Florida Road TripFebruary 5 - 8, 2026
After enjoying 4-nights on the Rise and Rhythm Cruise, we finished off the rest of the week by doing a road trip through Central Florida and the Tampa region. I just love visiting quirky road side attractions.
Things I Really Enjoyed
- FloridaRAMA: FloridaRAMA is an artistic exhibit that celebrates Flordia through psychedelic lights, detailed dioramas, and anything else that came to the creative minds of the artists.
- Presidents Hall of Fame: This small attraction contains wax figures of presidents and first ladies along with informative videos and panels. The crown jewel of this attraction is the very detailed model of the White House.
- Three Sisters Springs: I was finally able to see a manatee in the wild. In fact, I saw hundreds of them because the manatees congregate in these clear waters during the winter months.
- Holiday Inn Express & Suites Clermont SE – West Orlando: When booking this hotel, we did not realize that it is on the grounds of the Summer Bay Resort. Our booking gave us access to all of the resort's amenities.
Things I Would Do Differently
- Nothing
Trip Report
The debarkation process in Tampa from the Norwegian Jewel went smoothly. We had enjoyed a fun-filled 4-night music cruise aboard the ship. Now it was time for the second part of our vacation - the road trip. We had been to Florida many times and had already done the major attractions such as Disney, Kennedy Space Center, and the Everglades. This road trip would focus on the attractions about which we don't hear much.
We took a Lyft from the Tampa cruise terminal to the Tampa airport where we rented a car. We then drove to St. Petersburg (a.k.a St. Pete), Florida to check into the St. Petersburg Marriott Clearwater. It was 11 AM when we arrived but, unlike when we arrived at the Holiday Inn before the cruise, we did not have to wait until after 3 PM to check into our room (#9091).
The hotel has a concierge lounge that serves light meals throughout the day: breakfast, snacks, dinner, and evening desserts. We were able to take advantage of this because of our Platinum status in the Marriott loyalty program. We visited the lounge shortly after checking in to get some snacks and drinks before getting on the road to visit our first attraction.
Our first stop was a fascinating attraction that was different than other attractions that I have seen during many years of travel. It was called FloridaRAMA. It is tucked away in an artistic neighborhood in St. Pete. FloridaRAMA is a set of psychedelic artistic creations made from L.E.D.'s and odd collections of materials. Regardless of the material used, all the exhibits celebrate Florida.
FloridaRAMA is on the pricey side. You are looking at at least $30 per person just to walk around and see the exhibits. Traci and I decided to pay a little extra for the "Date Package" which came to a total of $71 for the two of us. This package included candy, special effect glasses, and a sheet of paper containing a scavenger hunt with a chance to win a prize.
We watched a short video about FloridaRAMA and then entered. The place is really amazing. There are artistic light displays everywhere you turn. There are dioramas, a motel replica, a everglades model, a room of spoons, optical illusions, and more... One of my favorites was an exhibit that looked like the bridge of space ship. On its screens were video games that you could play. I loved the catchy electronic music that played in the background of this exhibit. Another interesting exhibit was the room of spoons. A cashier told us that there is a real metal spoon among the hundreds of plastic ones attached to the walls. The challenge is to find it. We were not able to find it but had fun trying.
The "date package" that we purchased was not really worth it. The special effects glasses that we were given simply made any light source you looked at appears as though there was a heart surrounding it. You did not need to be inside FloridaRAMA to see this. The scavenger hunt confused us. We were given a piece of paper containing riddles for a solving scrambled word puzzle. Traci and I thought that this was related to the scavenger hunt. We later found out from an employee that the word puzzle had nothing to do with the scavenger hunt. The hunt was to simply find the little stuffed alligators that are hidden within the various exhibits. At the end of the hunt, we took our paper to a cashier that handed us two stickers that did not seem to have anything to do with FloridaRAMA. Despite this, I would recommend a visit to FloridaRAMA if in the area. We also had a look around the vintage record store attached to FloridaRAMA. You can actually buy vinyl records there.
We returned to the hotel where we had a light dinner at the complimentary concierge lounge. The food was mainly finger food and salad. It served the purpose of relieving our hunger. We returned later for dessert.
The next morning, we had a nice complimentary breakfast at the hotel and then hit the road for some sightseeing. This day did not go as we had planned. The first challenge we encountered was our attempt to get to the Presidents Hall of Fame attraction. Somehow, I grabbed the wrong address from a Florida attractions website. We drove about two hours and ended up in downtown Orlando. After realizing we were at the wrong address, we checked the web to get the correct address which ended up causing us to backtrack almost 40 minutes. Whew!
We arrived at the Presidents Hall of Fame in Clermont, Florida. This roadside attraction has charm and was quite impressive. It contains life-size wax figures of U.S. presidents and first ladies from George Washington up to President Trump (1st term). The creators of the museum died in 2020; therefore, there is no wax figure of President Biden. The wax figures range from decent to really good. I was caught off guard when President Obama slowly began turning his head! There was another interesting moment when I was waiting for some visitors to move along so that they would not be in the photo that I was waiting to take. After waiting a minute or so, I finally realized that those who I thought were museum visitors were actually wax figures!
In addition to the was figures, there is a very impresseive model of the White House in the center of the museum. The detail is astounding. There are also dioramas, educational films, and period furniture throughout this attraction. It is amazing that they manage to squeeze so much interesting stuff in the small museum. You can walk through it 30 minutes or less. On the other hand, you could spend hours examining all there is to see there.
As nice as this attraction is, there was not-so-great aspect to our visit. Initially, Traci and I were the only visitors. I paid the cashier for entry. He followed us into the museum and began telling us information about the displays. This was a pleasant surprise because I did not know our tickets came with a guided tour. Then things started to take a wrong turn. I am not a historian but I was not convinced that the information that the guide was sharing was accurate. It was at this point that the guide had to leave us to tend to a family that was standing at the register waiting to buy tickets. He spent a lot of time guiding the family. This was good because Traci and I preferred to experience the place on our own after hearing the questionable information we were given. Traci and I encountered the man a little later. This time he wanted to share his opinion on news events. His ideas sounded like conspiracy theories to me. He seemed to get a little defensive when I told him this. I was not interested interested in a political debate - especially not while the country was so politically divided at the time. Traci and I moved on. Despite this, we really enjoyed our visit to the Presidents Hall of Fame.
Due to getting a late start, using the wrong directions, and spending more time at the Presidents Hall of Fame than we planned, we decided to postpone our visit to the second planned attraction until the next day. We left the museum and drove to the hotel that we had chosen for this leg of the trip - so we thought. We went to check in at the Holiday Inn Express Clermont which was located less than a mile from the Presidents Hall of Fame. We were a bit shocked when the receptionist could not find our reservation. Traci pulled out her phone to verify she had made a reservation. It was then that she discovered the problem. She had booked the Holiday Inn Express Clermont SE - West Orlando! Oops. The receptionist informed us that we would need to drive an additional 30 minutes to reach that hotel. These type of travel mistakes are uncharacteristic for Traci and me but I am so glad that we had enough wiggle room in our itinerary to just roll with them. Continue...
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