Beach near Disney

[ljv1975]

We are begining to plan our trip for next year and we want to go to the beach for 2 or 3 days before we head onto Disney.

It looks like Cocoa Beach is the closest to Disney. Would you recommend this beach or should we look into another one? Also, I would really appreciate any suggestions on hotels that are clean and kid-friendly - preferably oceanfront. Thanks!!

[buzznwoodysmom]

We just spent 3 nights at Disney's Vero Beach resort prior to a WDW vacation this month and loved it. It is the most relaxing, quiet, peaceful place. It is less than 2 hours from WDW. We really enjoyed our time there and can't wait to return. There you have a beautiful resort right on the beach with top notch disney CMs, a wonderful beach, a character breakfast, lots of children's activities, mickey shaped pool with an awesome slide, and Mickey ice cream bars. You can't get any better than that! My entire family highly recommends it!

[CanadianWDWFan]

We did Cocoa Beach a couple of summers back before one of our visits. We liked the beach and area just fine. We stayed at the Holiday Inn with Kid Suites. The hotel was well suited for kids, but is a rather large resort. When we were there there was a huge band gathering going on. So the pool was busy but the beach was empty. Go figure.

[DisneyDog]

We stayed in Cocoa one time when we went to Kennedy Space Center. There was a high school baseball team staying on the floor above us. Ugh! I didn't like the beach, as it was very not a typical white sandy beach. It was difficult to walk on. There wasn't a lot to do in Cocoa, other than the Ron Jon shop (which was cool).

I recommend going the other way -- to the West Coast. The beaches are nicer and it's quieter, not so honky tonk.

[Mulan]

We've done both coasts on many vacations. We like going to the Cocoa Beach area because the waves are bigger and it's close to the Disney Cruise ships. But our first pick is on the gulf side. It's really not that much further; we've done beach and Disney in the same trip before. We usually stay in St. Petes Beach at the Tradewinds Island Grand. It's a wonderful resort with four pools, tennis courts, on site restuarants (around 7 of them--even a Pizza Hut), all rooms have microwaves and fridges. The best part is they are right on the beach and they have an amazing kid club program.