Suggestions for TAMPA area, post cruise pls

[psbfan01]

We'll be disembarking the Carnival Legend on Sun 1/13/2013.

 

Our flight is not til 5pm so we have some time to spare and have rented a car, rather than sit around the airport.

 

Can anyone familiar with Tampa and surrounding area recommend some places of interest for sightseeing, activities, anything scenic, etc.?

 

We're also thinking about moving to FL someday and might try to go to some open houses. Would the local paper have listings?

 

I am guessing we'll spend some time in Ybor City and maybe drive over to Clearwater Beach. I'm aware of the aquarium but not especially interested.

 

Anyone have some suggestions? Also open to ideas for places to eat lunch. Hope you can kindly offer some advice. Thanks!

[Orlando Vic]

Our flight is not til 5pm so we have some time to spare and have rented a car, rather than sit around the airport.

 

Anyone have some suggestions? Also open to ideas for places to eat lunch. Hope you can kindly offer some advice. Thanks!

 

The Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City would be a good choice. http://www.columbiarestaurant.com/ybor.asp

[cardbucfan]

I live in Tampa fairly near the port so can answer your questions. Going over to Clearwater would be a waste of time in my opinion. I LOVE the beach but you are looking at a 45 minute drive from the port and depending how early you get over there, the traffic around the beach itself is horrendous.

 

The ship docks at Channelside right next door to the Aquarium. On the other side of Channelside is the new Tampa History center. It's modest but gives you a neat history of the area. Also downtown is the art museum and a children's museum (if you have kids with you). You can go to Ybor and walk around and get some lunch there. I know there is a Segway tour you can do that goes around downtown and down the Bayshore which is a linear park along the bay-quite beautiful. Branching out of downtown there are malls near the airport (Westshore and International-a little higher end there) as well as the Museum of Science and Industry but that's about 20 minutes north of the cruise terminal.

 

If you want to do open houses, get the Tampa Tribune. It's not much as a paper anymore (we get the Times) but it is more focused on Tampa vs. the Times and will give you open houses in the area. You will most likely want to concentrate on South Tampa with your timing and most open houses don't start until 1:00 so not sure how much you could see especially not being familiar with the area.

 

If you had more time here, I'd recommend going to Busch Gardens or down to the manatee viewing center in Apollo Beach-that's where I take all my out of town visitors!

 

Enjoy your cruise! We've sailed Legend before and are doing so again in March.

[Capt_BJ]

my 2 cents – you are trying to pack WAY too much into your time

 

1. Let’s assume you can be off the ship and in your rental car by 9am, which may not happen. What time do you plan to be at the airport for that 5pm flight, 4? Add any time to drop the car off? If it were me I’d be looking 3, but we’ll split the dif’ at 3:30 giving you 6 and a half hours. Factor in lunch at 1 hour & we’ve got 5 and a half to play with.

 

2. I just moved (back) to FL, well, retired here 5 years ago, and in my opinion you have nothing to gain by going to any open house’ yet. You want to get on the web and research neighborhoods and try to pick out a couple of areas where you might want to live. The greater Tampa area is HUGE especially if you include everything over St Pete way. You want to look at average costs and home age in neighborhoods. Deed restricted areas vs open; do you want to be near water? Ocean, Bay? Canal? Not to even begin to touch schools if that still applies, and crime. Once you pick a neighborhood or two you can use web realtor sites to pull up a TON about possible houses. When I flew down here to buy a house I had 5 really solid candidates all picked out and with only a few hours of “looking” bought one of the 5. Cold calling on open houses is just not the way to approach the problem anymore. Different story if you have done this research and have neighborhoods in hand but if that’s true you’ll use your avail’ time just driving thru these neighborhoods to get a feel. If you use the web you can find open houses that day in your target area. Being military I (we) moved a lot and I remember WELL just driving to a town and getting a map and a newspaper to try and find a house – a realtor was a REQUIREMENT! Now the web can nearly cut a realtor out of the equation. (I sold one house person to person with just a real estate att’rny drawing up papers. Total closing costs were $1500 – NO COMMISSIONS to pay) http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Tampa_FL?source=web

 

3. If I’m in Tampa and want a quick visit to the Gulf (I often had business there and would take others traveling with me over for a look see), I head to John’s Pass Village. About 25 miles from the pier or airport, lots of little shops, a boardwalk with places for lunch, and you can even walk over to the beach and stick your toes in the water. It is not highway all the way so I agree with an earlier post about the 45 minute drive each way. So 90 minutes of driving gives you 4 hours in John’s Pass which means you could venture around a few neighborhoods for a looksee if you wanted too. My parents lived near here for 10 years when they first retired to Florida in a nice little 2 bedroom, 2 car, 2 bath house – stucco over cinderblock, very quiet neighborhood minutes from shopping and 10 minutes from the beach. Nice lawn, fruit trees and a screened porch.

http://www.johnspass.com/

 

4. Ybor is nice but not 6 hours nice. There is a nice zoo at Lowry Park. There is a WWII Victory Ship Mus’m right next to the cruise piers.

http://www.americanvictory.org/

http://www.lowryparkzoo.com/

http://www.ybor.org/

 

 

My suggestions, Captain Brian

stationed in St Pete 78 – 80 and Port Canaveral 86 - 89

[SeaPA1]

I'll offer up another possibility. There's a new venture - only been open a few weeks, that has electric boats for rent; they are set up on the docks at the Tampa Convention Center, a couple of blocks away from the cruise terminals. The boats hold something like 10 or 12 passengers, and rent by the hour. From where they are docked, you could easily buzz around & see the waterside views of the city, the nice homes on Davis Island/Harbour Island, and go around the corner & upriver by the Uni of Tampa in an hour or so. If you wanted to kill a little more time, there's a nice little riverside restaurant/bar/grill (Ricks on the River) where you could have lunch.

 

http://www2.tbo.com/entertainment/life/2012/nov/02/2/mebizo1-electric-boat-rentals-launch-at-tampa-conv-ar-551621/

 

link is to an article in the Tampa Trib about the boat rental company.

 

http://eboatstampa.com/ is the boat company's website.

 

If you don't rent a car, there's a travel service company who will store your bags for a nominal fee (I think $9 for the day total, i.e.not per bag). www.destinationtampa.com I think is their website (that's just from memory). They have desks at each of the terminals.