is it possible to do a week near the theme parks and a week in the Florida Keys?

[ssd]

any advice welcome, am on a strict budget and just costing things out just now

kids 14 and 17, me and dh, flying from Glasgow, maybe going next June 23rd or there abouts for 2 weeks

thanks

Just remembered there's a national park just up the coast from Clearwater too and it was absolutely stunning, had Manatee's living wild there. I love Florida, such a happy place .

DH and I spent our wedding night in Clearwater.

We were there earlier this year. Best holiday I have ever had.

you are giving me too much choice there scone

nicki, we'd be going about 23 june 2015 from Glasgow, 2 weeks, hopefully ten days in a villa in orlando and 3 or 4 days somewhere in Clearwater?

You only need five days in Orlando with teens as they probably won't want to do Disney.

Five days easily covers Universal, IofA , a water park, shopping and Kennedy space centre. Then head to the beach!

That sounds perfect, so you should be able to book flights from January I think. I always book through sky scanner, they find the cheapest flights. If you do stay in Clearwater I suggest the Carlouel end. It's quieter and the beach is often deserted. Down towards Clearwater main it gets quite busy. Also you can walk three or four miles up the beach to the national park "Caladesi Island" which is otherwise only accessible by boat. That's a gorgeous walk. But when you want busier and restaurants, bars etc you can walk the other way down the beach into Clearwater. There's a huge shopping mall nearby if that's something you would want to do, we went for one afternoon.

5 days would do me too!

Agree that teens would prefer Universal. Also the SeaWorld them park has some amazing rides in it too.

we've been to these places, in California though. defo wouldn't do disney and TBH one day on each place would do us, they aren't mad on rides, the best thing they liked in CA was pike fishing on a pier!

You can also check out Dunedin, a lovely town, and named for Edinburgh.

Try flying into (and back from) Tampa as it's often cheaper than using Orlando airport.

5/6 days at the parks and then drive back to Tampa (about 1.5 hrs). From there it's a hop, skip and a jump to Clearwater. You can drive along the coast to Indian Rocks, St Pete's beach etc. and then go further down to St Petersburg, Fort Myers/Sanibel.

thanks will check Tampa out then.

Good suggestion about flying into Tampa. Great airport and easy drive to the parks.

You might also check out flights through Philadelphia. We went to Scotland last year and flew from Florida to Philadelphia to Glasgow. It was the best price we found at the time.

actually it looks the same as orlando from glasgow

well that was BA, who else could I try?

We flew US Air.

Have you looked on Skyscanner?

will do thanks

Don't get me wrong - the Keys are nice but are no match for tropical locations elsewhere in the world in my opinion. The beaches are narrow as others have said and the snorkelling was poor. I did enjoy the sunsets at Marathon though and the turtle hospital was cool.

Do you have to drive between the two? You can fly from Orlando to key West. Takes about half an hour and from my recollection cost about £30 each (adults). It was also an experience as the plane is the equivalent of a local bus! Good fun. For our honeymoon last year we flew to key West (via miami) stayed there 9 nights then flew to Orlando, taxi to Disney swan hotel, stayed there three nights. The travel stuff was all simple and we had a great time

Just double checked our flight confirmation, we flew with southwest, and it took just under an hour

Definitely possible, but might not be able to get a package.

We have always done two or three centre holidays to Florida, as Me and DH cant stick more than a week of Orlando, and 3 or 4 days of the parks is more than enough for our kids.

We did 3 nights in Miami/7 nights in Orlando/7nights in Anna Maria/2nights in Miami in 2012.

We did 8 nights Orlando/2 nights Clearwater/7nights Anna Maria the year before, and Miami-Orlando-St Petes the year before that.

Anna Maria is lovely, relaxing and quiet. Highly recommend.

Definitely plan to do the Everglades and Keys at some stage, too.

We have never done a package. Always book the cheapest flights we can find (have flown into Miami/Orlando/Tampa) and hire a car. We book accommodation direct with the hotels or villas.

If your DC aren't keen on theme parks there are much more interesting holidays than Florida IMVHO.

Is now a good time to mention that it's 84 here! The beach is quiet , the kids are having a surf lesson and I've just ordered a daquari?