Split vacation, WDW and Clearwater

[mom2aredhead]

I may have talked my husband into a trip in June, probably the week of 6/8, give or take a few days. The catch is that he wants to go to Clearwater Beach for the bulk of the trip, hit Busch Gardens once, then do maybe 2 nights at WDW. Because we'd be spending most of the trip at the beach (either the Island Grand in St. Pete's or Marriott Suites Sand Key) we'd probably do a value for the 2 nights at WDW.

My question - which would you do first? We'd be renting a car for length of stay, so transportation isn't an issue. At first I was thinking beach first, then end up in WDW, but that would put us there for a weekend, during Star Wars Weekend. We'd want to go to MGM and see the new Playhouse Disney show and (fingers crossed) maybe Toy Story Mania would be open. But I'm all about crowd avoidance. If I reverse it, we'd hit the last few days of GayDays (again, crowd avoidance) and I think my son would be a little let down about leaving WDW after such a short time (I know - poor him, he was only in WDW 3 days and now I'm dragging him to a beachfront resort)

Any ideas? We can't go the week before because we have a family wedding, and the week after I'm thinking it'll start getting crowded since more schools will be out.

 

[pha1226]

Last year, we went to Clearwater first (for Phillies spring training), then to Disney. We spent 4 nights at each and it worked out really well. We had a blast in Clearwater (I highly recommend Captain Memo's pirate cruise) and we had WDW to look forward to. I'm not sure the kids would have enjoyed Clearwater if we did it AFTER WDW.

 

[mom2aredhead]

Thanks, that's what I'm thinking.
Where did you stay in Clearwater? There's so many nice places I'm having trouble deciding!

 

[eeyorefan74]

We did a trip to the Tampa/Clearwater area last summer. Got a cheap SW flight and knew DD would love Busch Gardens, as she's an animal lover. I would do the Clearwater part of the trip first. We enjoyed Busch Gardens, but it's not Disney, and would probably be a letdown so soon after Disney. It would be hard not to compare the two.

We stayed in a condo in Indian Shores. Lots of snowbirds rent out condos there in the summer and rates are pretty good. Check vrbo.com if you're interested in a condo. We loved the beach there- beautiful and low crowds. We also went to the zoo and the aquarium, and took a boat trip to Shell Island.

 

[mom2aredhead]

We did a trip to the Tampa/Clearwater area last summer. Got a cheap SW flight and knew DD would love Busch Gardens, as she's an animal lover. I would do the Clearwater part of the trip first.

My son loves animals too, especially giraffe. That's what started the whole Clearwater/Tampa thing. I saw something on the Busch Gardens website that they have a 30 minute "close encounter" tour where you can actually feed the giraffe for about $30/pp. (they also have a 2 hour one for $120 pp that we'll be skipping).

So you're comfirming what I thought - It's looking like Clearwater first. Thanks for the info.

And pha1226, thanks for the info about the Capt Memo cruise. We're going to be doing that as well - Ahoy!

 

[NotUrsula]

DEFINITELY the parks first, then the beach to decompress from all the energetic touring. We do it this way for all our warm-weather WDW trips.

One year we took a long trip and did parks at both ends (Universal before the beach, and WDW after.) We learned from that experience that ending with parks is not as restful in terms of coming home refreshed from being on vacation.

SWW is not really crowded except right in the area of the SW attractions and the autograph stations. We've been several times, and that always holds true; the rest of the park is normal in terms of crowds. Besides that, Clearwater's beaches get mad crowded on summer weekends; wall to wall people and insane traffic. If you can do the beach on weekdays, go for that.

 

[tjmw2727]

We often split our visit between WDW and Clearwater since we have family in Clearwater. We usually do Disney first and then the Beach and don't find it a let down at all. There is still plenty for the kids to do, I second the recommendation for Captain Nemos pirate cruise it's great fun. You also have Busch Gardens to look forward to and the beaches are beautiful. Frenchy's restaurants are a must - rockaway and salt water locations are our fav's.

We have stayed at the Marriot and its very nice but we now stay across the street at the Sheraton. The Marriot has a great pool area - a little nicer than the sheraton but the sheraton is directly on the beach and the Mariott is across the street. So for us beach access is the deciding factor

TJ

 

[pha1226]

We stayed at the Sheraton. It was pricey but the location was great.

 

[smacky1]

How long is the drive from Orlando to clearwater?

 

[jdvm]

We would almost always split our trip up between WDW and Longboat Key--a bit south of Clearwater near Sarasota. We tried it both ways and generally like the beach first but, to be honest, i don't thing you'll go wrong whichever you do first.
John