Themepark free experience?

[moob]

My wife and I are coming over in September and hiring a car through Roger.

We are not going to be doing much in the way of theme park visits etc - and are predominantly driving around.

We plan to take in Miami Beach, Key West and probably Tampa.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers as to which places are best for a couple in their 30's - things to do/alternative destinations etc.

TIA and thanks for the forum![8D]

Rob

[alanandjude]

Welcome to the forum.

We can highly recommend St Augustine (about 90 to 120 mins from Orlando). It really is a beautiful place with some great historic sites such as the USA's oldest wooden school house.

We have also visited Clearwater, Sarasota and Naples, all of which we really liked.

Another suggestion is Tarpon Springs, a Greek fishing village where they traditionally went diving for sponges. There are some lovely patisseries there!

Depending on your interests, you may also enjoy Kennedy Space Center which can easily be combined with a visit to Cocoa Beach.

There are lots of other suggestions in the guide section of this website.

Have a great holiday!

Jude

[MTP]

So many suggestions:

but one might be to hire a sat-nav and then just drive and chill, see where the long and winding road takes you. (plus you have a fall back to rely on)

[helenp]

Hi we went to Marco Island on the Gulf Coast and absolutely loved it. Beautiful beaches and sunsets and dolphins in the distance. Would love to go back there one day.

Helen

[paul357]

Kennedy is a must, even if you are only slightly interested in space flight the sight of a Saturn V rocket in a hangar is amazing.

For beaches go to St Petes for the day, then you can go to Johns Pass for some interesting shops bars and resturants + hire speed boats, jet skis, or take a ride on a pirate ship in the early evening

Go to Kissimee old town on a Saturday night for the weekly car show/cruise. Fantastic 50's, 60's and 70's muscle/custom cars worth 1000's.

[fiona]

We don't tend to visit the parks ourselves anymore unless we have guests with us who want to go! Are you flying to Orlando or Miami? Key West is about a 4½hr drive from Miami but there is plenty to see on the way with all the other Keys to drive through. Obviously there is plenty to see in Miami and would be worth a stay of a few days to take it all in. From Miami you can head up to Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Deerfield on the Atlantic Coast or Naples, Marco Island, Sanibel & Captiva & Fort Myers on the gulf coast. Sanibel & Captiva are much less built up than the rest of the coast and is worth a visit. You can take boat trips to nearby islands, have some lunch and be back in time for supper, or you can do the sunset cruises.

From Orlando you can easily travel to St Pete's & Clearwater or Canaveral and Cocoa Beach. As well as St Augustine you might like Mount Dora which is a 40 min drive from Kissimmee, it is very pretty with antique shops, also a lake where you can take in a boat ride.

There are plenty of state parks you can visit and fish, hike, etc depending on what your interests are.

Or you could drive up to Pensacola from Orlando and see the beaches up there which are much quieter than many of the normal coastal ones, that is about a 5 hour drive.

If you could give us some more information then we could fill in some gaps as there are loads of places en route you could visit depending on where you are thinking of going.

You may not have time to do the Keys and Pensacola, in which case the general feeling is there is more to do and see in Key West.

[Nina A]

Hi Rob, There is just so much to see and do there is never enough time and we too don't go near the parks!

As Fiona says it is difficult to recommend anything without knowing the kind of things you like to do. I suggest you take a look at the guides on this site written by members. Also buy a couple of good guide books. Two excellent ones are 'Florida' from the DK Eyewitness Travel series and 'a Brit's Guide to Orlando and Walt Disney World' by Simon and Susan Veness. If you get some ideas of what you might like then you can always ask what peole think through the forums.

Most people don't get much further than the parks, excellent though they are this is a great shame as Orlando and Florida have so much more to offer than just the mouse[msnwink].

Whatever you decide to do you can't fail to have a great time.

[RIS]

Mount Dora is an interesting day out. Not too far from Orlando but a million miles from a theme park! We also recently tried a day boat hire on the Saint John river and had a great day. [msnsmile]

[moob]

Many thanks for all the suggestions folks - some great ideas for me to mull over!

Was reading about cruises to the Carribean from a number of ports. Has anyone done these (short cruise 3-4 nights) and if so, where have you booked them and were they enjoyable? They sound great value for money.

We're celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, so I would like to treat my wife to a great break, as our Honeymoon in Cancun was a bit washed out in the last 5 days due to a hurricane.[:O]

Oh, and I will be taking my sat nav with me, preloaded with Florida maps!

[E. Cosgrove]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by moob

Was reading about cruises to the Carribean from a number of ports. Has anyone done these (short cruise 3-4 nights) and if so, where have you booked them and were they enjoyable? They sound great value for money.

We're celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, so I would like to treat my wife to a great break, as our Honeymoon in Cancun was a bit washed out in the last 5 days due to a hurricane.[:O]

[/quote]What a lovely idea.
The Bahamas is only a short hop from Miami and there are some lovely places to stay there.