Orlando or Pensacola?

Orlando has no beach of its own. The Atlantic at Cocoa Beach is an hour's drive and the Gulf near Clearwater nearer two, so the sea becomes a single day out, and the hotel pools and water parks do the daily swimming.

Pensacola is the opposite. Santa Rosa Island lies just across the bay, with miles of white quartz sand and clear green Gulf water along the national seashore. There are calm, shallow spots on the sound side for small children and quieter sand on Perdido Key to the west. On rough days, watch the rip-current flags.

Neither city is worth travelling to for the food, but they feed you in different ways. Orlando's strength is range: Vietnamese and other Asian kitchens in Mills 50, chef-led places in Winter Park and the country-by-country grazing of Epcot's World Showcase. You reach all of it by car from a corridor of chains and themed dining.

Pensacola's choice is narrower but more local. It runs on Gulf oysters, grouper, royal red shrimp and Creole-tinged gumbo eaten at casual tables by the water, with Palafox Street's Southern restaurants and breweries for evenings in town.

Pensacola has a real past to show, and Orlando mostly does not. The City of Five Flags keeps restored colonial and Victorian houses around the Seville district and Plaza Ferdinand. Add the brick bulk of Fort Pickens on the island and the vast National Naval Aviation Museum, and you have two or three full days.

Orlando's history is citrus groves and theme parks. Its best sight is the Tiffany collection at the Morse Museum in Winter Park. The museums in Loch Haven Park and downtown fill an afternoon, and the space story lies out on the coast.

Nights out are about the same size in both cities, but the setting differs. Orlando divides between the themed bars of Disney Springs and CityWalk, which close early, and a downtown along Orange Avenue where students keep the clubs busy late, plus gay bars in Ivanhoe Village and Mills 50. Pensacola has fewer clubs and a more relaxed, barefoot feel: pubs, rooftops and taprooms on Palafox Street and in Seville Quarter, sand-floored beach bars in summer and a rowdy old roadhouse on the state line.

Both lie in flat, watery country, but Pensacola has more of it close by. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers dunes, salt marsh, a bike path and dolphins in the sound. The Blackwater River is clear water for canoeing and tubing, and a sunken aircraft carrier offshore draws experienced divers.

Orlando's outdoors means inland springs and swamps: kayaking at Wekiwa Springs, manatees at Blue Spring in winter and airboat rides among the alligators. Its best birdwatching, at Merritt Island, is an hour away on the coast.

Orlando has the stronger list, led by the Kennedy Space Center an hour east. St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets, and Tampa's Ybor City or the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, each make a full day out, and Mount Dora is closer in.

From Pensacola the best outing is Mobile, for its antebellum streets and battleship museum, with Fairhope and Fort Morgan around the bay. Heading east brings Destin and Seaside, but they are beach towns much like home, so the choice runs out sooner. Either way, you drive.

This is where Orlando has no rival. Walt Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld and Legoland cover every age from toddlers to teenagers, and the resorts, character breakfasts and suites with bunk rooms are built around children. The price is heat, queues and the sheer scale of it all.

Pensacola suits a gentler beach week with the family. It has shallow water on the sound side, condos with kitchens, planes at the naval aviation museum, the Blue Angels, the tunnels of Fort Pickens and a zoo. Children expecting rides will be disappointed.

You need a car in both, but Pensacola is the easier of the two. Its downtown around Palafox Street and the historic district is easy to walk, and a trolley runs along the beach strip in season, though the island, the naval air station and Perdido Key are all drives apart.

Orlando spreads out along Interstate 4 and its toll roads, with heavy traffic around the parks and pavements that are not made for walking. The exception is staying on-site, where Disney's monorail, boats and gondolas and Universal's water taxis let a family manage without a car.

For anyone after brands, Orlando is a real reason to go: two premium outlet centres, the luxury labels at the Mall at Millenia and park merchandise at Disney Springs, with Park Avenue in Winter Park for boutiques. Pensacola has a handful of independent and antique shops on Palafox Street, a Saturday market with local crafts and a standard mall, which fills an hour rather than a day.

Pensacola is easier on the wallet. Rooms in town cost noticeably less than on the beachfront, and prices on the island drop sharply out of season. Casual seafood is reasonably priced, the naval aviation museum is free and the seashore costs little.

Orlando's rooms away from the parks, along International Drive and in Kissimmee, are fairly priced. But tickets for several park days, express passes, parking and meals inside the parks add up fast, and school-vacation weeks push everything higher. In both cities, remember to budget for a hire car.

Both cities have modest stages, but of different kinds. Orlando's Dr. Phillips Center takes touring Broadway shows and the Philharmonic, Orlando Shakespeare Theater plays in Loch Haven Park and the spring Fringe festival has a long history, though most visitors see the polished park shows, fireworks and the resident acrobatic show at Disney Springs instead. Pensacola brings its symphony, opera and ballet together in the restored 1925 Saenger Theatre, a handsome setting for a night out on a regional scale.

Neither city has a spa tradition, so rest has to come from somewhere else. In Orlando that means resort pools, lazy rivers and full hotel spas around Lake Buena Vista, used to recover between tiring park days, or the lakes and quiet streets of Winter Park. In Pensacola it is the pace itself: out of season, the island and the quiet stretches of Perdido Key are slow, uncrowded places to switch off.