Now is the Best Time! Our 2024 Florida Road Trip (complete)

[mickey916]

Absolutely LOVED your entire trip. That would be my dream to follow your personalized map. DH does enjoy driving and I'm a nervous drive so we fly everywhere. Your trip was amazing and because I snowbird at Cocoa Beach for the past 4 years, I have been to several of the places to mentioned within about 2 hours of Cocoa Beach. Including the restaurants and ice cream.

We are big seafood lovers and constantly go to Jazzy's Lobster on Atlantic Ave (A1A as you know). I think each trip we spend about 4 times there and 4 times at 4th street Fillin' Station for my all time favorite pulled pork. Totally different than what we're used to and I dream about it when back home.
And of course many day trips (and overnights) to Disney.

Many years we stayed on the Gulf side (pre-snowbirding) and have wonderful memories but honestly love the 'Old Florida' Flavor of Cocoa Beach. And, of course, the launches, Love, love, love. We go right down to the beach but because we literally have a balcony (rented condo) overlooking the Ocean/launches. It never gets old. Never in our lifetime have been to a Waffle House and yet we go constantly to Cocoa Beach's and laugh ourselves silly over
the ambience and screaming-to-each-other servers and dripping waffle batter. It's so cool.

And of course several 1 hr 15 min trips to Buc-Cees. My DD/SIL's fave place in the world. We knew nothing about it and loved it.

Sorry I hijacked your thread. Needless to say I loved your report. Thank you so much.

We had plans to try the 4th Street Fillin' Station but never quite made it there and still haven't stopped by a Buc-Cees or Waffle House so obviously we'll have to go back! Of all the beach areas we stayed in Cocoa Beach is definitely our favorite. Thanks for reading along.

 

[mickey916]

I laughed when you said which ice cream flavors you ordered from The Fat Donkey—I would have picked the same two! Your rocket launch pictures are really cool

You must have great taste too, lol! We couldn't believe how many launches were scheduled for the time we were down there.

 

[mickey916]

4/19 Tiny Turtle & Dolphin Tour​

We started our morning with breakfast at the Tiny Turtle. We ordered two entrees to share, one savory and one sweet. First, our savory item, the Wake Up Burrito: Scrambled eggs, potato hash, Queso Caribe, guacamole, sour cream, roasted tomatillo sauce, and Creme Caribe with chorizo.

Here’s the inside view:

This was excellent. It had lots of filling and tons of flavor. It was by far the best thing we had at Tiny Turtle over both meals.

For our sweet option, we ordered the Stuffed French Toast: Sweet Sobao bread stuffed with cream cheese and topped with a berry, berry fruit compote, whipped cream and 100% pure maple syrup.

Inside view: (sorry for the blurry picture)

This was just okay. It sounded so much better than it actually was. There was a LOT of cream cheese inside and not enough french toast or berry compote.

After breakfast we booked a tour with the Cocoa Beach Dolphin Tours. This was a two hour boat tour through the Cocoa Beach Thousand Islands on the Banana River. We saw an incredible amount of wildlife: many different birds, manatees and dolphins.

Just a few pictures of the many dolphins:

Duck family:

This was a great tour. Our tour guide was a Marine Biologist so she had lots of information and also told us this was the most wildlife she had seen on a tour. Definitely a worthwhile activity.

Up next...more wildlife

 

[mickey916]

4/19 Black Point Wildlife Drive, Papa Vito's & Tropic Ice Cream
​

After our Dolphin tour, we headed to the Black Point Wildlife Drive. We had taken this drive last year on April 19, 2023 and saw a ton of birds. Even though by coincidence it was exactly the same date, this year the birds had already mostly migrated. We did see some wildlife though.

After completing the loop, we stopped by Manatee Cove and saw a few manatees. They’re pretty elusive to photograph however. This is my best shot.

The only other wildlife we saw was this guy…

We drove back to Cocoa Beach and picked up a pepperoni “stuffed” pizza at Papa Vito’s, another restaurant recommended by our host.

As you can see it’s basically a pizza with another crust on top.

Here’s a view of the interior:

This was pretty good but we think we would’ve preferred just a regular pizza. We wanted to try something different but probably shouldn’t have gone this route.

After dinner we needed steps so we walked down to a place called Frosty ‘Nauts that advertised rolled ice cream served in a taco-shaped waffle cone. Unfortunately they were apparently out of business even though their hours were still listed in Google.

We ended up walking back to a place called Tropic Ice Cream. The place was empty other than the two servers. We both ordered one scoop of chocolate peanut butter cup and a second scoop of a different flavor. My second scoop was cappuccino cookie crunch and my DH’s second scoop was salted caramel brownie.

This ice cream was pretty standard. We ranked it last on our list of all the ice cream that we ate on the trip, giving it a “C”. Now we know why the place was empty, especially with Fat Donkey just a short drive away. “Why didn’t you just go to Fat Donkey?” you ask. Well, it wasn’t within walking distance and we had seen that morning that the parking was going to be closed off due to a festival that evening.

Overall we enjoyed our time in Cocoa Beach and definitely will come back, at least for a day trip here and there.

Total steps: 13,046

Up next…squeezing in one more Disney day.

 

[mickey916]

4/20 Epcot Again!​

As I mentioned previously, DH and I had decided to swing by Captain Cooks as we made the drive from Cocoa Beach to our next stop, Bradenton. Well, when we left our VRBO at Cocoa Beach, DH suggested since we were up and out early perhaps we should go to Epcot for the day until it was time for lunch.

We didn’t purchase Genie+ and had no real intentions of doing any attractions, especially since the crowds were fairly large that day. We just took a leisurely pace and walked around enjoying all the beautiful flowers.

About mid-morning we stopped for a very healthy breakfast at Sunshine Seasons and crossed two more items off of our snack bucket list.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Whoopie Pie

This was very tasty. It was more like a chocolate cupcake cut in half with peanut butter frosting in the middle than a traditional whoopie pie. The chocolate cake was rich and moist and the peanut butter frosting had great peanut butter flavor.

Turtle Brownie

I had seen this dessert posted many times on DFB but it didn’t quite look like this. This wasn’t great. It was kinda dry and nothing special. I learned afterwards from DFB that this is NOT the version that they were talking about and that they do not recommend this version. Maybe we’ll have to try the real version next time it’s offered.

We walked around for a bit and stopped to watch the Purple Martins who were nesting.

We then took the monorail over to the TTC and walked over to Captain Cooks at the Polynesian. We placed a mobile order while on the monorail and headed right there to pick up our long-awaited meal.

First, Thai Coconut Meatballs

This entree is simply amazing. We tried it for the first time this past December and couldn’t believe how delicious it was. In fact, part of me feared I had just built it up in my mind when we ordered it again. Nope, it is as wonderful as I remembered. The meatballs are perfectly seasoned and cooked. The sauce is creamy and the rice ties it all together. I don’t think we can ever go to Disney again without stopping by Captain Cooks for these meatballs.

Pulled Pork Nachos

This is another must-get item for us. The different kinds of chips give these nachos a uniqueness paired with the pulled pork and pineapple salsa, it is just fantastic!

After our incredible meal, we walked around the Poly for a bit and then headed on the monorail back to Epcot. We ended up riding Spaceship Earth one "last" time and then decided to go to Disney Springs for dessert. I noticed there was an early afternoon ADR available for the Boathouse so I booked that as we drove over. As we were seated we asked our server if it was okay that we were just ordering dessert. Our server Eddie said that wasn’t a problem at all but then still brought us the bread service.

This was our first time eating at the Boathouse and these rolls are sooo good! They are warm, soft and buttery.

For dessert we ordered another bucket list item, the key lime pie.

This pie is huge and definitely intended for two people. The key lime portion of it was very good. However, we would have liked more sweetness in the whipped cream to offset the tartness of the key lime. We prefer Blue Heaven in Key West or Columbia Restaurant’s pies. But still glad we tried it.

Even though we only ordered dessert Eddie provided excellent service and we made sure to compensate him well. We also added the Boathouse to the bucket list for a meal some time.

As we departed Disney Springs I once again felt a little sad that this would be the last time I was in WDW for a year…yet, once again, I was wrong, there was still much more Disney to come.

Total steps: 18478

Up next, a less than great first impression at our VRBO and an important lesson learned….

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

What a delicious food day. Yum!

 

[rdkeim]

Wow you fit a lot into your day! Looks like a lot of good food with a few misses. How fun you were able to pop into Epcot and then DS. Fun you rated your vacation ice cream - I love finding local ice cream shops when we travel. I'd say you had a great last WDW day!

 

[mickey916]

What a delicious food day. Yum!

It was yummy! Probably not the most nutritional though.

 

[mickey916]

Wow you fit a lot into your day! Looks like a lot of good food with a few misses. How fun you were able to pop into Epcot and then DS. Fun you rated your vacation ice cream - I love finding local ice cream shops when we travel. I'd say you had a great last WDW day!

We certainly fit a lot in. We actually rated all the sweet treats, savory snacks and restaurants as we went along. I plan to share the final rankings once the report is complete.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

It was yummy! Probably not the most nutritional though.

Eh…it’s vacation!

 

[mickey916]

Eh…it’s vacation!

I like the way you think!

 

[mickey916]

4/20 Arriving in Bradenton
​

After our great day in WDW, we made the drive to our next VRBO in Bradenton. Last year we drove around Bradenton and really liked the area, or at least that’s what we thought we did. So we decided to book a VRBO in Bradenton for 5 nights for this year’s trip and I searched “Bradenton” in VRBO and booked a Bradenton house with a pool.

What we didn’t know is that in Florida there is a difference between a town and that town’s name + “beach”. We never knew that Bradenton and Bradenton Beach were two different towns, same as Cocoa and Cocoa Beach, Ormond and Ormond Beach, etc. I know many of you are probably thinking “No kidding. We’ve always known that,” but for those like us who didn't realize that, you’re welcome. Lesson learned. We lucked out at our previous VRBOs because we wanted beachfront property so I had booked Ormond Beach and Cocoa Beach. Turns out this time I wanted Bradenton Beach not Bradenton. We actually ended up in W. Bradenton which I guess is a little better crime-wise than standard Bradenton.

Anyhow, our arrival to our VRBO wasn’t helped by the fact that, as we were driving, there was a large pick-up truck tailgating us the entire time. The truck actually followed us right into the neighborhood where we were staying and as we pulled into the driveway of the house, the truck stopped directly across the street. What happened next was truly bizarre. We sat in the car with the doors locked wondering why the truck appeared to follow us and stop across from us. But, actually it was just a coincidence. As the truck stopped we could see it was driven by a woman and out of the house across the street came a man who proceeded to open her driver’s side door and put his head in her lap. Since this is a family-friendly thread, let’s just say it appeared he was giving her quite the welcome.

Also as we pulled into the driveway we could see a bunch of security cameras all over the house we were staying in. We began to wonder “where exactly are we staying?”. I was honestly on the verge of a panic attack. This was the most expensive VRBO I booked and I didn’t even want to get out of the car.

My DH encouraged me to go in and see what we were facing.

The good news: It was very nice inside, much better than the outside looked. It had obviously been renovated. It had a nice kitchen, dining area, living room and two bedrooms.

The bad news: the floors were really sticky and the granite countertop in the kitchen was really greasy. I think the cleaning person perhaps had “Swiffered” the floor and maybe conditioned the granite leaving behind cleaning residue. It was very unpleasant. I washed down the countertop the best I could and the more we walked on the floor, the less sticky it got. The place did appear to be very clean however.

More bad news: We discovered as we showered that the tub didn’t drain properly. Each day it got worse to the point it wouldn’t drain at all a couple days into our trip. We ended up calling the host. He came right over and eventually fished out a t-shirt that someone had stuffed down the drain. To his credit, he was very responsive and it’s obviously not his fault that happened.

As an aside, the whole experience as we arrived made me second-guess my rental booking abilities and I woke up the first night worrying about our next stop at Fanning Springs. I had booked us a cabin for 5 nights and all of a sudden I couldn’t remember if I checked to see if there was a bathroom in the cabin. I went to the State Park website and couldn’t tell from there. One thing I did notice however on the Fanning Springs website was a notification that due to high water levels the springs were closed for activities until further notice…hmmm that didn’t sound great. I then watched a YouTube review and was relieved to see that there was in fact a bathroom/shower in the cabin. However the reviewer mentioned she was glad the porch was screened in due to so many mosquitoes. The whole reason we were going there was to enjoy the springs (which were closed) and also walk some paths (which I now feared would be full of mosquitoes)….definitely needed to sleep on things for a bit and consider a Plan B.

Up next enjoying nature on the Gulf Coast and making some adjustments to the itinerary.

 

[BellaBaby]

Enjoying your trip report! That was quite an experience with that truck following you and what happened next! Lol
Have you ever looked at FloridaRentals .com? You would book directly with the owner and save the high fees that VRBO charges.
Anyway, just a suggestion. Looking forward to reading more!

 

[mickey916]

Enjoying your trip report! That was quite an experience with that truck following you and what happened next! Lol
Have you ever looked at FloridaRentals .com? You would book directly with the owner and save the high fees that VRBO charges.
Anyway, just a suggestion. Looking forward to reading more!

It was definitely a very weird introduction to Bradenton! I've never heard of FloridaRentals.com. I'll check that out. Thanks for the tip and for following along.

 

[mickey916]

4/21 Robinson Preserve & DeSoto National Memorial
​

We survived our first night in Bradenton. We started our morning with breakfast in the lanai and then headed to the Robinson Preserve for a walk.

We spent the morning walking most of the trails. We made our way to the observation tower.

It was a pretty cool view.

After walking the preserve, we decided to have a picnic lunch of PB&J sandwiches at DeSoto National Memorial park. We ate our lunch and then walked the trails of that park too. It appears neither of us took any pictures.

For dinner we picked up salads again from Publix and ate them back at the house. I decided to check the Fanning Springs website to see if there was any update on the closure of the springs. Unfortunately they were still closed. I checked our reservation and discovered I was within our cancellation window with only a fee of $24.45 charged if I canceled soon. I suddenly had a brainstorm but decided first to see if it was possible before running it by my DH. I checked to see if our dates were available back at the Residence Inn Flamingo Crossing and not only were they available but I was able to get a AAA Hot Deal rate. I booked it just in case (fully refundable). Then, I suggested to my DH that since the springs were closed maybe we should just head back to Orlando and that I had already “temporarily” booked us a reservation just in case. He agreed! So, I went ahead and canceled our cabin and we both got very excited that we had more Disney in our near future and started discussing possible ADRs.
But, before then, we had a few more days to explore the Gulf Coast.

Total Steps: 14,951

Up next…a great day in Sarasota.

 

[mickey916]

4/22 Sarasota & Yoder's Restaurant
​

Last year on our roadtrip we didn’t get to spend much time in Sarasota due to spending most of our time at our niece’s graduation from Ringling so we were excited to explore the area this year.

We started our day at the Myakka River State Park. As we drove through the park, we parked at a spot near a bridge overlooking the river. There were lots of alligators visible from the bridge.

We walked the Canopy Walkway which is a walkway over the canopy of trees.

The walkway led to a 75’ observation tower with beautiful views.

We really enjoyed the Myakka River State park and will definitely go there again someday.

We discovered that the Ringling Art Museum had free admission on Mondays so we headed over to the Ringling to take a stroll around and enjoy the art. The collection was pretty extensive but we’re not really art aficionados so I don’t think we appreciated as much as others perhaps would have.

We took a walk through the beautiful grounds that had a section of rose gardens and made our way out to Ca’ D’Zan, the waterfront mansion of John and Mabel Ringling. We didn’t take a tour of the inside but the outside was very impressive (and check out that gorgeous blue sky!)

Since we were in full tourist mode, we drove to the Unconditional Surrender statue in Bayfront park in the downtown Sarasota waterfront.

This statue is 25 feet tall and was cool to see but seemed like an odd choice for Sarasota's waterfront. We walked around the bay for a bit to get in our steps.

For dinner, we decided to head to Yoder’s Restaurant in Pinecraft, an Amish neighborhood in Sarasota. We have traveled to the Lancaster, PA area countless times and have always enjoyed Amish cooking so we figured we’d give this a try.

My DH ordered the Roasted Turkey Breast & Stuffing: White meat turkey breast and homemade stuffing smothered in our made-from-stock gravy. He chose hot baked apples for his side.

He absolutely loved the hot baked apples but the rest of the meal he felt was just okay. The turkey wasn’t sliced turkey but rather shredded turkey like we used to get in the school cafeteria. My DH called it fine “wedding food”.

I ordered the quarter chicken meal with a baked potato and mac n cheese.

The chicken was pretty good (certainly not Chef Art Smith’s level). The baked potato was excellent. It was perfectly baked. The mac n cheese was flavorless, not really good at all. It’s saying something when I leave the majority of my mac n cheese behind.

Our server tried to convince us to order dessert but we were too full even though the desserts looked excellent. Eventually, she talked us into getting dessert to go. We ordered two pie slices.

First, we tried the chocolate peanut butter pie.

This was decent. It was a good chocolate cream pie with peanut butter.

The other pie was the special of the day, blueberry cheesecake pie.

It was basically a blueberry pie with whipped cream. We really didn’t taste anything “cheesecake” about it. It was okay but our server had really built it up. It didn’t quite match her description.

Overall, our meal was fine but nothing like the meals we’ve had in Lancaster, PA. Yoder’s ended up placing second to last on our ranking list of all the dinner restaurants on our vacation. It’s not that it was bad but we just had so many other better meals. (The restaurant that ended up in last place was really our only bad dinner on our trip, but that one is yet to come.)

Total steps: 15,871

Up next: a beach day at Siesta Key and a great dinner

 

[mickey916]

4/23 Siesta Key Beach, Owen's Fish Camp, Olaf's Ice Cream
​

We headed straight to Siesta Key Beach early in the morning to attempt to get a good parking spot and spot on the beach. Siesta Key is a beautiful white sand beach with shallow water that goes out gradually and not many waves. It is very much a family-friendly beach and has free parking too! The beach ended up getting pretty full but not unbearably crowded. We had a very relaxing day at the beach.

For late lunch/early dinner we headed back into Sarasota to try Owen’s Fish Camp.

Having recently tried jambalaya at Sassagoula and Cocoa Beach Fish Camp, DH ordered the Spicy Jambalaya w/Shrimp, Chicken, Andouille, Crawfish & Dirty Rice to see what Owen’s was like.

DH loved this meal and joined the “clean plate” club which is amazing because he’s never been a fan of shrimp and never eaten crawfish before. He thought it had great flavor and just the right amount of heat. The seafood was clearly very fresh since he definitely wouldn’t eat “fishy” fish. He ranked it just slightly under Cocoa Beach Fish Camp’s version but gave it an “A”.

I ordered the Shrimp & Grits with Spicy Smoked Sausage, a very similar dish with grits instead of rice and no crawfish.

I devoured mine as well. The shrimp were very fresh, the sausage spicy, and the grits were creamy and delicious!

We also ordered a side of garlic bread.

The bread was perfectly toasted, buttery, garlicky, and cheesy. It was the perfect accompaniment to our meals. We would highly recommend Owen’s Fish Camp if you’re ever in Sarasota. It's definitely a hidden gem, located in downtown Sarasota on a little side street.

For dessert we made our way to Olaf's Ice Cream in Siesta Village. We discovered that the minimum cost to park anywhere was at least $24 which seemed like a lot to get two dishes of ice cream. So, DH dropped me off in front of Olaf’s and then drove off to come pick me up later. I went in and ordered two scoops each in a cup: one of cookie butter ice cream and one of chocolate brownie. It was pretty hot out and as I was carrying it out to be picked up by DH it was dripping down my hands. Since my hands were full and sticky, I didn’t have a chance to take pictures. Overall the ice cream was just okay, sliding into second to last place above Tropic Ice Cream. The parking situation, melty ice cream, and sticky hands may have affected our judgment, but we always take the whole experience into account.

Overall it was a very relaxing day and we would definitely like to spend more time at Siesta Key beach.

Total Steps: 14,375

Up next: Our last full day on the Gulf Coast.

 

[BellaBaby]

Several years ago, I think 2008, we spent a week at Siesta Key Beach in a condo on the beach there. My kids were very young and it is very family friendly, as the sand doesn't get very hot and the water calm, as you said. Of course, since we were so close, we had to spend 1 day at MK! We also went to Sarasota Jungle Gardens and that was a nice excursion.
I can't believe it's $24 to park in Siesta Village! I don't remember anything like that back then, but wow, things have changed. I don't blame you for not parking! Lol

 

[mickey916]

Several years ago, I think 2008, we spent a week at Siesta Key Beach in a condo on the beach there. My kids were very young and it is very family friendly, as the sand doesn't get very hot and the water calm, as you said. Of course, since we were so close, we had to spend 1 day at MK! We also went to Sarasota Jungle Gardens and that was a nice excursion.
I can't believe it's $24 to park in Siesta Village! I don't remember anything like that back then, but wow, things have changed. I don't blame you for not parking! Lol

Sounds like a great vacation! Wish we knew about it when our kids were little. The parking was at least $12/hour but a minimum of 2 hours (it might have even been more). It was super busy and we found a lot that was a little cheaper (maybe $10/hr?) but it was full. We may have parked if we were shopping and getting dinner but it definitely wasn't worth it just for ice cream.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

I just found this TR. I remember you talking about it on the how many more days until your trip thread! Haha
How nice that your boys were able to join for a bit! My boys are similar in age. We haven’t been on vacation together since 2022. I know how special that is.
We are going to Disney in 2 weeks. I can’t wait to get the beignets at POFQ!!! My DH has never had them. I also didn’t know the Piccante pizza isn’t on the menu anymore. I can’t remember the last time we ate there it wasn’t that long ago- maybe last year. ???