Day trips from Clearwater

[Omoreno]

Hi! Has anyone ever traveled from Clearwater to Disney as a day trip? We’re staying in the Clearwater area next summer and my family wants to do 3 days at Disney.

I am a DVC member and so I would typically stay on property, but my family wants to do more of a beach trip.

Any reports on traveling between the two?

 

[Eeyore daily]

When I lived in Clearwater it was about a two hour drive to Disney not including traffic so in my opinion that's really hard to do for a day trip. Traveling from the beach makes it even longer because the beach traffic is horrible.

 

[katyjeka]

My parents retired to Palm Harbor Florida which is very close to Clearwater. I would never attempt a Disney trip while staying in the Clearwater area. As the above mentioned it is close to two hours without accidents. Unfortunately there are too many accidents on the road over.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

We always do a day trip from Disney to Clearwater. LOL This next trip we are staying at the Hilton there for the last two days of our trip before going back to MCO to fly home.

 

[katyjeka]

We always do a day trip from Disney to Clearwater. LOL This next trip we are staying at the Hilton there for the last two days of our trip before going back to MCO to fly home.

I think I misunderstood the question. I thought they intended to visit Disney for three days driving back and forth each day, which would be nuts!! A day trip for one day is doable.

 

[JayMass]

Yes. In 2012 we did a day trip from Seminole which is about 10-15 minutes or so from Clearwater. It was a very long day--early up and out, fought a bit of traffic in Tampa, I think we were there in about 2 or 2.5 hours. We did just MK and stayed until fireworks at 10 or 11. It was a very, very long day and I don't think we'd do it again. I can't imagine doing that 3 days in a row.

After that one trip we decided to get a hotel for a few nights at Disney and that's how we have done Disney ever since. (Except this August when we go for 5 nights!).

I think you should fly into MCO and do three days at Disney. Then rent a car and drive to Clearwater for the remainder of your vacation. If you haven't booked flights yet, you could also fly out of TPA rather than drive back to MCO. That's actually what we did when I was a kid and my sister has done that with her kids a few times. It also makes the beach vacation that much more relaxing!

 

[NotUrsula]

If you were staying in one of Pinellas' other beach communities, it wouldn't be too bad for a one-day thing, but Clearwater adds a whole extra layer of traffic complexity because of the extra water crossing. Traffic especially tends to back up on the Clearwater Causeway Bridge between downtown Clearwater and Clearwater Beach, but it also can get slow on the Courtney Campbell between downtown Clearwater and the Tampa mainland. If you're definitely going to do it, be sure to leave REALLY early in the morning, well before the normal summer beach traffic starts; as in, before dawn, and don't go back until at least 10 pm.

Beyond the bridges, the wild card in this equation is I-4. If traffic is clear, it's about 90 minutes from the Tampa airport exit on I-275 to the Osceola Parkway exit on I-4, but traffic is essentially NEVER clear on this route anymore, except in the wee hours of the morning. (I did the RT drive 2 years ago between midnite and 2am; long story why. Even then, we hit a tiny slowdown just north of Davenport.) There are bottleneck spots on I-4 between Tampa and WDW almost every day, and if there is a wreck then all bets are off; it can easily take 4 hours one-way when that happens.

Doing the RT run once in a trip isn't too bad, so I'd suggest that if you need to save money on your car rental or flights by flying both ways from the same airport (right now the usually free one-way rental car dropoff within Florida is not happening), then it's not that big a deal to backtrack to the other city in order to spend a few days at either the beginning or end of your trip, but it's really a PITA to repeatedly battle commuting traffic to spend long enough days at WDW to get your money's worth.