Ideas for beach visit--Gulf side for drive home...

[trampslady]

Good morning. We are driving to WDW in May and plan to stay Friday and Saturday at POR before checking in at BCV Sunday through Sunday (as it stands now). We'll be checking out on Memorial Day weekend, and that Saturday night's points are a whopping 56! I'm thinking of checking out on Saturday instead. We could still hang around for a final "goodbye" to a park or two and then head out.

For our drive home, does anyone have a recommended beach stop? In fact, it doesn't have to be "on the way" home. I've thought about a drive over to Tampa or Clearwater, but I really don't have any knowledge of the beach areas in Florida. Any help or advise would be appreciated. Basically, it would just be an overnight and excuse to wiggle out toes in the sand before the vacation is up!

 

[Deb & Bill]

Destin is great. Also Gulf Shores, AL.

 

[OurDogCisco]

On the travel channel they talked a lot about Siesta Keys. We are thinking of going there. Suppose to have really nice white sand type beach.

 

[jade1]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1033980

 

[jdvm]

We hang around the west coast of Florida a LOT. It's pricey but the Longboat Key Club near Sarasota is our favorite. Siesta Key is fantastic but I think they only do weekly rentals. Anna Maria Island is not as expensive as Longboat Key and is a bit more Bohemian. If you have more specific questions, PM me. It's a great idea to take a beach break, by the way!!!

 

[JimMIA]

Not Tampa -- no beaches there! Great town, but no beaches.

St. Pete Beach up to Clearwater is very pretty. I'd personally be tempted to drop down to Sarasota and do Longboat Key, but that's more because I like St. Armand's Circle -- not so much for the beach. And as mentioned, the Panhandle beaches (aka - The Redneck Riviera) are beautiful.

Depending on where you're headed, why the Gulf Coast? The East Coast has better beaches and much better surf (not that you want to hang ten, but more beachy -- the Gulf Coast is more like a lake shore.) Daytona is only about two hours away, and Cocoa Beach is probably closer. A little further up the East Coast is St. Augustine -- the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the US, cool place, and also some very nice beaches. You could go up as far as Jacksonville, and then cut across I-10 to whereever you were going.

 

[MOM POPPINS]

We are also from the Dallas area and we always stop by Destin on our way home. The beach there is so pretty and white sand! I also wanted to check out the Marriott Grand Hotel in Fair Hope, Alabama. We have not stayed there yet. The resort is being renovated since the hurricane. We are going to check it out on a future trip. It open up later this spring.

In Destin we stay at the Hilton...www.hilton.com/en/hi/hotels/index.jhtml;?ctyhocn=DESHIHF
In Fair Hope the link to the Marriott...http://marriott.com/property/propertypage.mi?marshaCode=PTLAL

Happy Planning!

By the way Destin really is on your way home and is only about 20 minutes off the normal drive home to Dallas. It's about 6 1/2 hours from WDW. We go to a WDW park on our departure day and then head to the beach.

 

[Rozzie]

Gulf Shores, AL is gorgeous, but I am not biased of course.

 

[trampslady]

Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions. I think I might check out Destin or the Mobile Marriott--beautiful resort!!!! Both are directly on the route home.

Mom Poppins--we own some property in Trenton, but we live in SW Dallas--kind of near Arlington/Grand Prairie---very small world!

 

[MOM POPPINS]

trampslady ~ sent you a PM

 

[Deb & Bill]

Hey, by the way, Hurricane Season is only about 3 months away. They are saying this year's season could be worse than last year's.

 

[k_k_100]

Every year we hit Siesta Key for a week - it is our favorite beach in the continental US We used to go to Longboat Key but once we discovered Siesta we were hooked!

It can be tough to find a place to stay - this might help:

http://www.siestakeychamber.com/where.htm

 

[smsnorthup]

We hang around the west coast of Florida a LOT. It's pricey but the Longboat Key Club near Sarasota is our favorite. Siesta Key is fantastic but I think they only do weekly rentals. Anna Maria Island is not as expensive as Longboat Key and is a bit more Bohemian. If you have more specific questions, PM me. It's a great idea to take a beach break, by the way!!!

Totally agree!!! We do a Disney/Longboat Key trip every Sept. and love it. We stay at the Longboat Key Club which is beautiful and very much a resort. (I like to order a cocktail with umbrella while on the beach ) The beaches are great and the water is much prettier on the Gulf side compared to the Atlantic. Siesta Key is great too but not as resort-like. We call Longboat...our poor man's carribean...because for us we feel completely relaxed with great amenities and awesome beaches but we don't have to pay thousands of $ to fly there The website for the resort is http://www.longboatkeyclub.com

 

[Boater]

Anything from Clearwater to Sarasota is fantastic.
I'm very biased, but anything on the gulf coast in awesome.
I live just south of Clearwater Beach and the little towns are all still "beachy".
You don't that "condo canyon" feel like in Miami or Sarasota.