is Key West, FL which James and I are much more excited about so we were pretty happy to get outta Daytona Beach.