Recommendations for family vacation in Florida?

[Rosebloom]

My son has a few days off school in mid-February and I would love to take the family to a beach. (We are in Chicago were is it currently a windchill of 50 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. Thus my beach fantasies).

We love beach vacations but have never been to Florida. I'd like to check it out for this trip. Does anyone have recommendations of where we should go? Either general areas or specific resorts? My boys are young so I think we'll skip Disney and just focus on building sand castles and thawing out!

We would want to stay under $400/night or so (and somewhere lovely but $250/night just means more for the bling fund!). My parents might come with us so renting a house might be a fun option too.

Thank you so much for any recommendations!

 

[monarch64]

We used to vacation around Sandestin/Seaside/Grayton Beach areas. Very pretty towns, not seedy or super touristy like Panama City, etc. I have a lot of wonderful memories from the times we spent there as a family--we did several years of winter breaks there and spent Christmas there which are some of my favorite holiday memories.

 

[iLander]

North Florida can be very cold in February ('30's during the day), I think you want to stay waaayy south of I-4 (like the orange growers do )

Consider: Sanibel/Captiva, Florida Keys, Key Biscayne/Miami, West Palm Beach

February is usually a very full up month for all the warm areas of Florida, you might want to check lodging now.

Check those out and let me know what sounds good and I'll try to help from there.

 

[Rosebloom]

Monarch and iLander - thank you!!

I'll do some research tonight and come back with more questions. I'm so grateful to have a place to start looking.

 

[monarch64]

Whoops, I skipped over the part where you said midi February! Those areas are still worth looking into for other times of the year, or if you're OK with swimming inside rather than in the Gulf.

 

[Sparklelu]

The water may be chilly above Tampa -St Pete on the west coast and Palm Beach on the East in February. The beaches will be great, water a bit chilly( 70-75degrees)
Or the water will be beautiful. Who knows it should be sunny and dry though.-and certainly warmer than most places at that point!!!
I am on the west coast ( I live in Cape Coral, just 30 minutes from the places I'm recommending) I highly recommend Sanibel/Captiva or FtMyers Beach.
The first are a bit more posh. The South Seas plantation, CasaYbel, the Inn on Sanibel are all good choices.
If you do Sanibel go eat at the Bubble Room once!
The shelling is great on Sanibel, you can rent bikes and ride the entire island. We have a lighthouse too. The beach on the North side of the lighthouse is known for dolphins, and manatees joining with frolicking beach goers! We have seen them.


Ft Myers Beach has a chain of hotels/condos run by Sunstream resorts that are really very nice. PointeEstero is quite nice.
The Pink Shell Resort is nice and very family friendly.





http://www.sanibelisland.com/accommodations.html

 

[Sparklelu]

And book your rooms ASAP. We ended up in Naples one year because We went spur of the moment. Naples BTW is beautiful and very posh!! The Naples Ritz Carlton is stellar

 

[NTave]

Definitely get low! Miami is beautiful any time but pricier to fly into than Ft Lauderdale. If you are looking for Disney, wait til April or so for consistently warm temps. The Keys are beautiful, and so is the drive through them.

 

[SB621]

ooops sorry double post!

 

[SB621]

RB are you sure you want to skip disney? We did a week there recently with our 2 and 3 year old, the 2 year old was free!!!! I would say all the parks but Magic Kingdom were useless when they are that little, but our kids LOVED MK!!! Plus we went in November so the place was dead. Never waited more then 5 minutes for a ride. usually just walked right on. Our son, the 3 year old, made the height for all the rides so he loved splash moutain, big thunder mt. railroad and so on. Plus they had tons of stuff without a height requirement. I would really think about doing Orlando for 1 day to just do MK it was such a great experience.

 

[AprilBaby]

Sanibel or Marco island!

 

[Meezermom]

Jupiter Beach Resort and Spa in Jupiter, Florida. It's very close to the Beach (along Alt A1A), close to restaurants and shopping in Palm Beach Gardens. I'm from that area, and I highly recommend it.

 

[Rosebloom]

I am so, so grateful for all of your suggestions! Thank you, thank you. And I am quite envious of those of you living in warm Florida! I can't wait to research these spots tonight.

 

[woofmama]

Another vote for Sanibel! Gorgeous area. I love the architecture of the homes there. We really enjoyed the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Saw some alligators sunning themselves and loads of birds. http://www.fws.gov/dingdarling/
Great restaurant's there as well.

Another favorite of our family is Daytona Beach, it's on the Atlantic side, we went there almost every year when I was growing up. I haven't been there for quite a while but have many fond memories of our vacations.

We went to the Keys two years ago. It was interesting though not much to do where we stayed, the Duck Keys. Our resort was amazing, but a long drive to go see anything. Key West was super cool!

 

[AprilBaby]

Disney has a resort at Vero Beach that is supposed to be lovely. Another vote here for Datona beach.

 

[MonkeysInk]

We visit my hisbamd's family in St. Pete every year. We like to stay at the Don Cesar, the Don Cesar Beach House or at the Tradewinds.

 

[Christina...]

Jupiter Beach Resort and Spa in Jupiter, Florida. It's very close to the Beach (along Alt A1A), close to restaurants and shopping in Palm Beach Gardens. I'm from that area, and I highly recommend it.

I was going to suggest this area as well. My parents live in West Palm and I have brothers in the Stuart area, not far from Jupiter, St Lucie, etc. It's off the beaten path enough to be less expensive but still within reasonable proximity of the more touristy areas (Miami and even Orlando in the other direction are only a couple hours away IIRC) if you rent a car. There is also a cool outlet area in Vero Beach that I really like and wasn't too far a hike.