St. Pete Beach Vs. Indian Rocks Beach

[rapunzal]

How do these beaches compare?Safe area? How is the water for a four and eight year old good swimmers? Looking at the Howard Johnson's in St. Pete and Holiday Inn Harbaurside in Indian Rocks. What is the ride like to each area from either Tampa or Orlando airports...how long? Thanks

 

[dixielander]

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Harbourside in 2001, and enjoyed it very much. We had a one bedroom suite, which had a full kitchen. The pool area is very nice, and one end is especially nice for very little ones!

The walk to the beach was about 3-5 minutes. Not bad at all!

The beach was very very nice, soft white sand, not many rocks at all. Very family oriented.

Kids eat free at the Holiday Inn restaurant (jimmy guanas), the food was pretty good, although the service was SLOW!

Good luck.

 

[dixielander]

I forgot to answer your question about drive time, from the Tampa airport, Indian Rocks Beach is about a 30 minute ride, mostly because the traffic is AWFUL there!

From Orlando it would be about 1 1/2 hour drive.

Hope this helps!

 

[zalansky]

I live in Tampa and frequent these beaches. They are the same basically, the St Pete area tends to be a little more rocky and shelly than Clearwater beach (which is fine white sand). Indian Rocks is only right above St Pete Beach....so they are the same. They are very safe. The water is calm on the Gulf side, so the kids should be just fine. Like the PP stated, the ride from Tampa airport is about 30 minutes, if you don't hit traffic. From Orlando airport I'd say closer to an hour and 45 mintes to 2 hours, again without traffic. If you are planning to come at Spring Break add ALOT of time onto those figures.
Happy planning!