I filled out the online form.  I went to my local Sheriff's Dept for the print card, which they did.  Now I'm ready to mail that in.

Re-reading their fingerprint requirements; do they not accept standard FBI fingerprint cards?  sorta seems like they want you to have them mail you one of theirs.  

Does anyone here have any personal experiences with the FL permitting process?

I called there agriculture dept. They mailed me a packet with all nessasary forms and a print card.sent back with belive was 100 dollar fee. 6 weeks later they mailed my permitt
They do want to see a nra or equal handgun qualifications certificate
All and all easy prosses

I might need to call them then.  My local Sheriff Dept uses the electronic fingerprint machine that prints on the standard FBI fingerprint card.  Theirs might not be compatible with the printer, and the locals might not have the setup for ink anymore.

Their website says they accept the DD214 in lieu of the NRA cert.

Do yourself a favor and read Florida statutes if you visit and carry, you'll have some inkling on the laws here. Carrying is one thing, knowing the laws is another.
Things may have changed now but in the past, Florida people going through the police academies, were not instructed on gun laws, and there are a lot out here that have no clue what is allowed or not allowed. Be prepared.

Thanks.  I'm getting FL because I may be driving cross country in the future and FL gets me a lot of states.  I doubt I'll be in FL any time soon.

I'm mostly concerned about getting the CWP, and how prickly they are about the fingerprint card.

You will need their card. They will mail it to you and they do mail out quite quickly. Make sure you get it done at a police station and they fill out the info correctly and you should be good to go. And don't forget the picture.
When I did it, I actually ask for 3 cards incase one got damaged.

Good luck with the hard copy card.
There is a problem with those if, like me, you are hard to fingerprint.
The card cannot be determined to be readable until someone tries to read it.
That means the entity on the receiving end.

I'm worried about my FL renewal because for me, the cards are pretty useless.

When I got my original FL CW/FL, I got it in FL and they used an electronic printer which is brilliant because the printer itself can verify whether or not a good print is made.  I had to do several of my digits several times before the machine beeped "Good".

Same thing happened when I was fingerprinted for work.  It took several attempts, but the electronic machine used there also finally beeped, "Good".

Same problem encountered for my Utah CFP.  I submitted a hard copy card and it got rejected as, "Unreadable".
I submitted another card and I never found out if that card was good or not.  For Utah, the rules only state that "two attempts to fingerprint must be made".
Doesn't say anything about whether or not that second attempt must actually result in a readable card!

I expect that my FL renewal (which fortunately isn't up for several more years) will require another trip down to the Sunshine State.  Not the worst outcome as I have friends there, fortunately.

I really hate the whole phone call thing- phone maze, talk to the machine, press this number for that office, etc., so I decided to email them instead.

The Commissioner's email is on the website, so I emailed my question to her.
The next morning I received a response from one of her deputies, who said he would be forwarding my question to someone else in the department.
Later that morning while I was away from my desk I got a phone call, and the guy left a voice mail.

He said the standard FBI fingerprint card was fine, as long as it passes muster when they send it to the FBI.  The locals here use the fancy electronic scanner, which will only accept a 'good' print, and then prints those on the card.

It went in the mail yesterday.  I'll update when I hear something.

If your local Sheriff's Dept. prints out from an electronic scanner then you're golden.
My problem was that for my Utah CFP class the guy doing the fingerprinting used the old school ink pad and card.................doesn't work for me.

Then, my second card I sent out to Utah was another old school ink pad & card print set that I got done at my local Sheriff's Dept.

Hopefully, when my next print card is due for my FL CW/FL renewal, maybe my local Sheriff's Dept will have upgraded to an electronic scanner and I won't have any more problems.

For my Utah CFP renewal, I didn't need to submit any more fingerprints.........thank God!

After all the issues I had had, I can tell you it was a relief when after completing my application for my FL CW/FL and I pointed my car out of FL for my trip home, I knew for sure that a valid print set was on its way to Tallahassee.  

They cashed my two checks and I haven't gotten any notice that I did anything wrong, so it appears to be moving through the system.

Update!

My FL CWP arrived in the mail today.

STATS:

63 calendar days, or 44 business days since I filled out the online form.
56 calendar days, or 39 business days since mailing the fingerprint card.  This is a better number because I filled out the online form then waited a week or so before getting the fingerprint card in the mail.

So that's how long it takes, and gets you 31 or 32 states of carry.

Check out Arizona's CCW permit as well.  Florida gets you a lot of states if you are a resident of Florida.  
Arizona's non resident permit gets you more states.  I got mine in under two weeks of submission and was only $60.

If I had known....

Well, it looks like they get the same states, so not a big deal.  

Does a current NRA certified instructor certificate work for training document, since I'm certified to teach thie class?