driving to Fort DeSoto beach

[Tink3815]

Has anyone staying at Disney ever done this. Looking to take a day trip from the parks to a beach on the east coast of Flordia. The beach looks wonderful, but worried it may too much for 1 day.

Thanks for any help

 

[Beccabunny]

Fort De Soto is on the west coast. I was there MANY years ago, and it was a beautiful beach. There are other threads on here about the beach. It's supposedly still beautiful and uncrowded, and I believe it's about two hours from Disney, maybe less. We're planning on going next month.

 

[jog58]

Hubby and I are looking into this as well for our upcoming trip, can't wait to see if there are any replies.

 

[Bdawg]

I live near Ft Desoto and it will be well worth your trip( Named America's top beach for the second year in a row) . From Disney you are looking at about a two hour drive. The beaches and fishing are wonderful there. You can also take a ferry from the main beach over to Egmont Key which is an island with the ruins of an old fort and a working light house. Here is a link with the information: http://www.fortdesoto.com/egmont1.php

If you have any specific questions please let me know

 

[loveysbydesign]

We drove there when we went in Nov. 2007 and it was well worth the drive, it is so serene and beautiful there...plus it was empty! We packed lunch and snacks to eat on the way there and then stopped for dinner on the way back.
When you get to the island and you reach the main island/park road you can turn right or left....turn right and you'll drive past the actual Fort on your way to the beach, we didn't stop at the fort as my kiddos really wanted to go to the beach. We had such a wonderful time there we plan to go back this Nov. when we go to WDW. Took us about 1 hour 50 minutes to get there.

 

[jog58]

I live near Ft Desoto and it will be well worth your trip( Named America's top beach for the second year in a row) . From Disney you are looking at about a two hour drive. The beaches and fishing are wonderful there. You can also take a ferry from the main beach over to Egmont Key which is an island with the ruins of an old fort and a working light house. Here is a link with the information: http://www.fortdesoto.com/egmont1.php

If you have any specific questions please let me know

Hi, not hijack the thread but I have a specific question, and it might be a little dumb but I am not familiar with beaches in general. I looked up the parking areas we would be interested in and narrowed it down to St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, Madeira Beach and Fort De Soto Park. I would presume all of these are part of the Ft. DeSoto beach umbrella, correct? Which of these areas would you recommend?

If it is of any help we are planning on catching a Rays game at Tropicana Field later that evening, according to google maps the places I mentioned are all within 20-25 minutes of Tropicana Field. TIA!

 

[loveysbydesign]

Hi, not hijack the thread but I have a specific question, and it might be a little dumb but I am not familiar with beaches in general. I looked up the parking areas we would be interested in and narrowed it down to St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, Madeira Beach and Fort De Soto Park. I would presume all of these are part of the Ft. DeSoto beach umbrella, correct? Which of these areas would you recommend?

If it is of any help we are planning on catching a Rays game at Tropicana Field later that evening, according to google maps the places I mentioned are all within 20-25 minutes of Tropicana Field. TIA!

A great way to look up the beaches is to go to googlemaps and type in Fort DeSoto beach...or one of the other beaches and then you can check out how far away they are from each other on the map. Plus it's really neat looking!
We did pass Trop. field on the way to the beach, it is right off the main highway!

 

[Detailor]

Hi, not hijack the thread but I have a specific question, and it might be a little dumb but I am not familiar with beaches in general. I looked up the parking areas we would be interested in and narrowed it down to St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, Madeira Beach and Fort De Soto Park. I would presume all of these are part of the Ft. DeSoto beach umbrella, correct? Which of these areas would you recommend?

If it is of any help we are planning on catching a Rays game at Tropicana Field later that evening, according to google maps the places I mentioned are all within 20-25 minutes of Tropicana Field. TIA!

I believe that they're all part of the Pinellas County park system. Fort DeSoto is the furthest south of these beaches and the furthest away from Tropicana Field (normally maybe 25 to 30 minute drive time but you should add time to that if you're planning to get to the ball field close to game time because of the added traffic - that's going to be true for all of the drive times that you found on Google). I think that Treasure Island Beach is the closest of these to Tropicana Field.

Dick Taylor

 

[Tink3815]

Thanks for the info, would driving there be better on a Thursday or Friday or Saturday or Sunday. We would be coming from Disney and are open all 4 days. I'm thinking the weekend might be busier for the beach, but we might run into rush hour traffic on the week days. Would we be driving through the city of Tampa to reach the beach?

 

[loveysbydesign]

Thanks for the info, would driving there be better on a Thursday or Friday or Saturday or Sunday. We would be coming from Disney and are open all 4 days. I'm thinking the weekend might be busier for the beach, but we might run into rush hour traffic on the week days. Would we be driving through the city of Tampa to reach the beach?

We went during the week to avoid crowds and left to drive back around 6:30 and it wasn't that bad at all. Yes, you drive through Tampa.

 

[fla4fun]

We went during the week to avoid crowds and left to drive back around 6:30 and it wasn't that bad at all. Yes, you drive through Tampa.

There are a couple ways to go through Tampa. The most common would be to take I-4 to I-275, and it is usually the most congested. When we were in the process of moving (it took us a couple years to get the whole family relocated) we were often driving back and forth from Orlando to near the Madeira Beach area. We found there was a lot less congestion if we got off I-4 at I-75, which is a few miles east of Tampa, took I-75 south to the Crosstown Expressway, and took the Expressway through south Tampa. The Expressway is a toll road, but we never experienced the congestion we often ran into on I-4/I-275, and the Gandy Bridge across Tampa Bay wasn't as busy as the Howard Frankland. The only congestion we saw at all was the few blocks of Gandy Boulevard between the end of the Expressway and the bridge. There is an entrance to I-275 after you cross the bay, if you want to head south there for Fort Desoto, but to go to Madeira Beach or Treasure Island, you can just keep going straight across Park Boulevard until you arrive at the Gulf, and it's just a few miles south to either one on Gulf Boulevard.