A spare day in Tampa before your cruise

Arriving the day before you sail is the single best piece of cruise advice there is. The happy accident for Tampa passengers is that the city you are killing time in is a good one, and the port sits in the middle of it rather than on an industrial spur forty minutes out of town.

Almost everything below is within two miles of the cruise terminals.

Start where you are: the Channel District

The neighbourhood wrapped around the terminals has become a proper destination in the last decade rather than somewhere you merely park.

Sparkman Wharf is the anchor — a waterfront collection of food stalls in converted shipping containers, with a beer garden and lawn seating looking out over the channel. It is a low-effort dinner the night before, especially with a group who cannot agree on cuisine, and it is a short walk from the Channel District hotels.

The Florida Aquarium sits a few minutes from the piers. It is a genuinely good aquarium rather than a time-filler, and it is the best option here if you are travelling with children who need to burn off a flight.

The Riverwalk

The Tampa Riverwalk runs about two and a half miles along the Hillsborough River from the Channel District up past downtown to Armature Works. It is flat, paved, shaded in stretches and lined with the things you would want it to be lined with.

Walking the whole thing takes roughly an hour each way at an amble. If that is more than you want, the water taxi service that runs along the river lets you do one leg on foot and the other on the water.

Along the way:

• Tampa Museum of Art and the Glazer Children’s Museum, next to one another in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.
• Armature Works at the northern end — a restored industrial building now holding a food hall, with a lawn on the river.
• Ulele, a restaurant next to Armature Works with a spring running through the property and a menu built around Florida ingredients.

Ybor City

Ybor is Tampa’s most distinctive neighbourhood and the one most worth the short trip. Founded in the 1880s as a cigar-manufacturing district by Cuban, Spanish and Italian immigrants, it kept its brick streets, wrought-iron balconies and — unusually — a population of feral chickens that wander the sidewalks under local protection.

It is about two miles from the cruise terminals, and the TECO Line Streetcar connects the two directly. The streetcar has run fare-free for several years, though you should check the current position before relying on it.

What to do there:

• Columbia Restaurant, open since 1905 and claiming to be Florida’s oldest. It occupies most of a block, and the flamenco show in the evenings is a proper one.
• Cigar shops where the rolling still happens on the premises.
• Seventh Avenue, the main strip, which is a pleasant walk by day and a loud one by night.

Ybor at lunchtime is a very different proposition from Ybor at eleven at night. If you are sailing the next morning, go for the afternoon.

If you have a full day

Busch Gardens is about eight miles north — a serious theme park with a strong roller coaster collection and an animal park attached. It is a full day, not a half day, and it is only sensible if you have arrived two nights early.

The Dalí Museum in St Petersburg holds the largest collection of Salvador Dalí’s work outside Europe, in a building worth seeing on its own account. It is across the bay, roughly a forty-minute drive over the Gantt and Howard Frankland bridges — and yes, this is the same bay your ship will sail out through.

The beaches are the other side of St Petersburg: Fort De Soto, St Pete Beach, Clearwater. Allow an hour each way and be realistic about whether you want that on the day before you board.

Eating

Tampa’s food scene rewards a little planning.

• Bern’s Steak House is the city’s institution — a famous wine list running to thousands of bottles, and a separate upstairs dessert room. Book well ahead; walk-ins on a Friday are not happening.
• Ulele on the Riverwalk, for Florida ingredients done properly.
• Columbia in Ybor, for the room as much as the food.
• Sparkman Wharf, for something quick and outdoors near the terminals.
• The Cuban sandwich is a Tampa claim, not a Miami one, and locals will tell you the difference is the salami. Try one and form a view.

Getting around

The TECO Line Streetcar links the Channel District, downtown and Ybor City on a single route, which covers most of what is in this guide.

Rideshare is plentiful and cheap over these distances. If you are staying in the Channel District you will not need a car at all, which is worth remembering before you rent one and then pay to park it.

A sensible day-before plan

1. Land at Tampa International in the morning; drop bags at a hotel near the port.
2. Streetcar to Ybor City for lunch at Columbia and a wander down Seventh Avenue.
3. Streetcar back; walk a stretch of the Riverwalk in the late afternoon.
4. Dinner at Sparkman Wharf or, if you booked ahead, Bern’s.
5. Early night. Check your terminal number and your check-in window before bed.

The next morning you have a walk of a few minutes to the ship instead of a flight to worry about — which was the point of arriving early in the first place.

Check the schedule to see what is sailing on your dates, and the terminal guide for where to turn up.