Thinking of an Independant Florida Fly Drive ? - this may help

maemaesmummy

ha ha I find Melatonin and no booze on the journey home helps with the jetlag!

Murphy_The_Cat

zagfles wrote: »

When we went, many years ago, we found it quite cheap.

If going off-peak, pre-booking everything is a bit OTT for a fly-drive, there is so much accomodation everywhere in Florida, especially round the touristy parts, you can virtually name your price! We stayed in Kisseemee for $15 per night, although around $30-35 was more usual. We didn't pre-book anything, though we didn't have kids (I think now I'd book the first/last nights at least!).

Not booking, as well as being cheaper gives you extra flexibility, however many P's you can't plan for the weather, or that you find a place boring and want to move on before you originally intended, or want to stay an extra night somewhere because it's great and you haven't seen everything:).

Sometimes it's the detours off the original plan which turn out to be the best bits - originally we'd intended to go snorkelling off Key Largo but it was too windy so we took a trip to Key West instead - long drive (spectacular though) and what a place! Party town!:beer:

We're going to have to go back there with the kids one day

hello zagfles
in the past (before children) we were very happy going with the flow and making the most of things like Roomsaver and going with the flow, but since the 2 of us have become 4, its much, much more important for us to have a hassle free, organised holiday, where we know that we'll be arriving at a quality suite hotel that fits our criteria exactly, rather than driving from hotel to hotel to find one that has an acceptable room that would save us a few $$'s.

This time we had a home/villa rental in Dunedin (close to Tampa), 3 nights in Fort Myers in a Homewood, 2 nights in Naples in a Double Tree and 2 nights in KeyWest in a Double Tree. With the excpetion of the Double Tree in KeyWest, the places were perfect for us & the knowledge taht we could rock up to any of these places to find our room/suite waiting for us was well worth it

However, in years to come, we'd probably go back to being a bit more flexible in our planning, especially in an are like Florida.

p.s.the $15 rates that you've enjoyed in the past are now more like $40-$45 plus taxes.

sunshinetours

zagfles wrote: »

When we went, many years ago, we found it quite cheap.

If going off-peak, pre-booking everything is a bit OTT for a fly-drive, there is so much accomodation everywhere in Florida, especially round the touristy parts, you can virtually name your price! We stayed in Kisseemee for $15 per night, although around $30-35 was more usual. We didn't pre-book anything, though we didn't have kids (I think now I'd book the first/last nights at least!).

Not booking, as well as being cheaper gives you extra flexibility, however many P's you can't plan for the weather, or that you find a place boring and want to move on before you originally intended, or want to stay an extra night somewhere because it's great and you haven't seen everything:).

Sometimes it's the detours off the original plan which turn out to be the best bits - originally we'd intended to go snorkelling off Key Largo but it was too windy so we took a trip to Key West instead - long drive (spectacular though) and what a place! Party town!:beer:

We're going to have to go back there with the kids one day

I largely agree with this BUT with kids in tow I do say that planning is also the key to s less stressful holiday, even if like commoners you were "emptying your wallets with Uncle Walt"

As somneone above also emntioned i also prefer morning flight back to largely escape jet lag within a day or so (its so much worse travelling East)

All joking aside I thought it was an ecellent post MTC and I am sure useful to "non package tour virgins" especially - glad you had a good trip

Murphy_The_Cat

sunshinetours wrote: »

I largely agree with this BUT with kids in tow I do say that planning is also the key to s less stressful holiday, even if like commoners you were "emptying your wallets with Uncle Walt"

All joking aside I thought it was an ecellent post MTC and I am sure useful to "non package tour virgins" especially - glad you had a good trip

The Pleb Cats (:D) chose to empty their wallets at places like these Coldstone & Smugglers Mini Golf. We gave the children the choice of a theme park for the day and they chose Legoland (hugely grateful that we got the child tickets free ) - they weren't interested in any of Uncle Walts / Universals offerings. Amongst the other things that we did was Tampa Aquirium, Stock Car racing, Baseball, visiting a couple of State Parks, cycle hire, visiting the manatees, pool tim, Karting, Splash Zone in Fort Myers, a couple of splash parks, Dolphin Reserach Centre,USCG Ingham, feeding the tarpon, beach time and a wedge of other stuff that I'll remember as soon as I stop typing !
But a lot of these things only came to light as a result of a goodly amount of research. If we had gone to boost Walt's bank account, we wouldn't have managed anywhere near as much and that (for us) would have been an opportunity missed.

The trip was exactly as it should have been - a lovely family time together. :beer:

zagfles

Suppose it depends on the age of the kids and how fussy you are about accomodation - in all our trips to the US we didn't once have to reject a motel/hotel because the accomodation wasn't up to scratch. Though we did on price when they wouldn't give us a decent discount - sometimes they'd come running after us as we were walking out the door when they saw we were serious about wanting a discount (I know some people wouldn't like doing this but for me it's an integral part of a US holiday ).

The first time we went to the US we had pre-booked some of the accomodation and it was incredibly frustrating driving around searching for the place we'd booked passing motel after motel with big advertising signs saying "Vacancies - $30 a night" or so when we'd booked at double that price and couldn't even find the ****ing place:mad:

Re Disney, although I always tell everyone "there's more to Florida than Disney/theme parks" and they mostly ignore me and spend the entire holiday in theme parks, I don't think a holiday to Florida would be complete without a visit to at least one of the Disney parks - I'm not a Disney fan but I really enjoyed the Epcot. Don't remember it being that expensive either (perhaps as long as you don't eat there - we hardly ever buy food in theme parks we take our own, as it cuts down on the queuing apart from anything else!). Universal was good too, we didn't go there in Florida we went in California but apparently they're exactly the same!

Some of the stuff we did:

The space centre, and watching a launch
The nature park next to the space centre - loads of local wildlife including manatees
The everglades (the "proper" part, as well as a tacky fan-boat trip round the edges with alligator wrestling and snake charming thrown in!)
Miami south beach (like stepping back into the 30's with all the art deco buildings, but with a very modern "gay bodybuilders" contest on the beach - had to drag the wife away and explain to her that saying "what a waste" is not PC :rotfl:)
The Cuban part of Miami where we had an excellent meal in a party atmosphere
Key West (Party town!) and the drive there
Beaches on the west coast
Ca d'zan and the coral house
Epcot
Busch Gardens (theme park - tacky but fun)
Disney studios (this was the only boring day for me - it's great if you're into amination/film making but I'm not, my wife enjoyed it though... and there were a couple of good rides).

Come to think of it that agenda would have to change a bit with kids - we'd need a few water parks in there! Though the big problem is that there's no good time to go to Florida in our school holidays - Christmas and Easter are packed and August is too hot and humid. Some schools (like the OPs presumably) get 2 weeks in May/June which would be ideal but not ours:(

Excellent thread anyway OP - people have different ideas and I'm sure it'll give anyone planning a holiday things to think about!

Murphy_The_Cat

zagfles wrote: »

Suppose it depends on the age of the kids and how fussy you are about accomodation for us, we're really picky in the respect that it needs to be a suite hotel, preferably with a small kitchenette, after we've tucked the children up, we're after a bit of quite time for ourselves.- in all our trips to the US we didn't once have to reject a motel/hotel because the accomodation wasn't up to scratch. Though we did on price when they wouldn't give us a decent discount - sometimes they'd come running after us as we were walking out the door when they saw we were serious about wanting a discount (I know some people wouldn't like doing this but for me it's an integral part of a US holiday ).

The first time we went to the US we had pre-booked some of the accomodation and it was incredibly frustrating driving around searching for the place we'd booked passing motel after motel with big advertising signs saying "Vacancies - $30 a night" or so when we'd booked at double that price and couldn't even find the ****ing place:mad: Mr TomTom is your friend

Re Disney, although I always tell everyone "there's more to Florida than Disney/theme parks" and they mostly ignore me and spend the entire holiday in theme parks, I don't think a holiday to Florida would be complete without a visit to at least one of the Disney parks we'll have to agree to differ on this, over a couple of deacdes we've never benn to Walts place, or any of the others (except Busch Gardens) and I'm n ot in a hurry to change that - I'm not a Disney fan but I really enjoyed the Epcot. Don't remember it being that expensive either (perhaps as long as you don't eat there - we hardly ever buy food in theme parks we take our own, as it cuts down on the queuing apart from anything else!). Universal was good too, we didn't go there in Florida we went in California but apparently they're exactly the same!

Some of the stuff we did:

The space centre, and watching a launch you lucky, lucky so and so, we decided to leave Cape Canavral for another visit.
The everglades (the "proper" part, as well as a tacky fan-boat trip round the edges with alligator wrestling and snake charming thrown in!) Sadly there wan't enough water about for us to investigate the Everglades properly. The people that we'd spoken to said that it had been to dry,for to long and that it would need a protrcted period of rain to 'bring things to life'
Miami south beach (like stepping back into the 30's with all the art deco buildings, but with a very modern "gay bodybuilders" contest on the beach - had to drag the wife away and explain to her that saying "what a waste" is not PC :rotfl:) We couldn't see much whilst we were there, as it was absolutely lashing down.
The Cuban part of Miami where we had an excellent meal in a party atmosphere
Key West (Party town!) and the drive there Key West was probably a mistake for us, as its not really a child friendly town, but the drive down is great (if long !)
Beaches on the west coast oh yes
Ca d'zan and the coral house
Epcot
Busch Gardens (theme park - tacky but fun)
Disney studios (this was the only boring day for me - it's great if you're into amination/film making but I'm not, my wife enjoyed it though... and there were a couple of good rides).

Come to think of it that agenda would have to change a bit with kids - we'd need a few water parks in there! Though the big problem is that there's no good time to go to Florida in our school holidays - Christmas and Easter are packed and August is too hot and humid. Some schools (like the OPs the children were taken out of school
for 11 days with the permission of the school - cheers Head Boss ) get 2 weeks in May/June which would be ideal but not ours:(

Excellent thread anyway OP - people have different ideas and I'm sure it'll give anyone planning a holiday things to think about!

cheers Zagfles
anything that gives people ideas, thoughts, opinions etc has to be a good thing :beer:

maemaesmummy

We are off soon and intending to do a fair bit of hiking...

we are flying into Miami then driving up to Orlando..

miss_edith

I went for a week last month (my 5th trip to Florida) and headed north from Sanford. It was very last minute - flight booked 3 days before leaving so weren't quite sure where we wanted to go but wanted a change from the Gulf Coast. We ended up spending the week in St Augustine and Amelia Island and had a wonderful time. We fit in a segway tour, boat trip to Georgia, visited old plantation, outlet malls and trip to Daytona (not really worth it) which wasn't bad for a last minute cheapo trip.