Beach near WDW

[heartsy77]

Anybody taken a trip the ocean while on vacation at WDW? My kids have never been to the ocean and thought it would be nice to take a quick day trip. Was wondering where the nice family beaches are, I have seen a few things about Clearwater but I am not sure. I have heard west coast is best. Any suggestions?

 

[becca1211]

This is something I would also like to know. We have been thinking about even spending the night on the way down or on the way home. Thanks Becky
15 days until Disney!

 

[Nellas Elensar]

There's Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach, and St. Augustine Beach on the Atlantic side and Clearwater Beach on the Gulf side. or perhaps Siesta Key on the Gulf side (that's where I'm going for this year's beach destination; never been there, though).

Nellas Elensar

 

[drp4video]

We are going to the Gulf side for the first time. We never make the beach when we go to WDW, so we are going to the beach first. We have reservations in St Pete's beach on recommendation from two separate people...leaving May 30

 

[riu girl]

We spent two weeks in Siesta Key over Christmas and can't say enough good about it. Siesta Key is about a two hour drive from Disney.

The Siesta Key Public Beach is the widest beach I have been on . It has very nice fine white sand and a great play ground area. The beach is very long and great for a nice walk. Siesta Key village is closeby and offers a lot of fun restaurants and touristy type shopping. We stayed on Crescent Beach which is lcoated a couple miles to the south of the main beach and it was also wonderful.
We loved it so much we have two weeks booked for this upcoming Christmas !!!

 

[KelnRon]

We are staying at Cocoa Beach for one night before we start our Disney Vacation.

 

[tednvon]

Hello,

We have done a bunch of beaches and here is our opinion...
Atlantic or east side is just OK...Daytona is very hard sand but can drive right on the beach at low tide...
Cocoa is OK...nothing spectacular...about one hour 15 minutes right to the beach. East side has very few shells, but great waves.

Clearwater (Gulf side) is about 1 hour 30 minutes...very busy but huge beach with sugery white sand and good supply of shells..good but not really big waves...nice local restaurants close...we love Cooter's about 2 blocks from the Ocean...

Best of all is Honeymoon Island about another 15 minutes from Clearwater...the ONLY State Park Beach for hundreds of miles...pristine shoreline with shells EVERYWHERE...you can walk for miles up the beach and not see a single condo or house...there are just two buildings, one with a snack shop and restrooms and a second with just restrooms...there is also a small very nice beach for swimming in front of the building with the snack shop...low waves pretty calm...very shallow out hundreds of feet
We loved Honeymoon Island and spent hours collecting shells...

Here is the site...FYI you could do both Honeymoon Island and then about 20 minutes to Clearwater beach and the restaurants if you started early from Disney area...

http://www.abfla.com/parks/HoneymoonIsland/honeymoonisland.html

Good Luck...Ted

 

[penzish]

Cocoa beach has a really nice beach, but beware of personal belongings. I got my purse stolen out of our rental car, with the car locked. Thank God there wasn't any money, or tickets, but my license, $250 cell phone and personal belongings were gone. I locked the car, but didn't click twice to set the alarm!!

 

[momlvsdsny]

We have done both, Clearwater last year (lovely beach, warm water, we were there in Mid June and the water was in the 80's) and We did Cocoa Beach before also. When we were at Cocoa, there was lots of seaweed in the water and washing up on the beach, but other than that it was ok. I personally liked Clearwater, but for waves, etc, my kids liked Cocoa.

 

[disneyfan551]

We're going to Siesta Key (per Dis recommendations!) for a day trip next week. Does anyone have good directions to get there? There will be ladies only in our vehicle, so we can take AND read directions!

 

[heartsy77]

Thanks for all the info we are def going to make time for a trip tp the beach!