Florida

I'm off to Florida later in the month, anyone have any recommendations, travelling up the west coast after landing in Miami and have 4 nights booked in Orlando and a cruise for 4 days in the Bahamas then travelling down the east coast back to Miami.

Places we are considering include, Sarasota, Naples, Vero beach and the Keys (but not sure its worth the journey) it's a honeymoon with our son who's 20 months, think we would rather try the smaller places whilst travelling rather than the bigger places like Tampa.

Also any suggestions for theme parks would be good, will be going to Disney's magic kingdom, but have yet to decide on any others, been a while since i last visted Florida and would welcome any ideas.

Seaworld was a must ten years ago

Thanks Starsky, will check it out must be good as its one of the originals

Do you like waterparks? They are my Utopia! Wet n Wild was great and there are at least another 2 at Disney and 1 at Bush Gardens

Yep, went there in 2009, wet'n'wild is great, all the Disney parks are good but schedule in a day for each of them. Disney tickets are expensive! You can get cheaper (like we did) by spending a few hours doing a tour of new build residential estates. This halves the cost of them. Savvy? well, only if you can stand listening to a hard sell for two hours! Nice places though!

There is a huge Mall, Florida Mall, near international drive, you gotta check that out - we loved it

Have a great one

Like the method for cheaper tickets Patch!

Not been but Busch Gardens Tampa, has animals and rides and is meant to be great

Sanibel is lovely for a day or two, also get over to Captiva to the crazy Bubble Room for lunch

St Petersburg beach is also lovely and from St Petersburg pier you can do a boat trip and see dolphins. There is also very randomly a rather good Dali museum there!

Naples is ok for a potter downtown (the rest is like any other US town, just way richer) and you can do a very interesting boat tour and see how the other half live

If you want shopping there are decent outlet malls in Fort Myers and also Sarasota (between FM & Tampa)

I have friends in FM, was there in November, been a few times to the Gulf Coast

The Keys are a big old hike as there is basically one road in and out, you can go by boat, I think from Naples

By the way Miami airport immigration is hell on earth especially on a Sunday night! Don't expect to get out in much under a couple of hours

I spend 6 or 8 weeks in Florida each winter. I stay away from the tourist areas and anything Disney lol

I like the Gulf coast especially an hour or two north of Tampa amongst the wildlife preserves...we rent a large house right on the water and Manatees lumber past our dock (who needs Seaworld)as well as 4 foot long fish, scallops free for the taking, and we see the occasional dolphin...the alligators sit along the small feeder streams and the birds are wonderful.

A relaxing wonderful quiet place to be.... and most people never know about it.



Paul in Canada and Florida.