Day trip to Clearwater & overnight stay?

[tanyamatt]

During our 3 weeks in Orlando we have hired a car for the last few days so we can take ourselves off to buschgardens & popping over to clearwater to see the coast.

We are toying with the idea of staying overnight at clearwater beach and are just wondering if anybody had any good tips/places to stay/bars etc or even if it is worth staying & missing a night at our hotel for.

 

[DisneyNole12]

I would definitely say to head over to one of the Gulf beaches. Clearwater beach is fun and has lots of things to do and see. Lots of restaurants and bars right near the water.

Busch Gardens and Clearwater beach are pretty far away from each other though. Easily over an hour, possibly closer to 90-120 minutes with bad traffic. I would recommend driving over to Clearwater beach for the day spend the night there and then head over to busch gardens the following day. If you dont want to spend the night it might not be worth it as Busch Gardens will seem dirty and underwhelming after being at Disney

 

[loves to dive]

We used to live in Clearwater, it was actually why we started going to Disney since it was so close. After moving back to Georgia, we still needed our beach fix so we would start our trip in Clearwater for 2 or 3 nights then head to Disney. Definitely try to get a room at one of the hotels that are on the beach. We used to go to Busch Gardens all the time while living there but a PP said, you might find yourself a little disappointed after being at Disney. If possible I'd add the two to the front of the trip since they are south of Disney any way.

 

[I M Fearless]

We stayed at Clearwater in June at Marina Pier 60 hotel, right over from the beach. Get a gulf view room. Free drinks at sundown on the rooftop bar. We had a blast. So much so we stayed an extra night. Definitely worth the trip.