Rental Car on Disney and Best Beach for Day Trip

[Dustin H]

Myself, DW, DD7, and DS2 are coming to DisneyWorld for our first trip every for ANY of us August 7-14. We will have 8 full days, and since we are from Oklahoma and landlocked, are considering driving to the St. Pete/ Clearwater Beach area one day and enjoy the Ocean and show it to the kiddos.

I know that Alamo has a rental place on Disney, and since we are staying at AoA, figured this could make it easy. I just have a few questions, and if anybody has any suggestions, that would be great.

1. If I go rent the car, will I need a pass to go to AoA and pick them up at the room?

2. Does anybody know the hours of the Alamo place on Disney

3. Any suggestions for beaches? We want to stay on the Gulf Side.

Thanks

 

[Tygerlilly]

No real suggestions or answers but hi from Oklahoma as well! Our trip next year will be my hubby's first trip to the ocean too!

 

[Dustin H]

That's awesome! FYI... we are 40 miles east of OKC, but are flying out of DFW. We were able to book our flight about 120 days out, and got flights for $176 Round Trip thru United. It was almost $200 higher thru OKC per ticket.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I'm about 20 miles north of Tulsa. I can never find good plane tickets, so it looks like we will be driving next year.

 

[jani3]

I can't help you with the car but I recommend the Clearwater Beach. The white sand beach is amazing. But if you want to do other things, they're available as well. Like pirate cruise, dinner cruise, sailing with the Dolphins, and the clearwater aquarium is there too.

 

[a742246]

I would do the gulf coast beaches, beautiful beaches and as an added bonus no tolls in that direction.

 

[ceecee]

We've done that several times. It has always been so much cheaper to rent at the airport (100's or more) and so we do the beach first then drive our bags to the resort at Disney and then to Disney Car Care center to drop off the car (Hess gas station is right there so you can fill up first) then the shuttle will take you to where you want to go. We always plan to start at Epcot the day we drop the car off since it is so close. We use the Magical Express to take us back to MCO for our flight home. We have done Clearwater, Flagler, Indian Rocks and Daytona. Clearwater is our favorite but we have family near the others. Use Alamo at MCO it is SO EASY! Go to Alamo and price it from AoA, MCO or Car Care and see how much $ you can save, if that matters.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

For those who day trip to Clearwater Beach, do you just wander the coast looking for public access, or is there a preferred spot? We may do this soon as well

 

[Dustin H]

Thanks for all the replies. I have read online that Clearwater Beach can get very crowded, but if you go down the beach a bit to St Pete beach, it is still white sands, but not as "Touristy"???

 

[jagmom]

Fort Myers area has really nice beaches. One of my aunt's lives there. When dh and I went, we just drove along until we saw a public beach.