Just back. LOTS of non-Disney adventures!

[Jasperkitty]

My husband and I plan to be in Florida in a little over a year and a number of your stops are on our "if budget allows" wish list!

Its good to hear that the mermaid show is still going! And I've been eyeing that ghosts and gravestones tour in St. Augustine for a while now. Good to hear a positive review on both.

Which was your favorite national park? Odds are we'll only have time to visit 1 or 2 at the most and I'd love to know what you'd recommend.

 

[GEM]

We plan to do the Space coast as well, but will be in July. Our time is much more limited, we would only have one day there as we plan to see Clearwater and Lakeland on the other side of the state. My children will be 10 and 7 then. Is Cape Canaveral part of the tour? Is it just the Kennedy Space Center? I have no idea what is involved yet, but I would like to pick the tour that is most interesting to my kids. I wish we had more time. LOL. We are from the north so we are not in any way familiar. I appreciate your hotel suggestions.

The KSC ticket includes all the exhibits at the KSC Visitor's Center complex as well as the basic bus tour (which takes you to the Apollo/Saturn V building and drives you by some interesting things like the VAB on the way there and back). There are some extra in-depth tours you can book for an additional cost, but if you only have one day there, I would just do the regular ticket that includes the basic bus tour. My son is 11, and it was just the two of us. Neither of us are really space or science fanatics or anything like that, but we still spent pretty much the whole day exploring. Got there at opening at left about 5pm. Follow that up with a dinner at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville and you have a great day. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we also love the Canaveral National Seashore. It's our favorite beach in the central Florida area. Very natural and never crowded. But, it would be really hard to squeeze that in on the same day as KSC, since the space center takes pretty much a full day to really do justice.

Btw, we loved the Clearwater area! Had lots of fun there, too.

 

[GEM]

My husband and I plan to be in Florida in a little over a year and a number of your stops are on our "if budget allows" wish list!

Its good to hear that the mermaid show is still going! And I've been eyeing that ghosts and gravestones tour in St. Augustine for a while now. Good to hear a positive review on both.

Which was your favorite national park? Odds are we'll only have time to visit 1 or 2 at the most and I'd love to know what you'd recommend.

Highly reccomend seeing the mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs state park just for the old-school Florida roadside attraction history of the place. Very interesting, and the show was actually good! Lol. Loved, loved, loved St. Augustine. If you have ghost story fans in your group, definitely do Ghosts and Gravestones. We've done lots of haunted history tours in other cities, and this one was definately the most fun and the most well-done overall. We loved riding the "Trolley of the Doomed" all decked out in it's ghostly decorations and the part inside the old jail was just so great. My son was terrified...and he had the time of his life. Lol.


As far as national parks go, Everglades National Park was our favorite, without a doubt. I've never been anywhere like that...almost like an alien landscape to a Oklahoma girl. Lol. Of course, Florida has a TON of gorgeous state parks. Bahia Honda in the keys was our favorite...the bluest water I've ever seen and the prettiest little beaches ever. But, Everglades and Bahia Honda are both hours and hours from the Disney area. Closer to Orlando, we really love Blue Springs state park for the swimming and the St. John's River Cruise and (in winter) the manatees. Also, Wekiwa Springs is one of the prettiest places in Florida to take a swim, a really lovely, deep, blue, spring-fed swimming hole. Also, Honeymoon Island state park near Clearwater has gorgeous beaches, consistently voted one of the top beaches in the country. And, we also love the recreation areas in the Ocala National Forest. Juniper Springs is one of our favorite places in all of Florida for a picnic and a swim.

Hope that helps!