I did my PPL with EFT last October but I sat all of my written exams plus the RT practical before going. I would definitely recommend that you try to do this if possible. If not all exams then at least get some of them out of the way. As mentioned already, some of the exams are a bit harder with no practical experience but it is possible to pass them all and this really takes a huge weight off your shoulders when you get to Florida for the fun flying part.
There were quite a few people training at the same time as me who were locked in their rooms studying every night and stressing out about the written exams for the first week of their training. I am glad I was not one of them.
As far as ground school, I self studied for the most part. I was living in Sweden at the time but was doing a UK PPL so I ended up flying to Wales to do all of my exams over 3 days with Cambrian Aero Club (
PPL Ground Programme2). The course included some training material which I was sent in advance. This basically consisted of a set of flash card style print-outs which covered all the important bits from the theory books but cut out all the fluff and were very helpful for me. Prior to each exam a revision session was held to cover some last minute important items and to give me a chance to question anything I hadn't understood from my self study. Again this was very helpful as I did all this prior to getting in an airplane. The length of these revision sessions was dependent on how comfortable I was with a particular exam and it was all pretty flexible to suit me (we didn't stick strictly to the agenda in the URL I included above).
Obviously there were costs associated with my trip to the UK, accommodation in Wales and the course itself but I weighed all this up against the thoughts of having to do flight training and exams while in Florida and decided it was worth it. I was also in the fortunate position where time rather than cost was my driving factor so I wanted to make sure I removed any possibility of not completing my PPL while I was in Florida.
Feel free to PM me if you want any more details.
Cheers,
HF