Split Hols - Clearwater or Miami

[GarryK]

Planning for our 4th trip next year and thinking about spending first 7 nights out of 17/18 in Clearwater or Miami for first time, flying into Tampa/Miami and out of MCO.

Favouring Clearwater due to proximity to Busch. Does anyone have any comments or tips about Clearwater - is it good for 7 days, nice places to stay ?

Miami - bit of a longer drive to Orlando but doable ?

Look forward to lots of comments !

Garry

 

[gilld]

Depends what you want. Miami is much more upmarket and sophisticated while Clearwater much more like the Costa's. No really nice hotels either. We stayed at St Pete's and visited Clearwater...we hated them both and would always opt for Miami if splitting. Journey up from Miami is about 3-4 hours so very do-able and you're on hand for the Everglades and Keys. Others will probably feel differently.

 

[JohnnySharp]

The beach at Clearwater is the best we have seen in Florida and there are other nice areas like St.Petes too - the Sunshine Skyway bridge across St.Petes bay is awesome.
I would say it is an ideal location for a relaxing week but totally different to Miami where there is so much more going on - you also have Ft.Lauderdale/Palm Beach not too far away.

A week would be too long at Clearwater unless you just want to relax and I would vote for Miami.
It would take at least 3hours to drive from Orlando.

 

[yorkshiregirl]

We spent the last 5 days last year at Clearwater and that was just about right. The beach especially at sunset is lovely. Our hotel had chairs, umbrellas etc. to hire (which were a bit on the expensive side for each day), there was good swimming for all levels. We went on a dolphin viewing cruise and found some reasonable restaurants for dinner each night, there were other things to do. There was a very good shopping mall where we spent some money. Overall it was no where near as nice as Key West where we went for a week 2 years ago.
We just soaked up the sun and rested after 11 days at WDW. One bonus was that it was not such a long drive.

 

[Miffy2003]

I have to pretty much agree with everyone else - we spent a week in Clearwater and it was a couple of nights too long really. We were exhausted from a week of park commandoing though. Brilliant sunsets, and our hotel had a lovely beach. Mind you I guess you could do a week and spend a few days at Busch and relax betweentimes.

I've never been to Miami so can't comment on that, but I do know I would love to go!!

Karen

 

[wayneg]

Hi, We spent a week in Clearwater in 1999 it was 6 nights too long. If you want a beach go to Spain or Greece. For us Florida is all in Orlando or Disney cruise line. Only good thing about Clearwater was the Sunset. Hotels are overpriced, so is the food (walked out of Hilton Buffet meal Surf and Turf and told them what I thought of it. It was a disgrace for $30/head), sting rays in Sea. Sorry can't think of anything else good to say.
It wasn't for us. It might be for you.
Wayne

 

[mike230652]

Garry

We stopped for one week on the Gulf Coast last year. Visited Clearwater a couple of times, did the dolphin boat thing and hit the Pier 60 Sunset Festival ( on nightly ). We rented a villa in Dunedin , 10 minutes north of Clearwater. Beautiful town, old fashioned and laid back. Great places to eat, too.From there you can visit Honeymoon Island, Caladesi Island and many other places.

You can also travel down to St. Petersburg to visit their pier .... AWESOME!!!! with a great Spanish/Cuban restaurant. There's a museum devoted to Salvador Dali which we loved.

Plenty of things to do if you want!

Personally I can't understand folk who head to a resort ( which is what Clearwater is ) then complain because it's like a resort....??

Do some research , get in your car and find some of the wonderful places/ sites to see for goodness sake!!LOL!!

Never been to Miami ( kids probably still a bit young for there ) so can't comment but can guarantee that we'll do Gulf Coast again asap. Fabulous place, great people.

mike

 

[Mrs Dazzle]

Can I make a suggestion - opt for a middle resort like Naples or Marco Island. If you stay further down south, you get to visit the Everglades, Miami and the Keys.

Miami is a great place to stay, but for 7 nights unless you want to sit on the beach you could be a little limited unless you wanted to really journey out each day.

What you could do (and is more than doable, we have ), is head from Orlando to St Pete's (IOHO much nicer than Clearwater) stay there for three nights, chill out on the beach the first day then do BG the second, then head down to Naples/Marco where the beaches are far better, there's loads to do and great places to visit.

If you need any further info, please holler.

 

[Selina]

We split how holiday between Orlando and St. Petes - staying at the Howard Johnson. Visited Clearwater and St. Pete's much nicer. Beautiful sands, beach bar right outside hotel - very friendly place, quiet and was the perfect way to relax after the hecticness of the parks! Miami will be less peaceful - depends on what you want.