It's one of the most difficult demolition tasks. Since you're in Florida, I'm thinking maybe your tile is on concrete. Here, you can use a tool called a demolition hammer; it's like a heavier version of a hammer drill. You'd use as wide a chisel blade as you could get, and work from an edge, cutting the bedding mortar line underneath the tile proper. you would still be left with a lot of mortar on the slab to be ground or abraded off.
If a mud job on wood, you can usually find the tarpaper layer and start cutting and prying from there. The wire reinforcement in the mud bed will fight you, and be wary of sharp metal edges that want to cut you.
If thinset on wood or cement board, well, that's probably the easiest to break up and pry out.
I have yet to demo one of the isolation membrane type jobs, so I can't tell you how easily those come up.
Casey

I recently removed ceramic tile from our terrazo floors here in Florida. If the terrazo was prepared correctly before the tile was installed, it is time consuming to get up the tile with the demolition hammer. I rented mine from the Home Depot. Fortunately(?) for us, the tile installers did NOT clean and strip the terrazo in most places, so the tile came up easily.

My husband and I have debated installing wood flooring, also. But we stick with tile because of the high humidity here in Florida, and also because of the sandy soil here. I think we would be "sanding" a wood floor all the time just by walking around.

Good luck with your project.

I took up the tile in our bathrooms myself. I am on slab like you. I thought it was going to be a difficult task, but I found it to be surprisingly easy. It was definitely time consuming, but it was worth it. The guy that laid my tile was going to charge me $1,000 to take it up. Make sure you wear a mask. There will be A LOT of dust so you may want to shut any doors you can. You can do it, though.

Thanks for the thoughts and ideas. I think we are going to go ahead and give it a shot. We may regret it, but I loathe those tile floors so much that I am willing to live with demolition for a few months if necessary to get the job done!

If the extra thickness isn't a problem you might consider laying the new floor right over the tile. I had some old ceramic tile in a kitchen I'm remodeling. I was able to scrape some up but the rest was adhered VERY well and had to be beat to tiny bits with a mini-sledge in order to get it up. Pieces of tile were flying across the room and smaller bits were impaling themselves into my unfinished sheetrock! Broken ceramic is as sharp as a razor so wear leather gloves and eye protection.

Yikes! Thanks, John, we will be sure to cover up. I thought about just laying it over the tile, but these tile aren't smooth, so I don't think it would be a good foundation for the wood. Thanks for the suggestion, though.