Cocoa Beach or Orlando?

Cocoa Beach is the beach itself: pale, firm sand along the whole barrier island, surfboards on car roofs and lifeguarded stretches by the pier and town parks. Wilder sand lies a short drive north towards the Cape and south towards Satellite Beach.

Orlando is inland, and its guests swim mainly in hotel pools and water parks. Many of them drive out to Cocoa Beach itself for a day on the sand, while the calmer, clearer Gulf beaches around Clearwater are nearer two hours away.

Orlando eats better, though you have to drive to find it: Vietnamese kitchens in Mills 50, chef-led rooms and farmers' markets in Winter Park and Audubon Park, steak houses on Sand Lake Road, and Epcot's country pavilions for grazing.

Cocoa Beach keeps to fried and grilled fish, Port Canaveral rock shrimp, fish tacos and raw bars at dockside grills along the Banana River. It is a good plate after a day in the sun, but not a place to plan meals around.

Neither is a culture trip, but Orlando at least has the Morse Museum in Winter Park, with its great Tiffany collection and chapel interior, plus the art museums of Loch Haven Park. Cocoa Beach has the pier and, its real draw, rocket launches rising from Cape Canaveral, best watched from the sand.

Orlando offers a proper late night: downtown bars and clubs around Orange Avenue and Wall Street Plaza filled by a big student crowd, gay bars in Ivanhoe Village, and the easier themed bars of Disney Springs and CityWalk.

Cocoa Beach goes out on beach-bar decks with cover bands near the pier, louder in spring break but mostly finished well before the small hours.

Cocoa Beach has the richer outdoors on its doorstep. Kayakers paddle among manatees and dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon and through glowing plankton on summer nights, Merritt Island and Canaveral National Seashore are a short drive north, and the beach breaks are among the steadiest on the east coast for learning to surf.

Orlando's nature means springs and swamps: kayaking at Wekiwa Springs, winter manatees at Blue Spring, airboats across the Kissimmee headwaters and long paved rail trails. That same wildlife refuge is an hour's drive away.

The two are broadly level here, sharing the same headline, the Kennedy Space Center, which is half an hour from Cocoa Beach and an hour from Orlando. Cocoa Beach adds historic Cocoa Village, Titusville's museums and theme-park days inland.

Orlando sits better for the rest of Florida: St Augustine's Spanish fort, Tampa's Ybor City and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg are each under two hours away, with Mount Dora and DeLand for gentler outings.

Orlando is built around children as no other place is: the Disney parks and their resorts, Universal for older children and teenagers, SeaWorld, Legoland, dinner shows and science centres, plus stroller rental and bunk-room suites. The challenge is planning around heat, queues and scale.

Cocoa Beach is the simpler, gentler option, with a wide lifeguarded beach, surf lessons, condos with pools and the space centre, but children who need more than sand will soon be heading inland.

Both need a car, but Cocoa Beach is the easier base. It is one long strip, so the sand is a short walk and a bicycle covers downtown and the pier, though the refuge, the space centre and Orlando's airport an hour away all mean driving.

Orlando spreads its parks, hotels and downtown along Interstate 4 and its toll roads, with streets not made for walking and heavy traffic at peak times. Only families staying inside the Disney or Universal resorts, with their monorail, boats and buses, can manage without a car.

Orlando is a real shopping destination for brands, with premium outlets on International Drive and Vineland Avenue, the luxury labels at the Mall at Millenia and park merchandise at Disney Springs. Park Avenue in Winter Park adds galleries and boutiques.

Cocoa Beach is surf culture alone: a famous round-the-clock surf store, local board shapers and beachwear shops, with Cocoa Village's boutiques across the causeway.

Both come at full American prices with tipping, and neither is cheap. In Orlando, multi-day park tickets, express passes and in-park meals drive the bill, though off-site rooms on International Drive and in Kissimmee are fair. Cocoa Beach is cheaper day to day, with motels and older condos, but a hire car, the space centre ticket and launch-weekend rates still add up.

Orlando has proper stages: touring Broadway and the Orlando Philharmonic at the Dr. Phillips Center, Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Loch Haven Park and a long-running spring fringe festival, besides the polished park shows and fireworks.

Cocoa Beach offers cover bands on beach decks, with a community playhouse in Cocoa Village and a regional arts centre in Melbourne for the occasional evening out.

Neither has a spa tradition, and they relax in different ways. Cocoa Beach offers a slow pace for free, with early walks on the sand, river sunsets and quiet weekdays. Orlando's calm has to be booked, in the full spas and lazy rivers of the Lake Buena Vista resorts or the lakeside streets of Winter Park, as a rest between park days.