St Pete's Beach

[Furbaby2842]

Looking to go to Florida next year march or April time. We want to do a couple of days in St Petersburg to visit the beach when we arrive (I get jet lagged badly so want to do this first to recover before the parks!). Definitely will not be hiring a car, wondering how people get from Orlando airport to st Pete's? Anyone know rough cost of a taxi or any other travel suggestions?

Never travelled from Orlando to St petes, always flew into tampa for visitting there, but thst usually requires a Gatwick fligtt. Just checked and an uber is about $180, hotel car might be cheaper option.

Lots to say here:

The jet lag on the way over can really play to your advantage - you have a what feels like late night to you (but early night in the Florida time zone), and wake up early, so you can hit the parks at rope drop. I would always to choose the busiest part of my Florida holiday at the beginning.

Hiring a car and driving in the US is SUPER easy, and everything revolves around having a car. I would seriously consider doing it. If you were only staying in Orlando, fine, but I wouldn't be without a car in Florida ever.

The drive between Orlando and the Gulf Coast is about an hour and a half, and is a really easy journey. However, you could fly into Tampa, which is a great airport, smaller than Orlando or Miami, so more pleasant to transit through. BA flies direct from LGW, or you could do a connecting flight.

Thanks both! I'd never even considered Gatwick and didn't realise you could get direct to Tampa. Think that will be our way forwards!

Yes, BA do a direct flight to tampa, only downside is Gatwick. St petes is a 30 min uber fron Tampa, and Tampa uis a less hectic airport.
Just got back from St Augustine, very hot in FL atm.

We’re just back (arrived home an hour ago). We spent a week in Orlando and drove to St Pete’s for a second week. We hired a car and it took about 2.5 hours as the traffic is busy.

We spent a week in the parks first as we stayed at a universal hotel (cabana) so had early access to the parks. Jet lag worked in our favour as we were up early (kids 7/10/12)

we spent the last few days relaxing but visited Busch gardens, aquarium and Dali museum in Clearwater/Tampa

kids loved hunting for shells at the beach. We stayed at treasure island which had a lovely shallow sloping beach and our hotel apartment was on the beach which was lovely.