I have had a beachy month. My kids and I vacationed in pensacola beach, which was beautiful. Perfect white sugary sand, great for sand castles, and not too crowded at the west end of the barrier island. There were some storms that started a couple of days before our arrival and persisted for our first two days there. The storms really churned up the water which caused it to be quite murky and full of seawead and some trash. By the end of the week though, the water was clear aqua-green again. We really loved it there. Three weeks later, my company sends me to honolulu. I walked waikiki beach yesterday. It is much coarser sand, which I dont think would make very good sandcastles, and there are waaaaayyy too many people, but damn it is beautiful! For asthetics, hawaii definately has florida beat. Its just too crowded though and most of the hotels are a bit of a walk from the beach. We had a beachfront condo in Florida and had plenty of space on the beach. My favorite thing about pensacola beach was the sand bars about 30 feet out from the shore made a nice shallow pool for the little ones to play in safely.