1

Sports are basketball, hockey and baseball.

Pro basketball:
Orlando Magic
Miami Heat

Pro hockey:
Tampa Bay Lightning
Florida Panthers (play in Sunrise, near Fort Lauderdale)

Pro baseball:
Tampa Bay Rays
Miami Marlins
April 1 (the day after Easter) is the start of the season, but there should be a couple preseason games the few days before.

You could also consider college sports:
University of Miami
University of Florida (Gainesville)
University of South Florida (Tampa)
Florida State (Tallahassee)
There are more, but those are the main ones.

Each has a website where you can buy tickets.
Also see FAQ 251.

2

Florida is a big state, and the main cities (Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville) are spread out and fairly different from one another. Where exactly are you going in Florida, or is that also flexible?

3

Theme parks are mostly concentrated in Orlando. Florida is a big state with many other places. Consider skipping Orlando altogether if you're not interested in theme parks, and flying to Miami, then heading south to the Keys while checking out the Everglades.

4

Unless you go to Orlando, where the majority of theme parks are, you dont need to worry about mouse ears, as most of Florida is all about the beaches, golf, tennis, fishing, and vacations.

The Gulf Coast, is the most family oriented and has the best beaches, there are 4 areas to consider, there is the Panhandle, this includes the Destin/Seaside areas, ranked best sand in the world, white like sweet n low sugar. Though Destin is a popular spring break destination, for both High School and College kids, as well as families with vacation residences. Further east/south, its a more sophisticated crown and luxury homes in Grayton Beach and Seaside (the movie Truman with Jim Carreu was filmed there) its a planned community.

Here is a link to that area.

http://30a.com/

http://www.destinto30a.com/

The next area is the Tampa/St Petersburg area, this popular as well for spring break and easter, both Floridians and out of state folks base here as it has nice marinas for the sailboats and fishing boats, and nice beaches, and a somewhat party atmosphere.

Just south of here, is the really pretty and gentile area of Sarasota, this is mainly condos, resorts and homes, with Longboat Key/Siesta Key and Captiva on the nice end, a lot of people from the Midwest come here for winter, and then you have a more inexpensive but very area of Bradenton and Homes Beach/Ana Maria island.

Most of this coast people rent a condo or a home, hotels are around but either high end resorts or more old school 60's...

South of here you have Naples, and also Marco island, more of the same, a tad more exclusive. The finest areas on the coast, as far as luxury and atmosphere, are Seaside, Longboat/Captiva, Naples.

On the Atlantic side, you have the vibrant and latin influenced South Beach Miami, and Key West to the south, know for its diving and fishing. Miami has the a great art district and the art deco areas are very nice to stroll. Key Biscayne is also mostly residential (retired)

Going up the coast is really a mix of high end wealth and typical beaches, with Boca Raton, Palm Beach areas very exclusive, mainly east coast NY money, then you have Daytona and Ft Lauderdale, the spring break headquarters from 1960-2000, then everyone had enough if the run down area and headed mainly to the Gulfside as it was all newly built on the late 80's forward. Also on this coast is Cape Canaveral (Space launches) and also St Augustine, then the Sawgrass/PonteVedra area, home of the PGA Golf championships. Jacksonville is basically a huge naval port more than anything, and cargo shipping.

The only redeeming quality of Orlando is the Winter Park area, a nice small town with the main street lined with great cafes and surrounded by lakes and parks, old moss trees. Tallahassee is the capital, its cool as the University is there. Panama City is a dump IMO, the Ft Lauderdale of the gulf, and Pensacola is okay, has a historic district thats fun, but mainly the area is all Navy/Army folks with two major bases there.

So, not sure what your looking for, but there is something for everyone, a great place to enjoy a beach vacation for sure.

5

thanks for the speedy replies, people! The accommodation we have is in Orlando (staying with another family) but we are not tied there, so we can go wherever - we just will start and finish in Orlando. Tampa/St Petes sounds good, and also ties in with some of the sports. I am looking forward to trying a corn-dog!

6

Miami is 4 hours from Orlando. Key West is another 4 hours south from there with the Everglades and other Keys in between. I would focus on this area vs. Tampa.

7

Perfect kids ages for mouse ears activity

8

There is also:

http://www.orlandojaialai.com/jai_alai_entries

http://goflorida.about.com/od/allaboutflorida/a/greyhoundrace.htm

http://espnwwos.disney.go.com/

9

SH: "the really pretty and gentile area of Sarasota"...not many Jews there?

10

The kids might like the Kennedy Space Center