I'm actually not starting up or closing the pool, just doing a drain and refill.

I bought my house last summer. The last owners didn't take great care of the pool. The hardness is through the roof.
So I'm going drain and refill now that the season is over.

Anyone that has had to do a refill have any tips on balancing after the fact?
I've heard horror stories of spending hundreds of dollars on chemicals after fresh refills.

What are the fill water test results?

pH
TA
Calcium Hardness

Are there any problems, such as stains or scale?

****, cant remember. I'm at work.
If i remember correctly, the tap water is pretty in balance save the alkalinity.
I think the alkalinity of the tap was a lot lower than the pool should be.

My assumption is you plan on doing a partial drain and refill. Draining all at once is usually fine in a gunite pool but, if your water table is high, you don't want to do that but rather do a series of partials.

Posting you test results would be very helpful.

Tap:
FC = 0
PH = 7
TA = 100
CH = 90
CYA = 0

I plan to replace about 80% if the water so I didn't test the current water. Not to mention I'm out of regents.

Oh yeah, and I do have scale as a result of the CH being way to high.

Check your water table around the pool! Doing that in FLA. can result in your pool floating out of the ground like a boat.

North Texas. The ground is pretty hard here.

80% should be just fine. Being somewhat chicken, I would probably do 70% on one drain and then 20%-30% on a second one. That'll accomplish virtually the same thing with only a little extra water lost.