March 18-30, 2009. Road Trip through Florida. Beaches + what else...??

[Greatlookinguy]

Heylo folks!

Great job with the forum. Just the kind of place I was looking for! Self and five friends from the UK are visiting sunny Florida from the 18th-30th March next year for the famed Florida Spring Break. Landing at Orlando and current plans as follows:

19th: Tampa, Roller Coasters
20th: Orlando, Kennedy Space Centre
21st-23th: Miami (staying at a youth hostel in South Beach)
24th: A day amongst the 'gators in Eveglade city. Possible stay overnight.. (any good that?)
25th: No plans.. was thinking.. how about a quiet-ish beach like West Palm etc OR somewhere inland where it's fun(?)
26th-29th: Daytona Beach.
30th: Fly back from Orlando.

Any bright ideas on what we can do that one day on the 25th.. also, is it better NOT to stay at the Everglades overnight and spend that night somewhere else..??

Thanks people. Bring on my first spring break!!

TC,

K

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I think you might want to adjust your pacing a bit. You seem a bit rushed at the beginning. Going from Orlando to Tampa back across to the Space Coast is a lot of driving in 2 days. I would wait until you head towards Daytona Beach to do the Space Center, and I might just focus on the Orlando Theme Parks instead of going over to Tampa.

It seems like you've got some extra time at the end of your itinerary, I'd probably just break things up a little more, and spend more time in the Orlando area at the start of your trip.

[Greatlookinguy]

Thanks Mike! The idea was Tampa is a mere 90 minutes drive away from Orlando airport. With all six of us booked as drivers on the van, the idea was it will be a fun change from a 11 hour flight to immediately start the Road trip from Orlando Airport to Tampa and relax there for the night. We're only coming back to Orlando the next evening. Another 90 minutes. Then one night in Orlando. Don't think there's much to spend time there for as seems like just another metropolitan city..

The KSC was early the morning after that.. another hour and a half. Keeping the journeys relatively short here. From the KSC to Miami would be a 3.5 hour drive along the coast (NOT taking the I-95. The other scenic route that is shown on google maps. Perhaps a little longer, but looks to be right alongside the beaches.). This would most probably be an afternoon to evening drive once done with the KSC. It is a road trip after all :-) Drive hard, Party hard.

We were looking at interspersing culture and sight-seeing with the beach life so as not to saturate ourselves with the sun, sea and sand Spring Brak atmos. Hence the Everglades overnight safari trip later on. Spending that extra night in Fort Myers now.

Thanks for your time in replying though!

[Sykotyk]

You have to drive to Key West. Furthest south in the continental u.s., it was an awesome drive when I did it two weeks ago (even if the first sixty miles of Keys feels like any other tourist trap destination.

Sykotyk