Beach near WDW?

[Mom22angels]

My husband and I are throwing around the idea to rent a car for the day and take the kids to the beach. We live in Minnesota so we have lots of lakes, but no "beach". Can anyone suggest a semi-clean beach close to WDW? Thank in advance!

 

[deniselozano]

The closest and nicest that we have found so far is Cocoa Beach.

 

[DISHUD]

We travel about an hour 15 minutes away to the Clearwater Beach area......it's beautiful!! We live right outside of Chicago and the beaches here are just so-so. I love the ocean but by far my favorite is the Gulf of Mexico. There super clean, white sandy beaches and sooooooo beautiful!
I hope this helps....have a great trip!

 

[Mom22angels]

Thank you both for your responses.....

 

[GoofyFairie]

Clearwater is beautiful, but touristy. We stayed there on our honeymoon. Last year the TA suggested Cocoa beach- we never made it to a beach. HTH

 

[notsosnowwhite]

We love Cocoa beach because there are always SURFERS! The kids love to visit the Ron Jon shop and see the waves - a little different than Lake Michigan!

 

[dkal95]

We've been to both Cocoa and Clearwater and I would highly suggest going over to the Gulf side.

Cocoa Beach, the water was VERY rough, we couldn't get in it without being knocked over. The sand is dark and coarse. The water isn't very pretty, either.

At Clearwater, or really any Gulf beach within driving distance, the water is gorgeous, the sand is white and soft and you can actually get in the water and not feel like you're going to be washed out to sea. LOL

 

[maddiesmom0116]

Clearwater beach is very clean and family friendly. It is an hour drive from WDW. They also have some great kid activities like captain memos pirate cruise.

 

[missfigment]

Disney's Beach Club

 

[pooh4evr]

I second Captain Nemo's Pirate Cruise in Clearwater- we did it 2 yrs ago and the girls loved it- the beaches are good too we stayed at St Pete Beach for a few days- the sand is nice and soft BUT when you get close to the water (at least for us) it was rough with broken shells - reccommend water shoes- the water itself was very calm, clear they had a great time playing!

 

[jtopp]

We prefer the atlantic coast to the gulf. Cocoa beach, New Smyrna beach, and Daytona Beach are all about 1-1.5 hours away. Also nice, but a little further, is St. Augustine- about 3 hours from WDW.

 

[SarahKate]

Luckily you can go east or west and find a beach within 1-1.5 hours. It all depends on what you're looking for.

Blue waters, and some beaches with lots of shells to be found on the Gulf side. In '07 we went to the Tampa area and there are gorgeous beaches around there, with some of the best in the world. You can find tons of shells around there too.

We went to Cocoa Beach in '06 and would have liked it a lot more had it not been for the chilly weather (February, and had a cold front move in the day before!).

In Nov. 08 we had our 3rd WDW trip and went to Daytona Beach this time. We LOVED that beach. It was a beautiful day, the waves were fairly calm, and you can drive ON the beach. It's a really different type of sand (kind of reminds me of Moon Sand). There's a really good restaurant right on the water called Ocean Deck, and there's a pier area w/ a sky ride, shops, etc. I wish we would have spent more time there. Hardly any shells at this beach though - but it was great in so many other ways.