Ben T Davis Beach — Attraction in Tampa

All-in-all a nice little beach, particularly if you like biking or hanging out at Whiskey Joe's 1st trip as Tampa resident on a summer weekend. Parking -55cents/hour. The machine takes coins/credit. Arrived around 8am and the machine ate $2.20 w/o giving me receipt or recourse. The machine guy arrived 9am, but no help. LESSON 1: Watch to see other users get their printed receipt or test the machine w/1hr before much money in.. particularly before 9:15am. I had rushed to get there to park before a crowd, but found out that there was plenty of parking throughout the day. NO need to rush. Knowing "Florida Man" (a sort of bad national joke), I was kinda leery about walking the narrow and not-so-long beach early alone, and wished I carried my pepper spray, but no problems, and I could've gone over to the nicely paved bike/walking path for more security. Speaking of security, there is no office there. I did see 2 Security officers walking about at one point, but lack of an office has it's drawbacks. I'm sure the guy who lost his fancy IPhone near my car would agree with that. As others mention, it is a crushed shell kind of sand. You may need to endure some Latino music as the cars in the lot aren't far off and.. The bike pathway has numbers of nice amenities.. swinging benches, an air pump, bbq areas, etc. The small concession stand is nothing to rave about, so bring your own soda, etc. or there's Whiskey Joe's. Getting to the beach from my area of Tampa was easy enough..there's several stop lights before getting forced to go over the bridge, but I sure wish I had planned my way back as I quickly faced a tangle of highways, and got lost due to orientation/timing/safety constraints. LESSON 2:...

PLEASE READ. A PARENTS POINT OF VIEW. Grew up in area. Little has been done to this beach. Still see remnants of nightly shenanigans. There’s always trash and glass on beach. Locals treat this beach horribly. Years ago, this was a hang out at night. I have to say, It’s is a good beach to lay out and a good place for the kids because the water is shallow way out. It’s like a huge kiddie pool. In most occasions, you can go 50 feet out and the water is under your kneecaps. If you keep the kids near the water, it’s not that bad I guess. There’s a lot of small broken sea shells everywhere, but nothing special. It’s just the beach seems dirty compared to the rest. As I’m typing my review, my daughter found glass AGAIN, while getting shells. When you leave, you look so forward in getting your kids bathed. The only reason I revisited, was because I was hoping the city made improvements and I promised my daughter sea shell picking. I understand that all beaches have debris, but this is the worse around by far. Again, this is from a 48 year old that grew up here. For the locals, you know what to expect. For the tourists, keep driving to Clearwater Beach. Please take my advice. Also, the beach is very small. It costs about $ .50 per hour to park, and a place to fish nearby, but it’s rocky. I hope this lengthy review helped. It is beyond me how anyone can rate this beach higher than 2 stars. Yes, it’s the closest to Tampa, but they’re so many beautiful beaches to choose...

"I need beach therapy" my mom's shirt reads, as we did did a drive by to take my beach-loving/beach-obsessed mom here hoping it was decent... Seriously she dreams in palm trees and beaches, she wanted a nice place to rest her hardworking, Midwestern self. This was disappointing. +There is a building (with a ramp) up to the bathrooms. (Something I was concerned about, glad they're there, and with accessibility for people with mobility problems) But this beach is tiny, dirty, and smelly, and on the Bay where all the overflow of sewage runs off into. And for this tiny, sad beach, you have to pay to park? I wouldn't go in to the poopy water. If you've got time, go to Clearwater Beach. IF you do go quick to see the Bay, perhaps after landing at Tampa International Airport, it's fine as a Lil stop just to pop by, I by no means would spend all day here as a "Beach Day". Like I said there are bathrooms to use and change your clothes in, but I did not see any showers or anything (like Clearwater Beach has) to rinse off IF you choose to swim here, which I wouldn't. Bacteria levels reach unsanitary levels here and can cause serious illness.

Pass. Sadly. It was so close location-wise. SO hopeful... So close.. Yet...