E38 St Augustine Fla and then Walt Disney World

Relax RV Podcast

Episode 38
1/2020
We arrived in St Augustine. We had a chore day, laundry, podcast and Trish did a workout. That evening we watched a episode of Cheers. In the summer if 2019 we visited the namesake bar in Boston and will watch the entire show. It brings back memories of our trip there and puts a smile on our face. And that my friends is Stress Management.
The next day we drove into St Augustine and paid $15 to park. We visited Fort Castillo de San Marcos. While it is a dirt in the oldest city in the USA, it is not the oldest fort. It was built in 1672. It is a National Park so our NP pass got us in for free. They had great docents and had a cannon firing ceremony. From there we went to the Visitors Center on San Marco Ave. We inquired about sites to see and she suggested a trolley tour. We said we would rather walk to various sites. She said there are 16 miles of roads and you can't see everything on foot. And again directed us to the trolley tour. It seemed like she was only interested in pushing the tour. We asked her hair far it was too Flagler college, which is on the other side of the city, she said 1/2 mile. So we didn't take the trolley lol. The trolly which is a hop on hop off bus was $25 per person. If you bought the ticket, the 2nd day was $10. We planned on seeing the city for 2 days and so we just saved $70. That will pay for a couple meals for us and will give us some exercise. We spent the day hitting the shops in town and there was a lot of them. We figured if we took that Hop on Hop off tour bus would be hopping off every block. We stopped at the City Gate Spirits and I got the spiced orange rum. Talking with the server and we explained to her how much more we enjoyed Savannah as compared to St augustine. She said St Augustine is the bigger sister to Savannah. Savannah has a younger energy, more history and a better vibe. You brought sandwiches from the RV and we found a courtyard where we could sit and enjoy them. This was next to the Top Mill bar. There was a guy singing at the bar and we could hear it in the courtyard which was really nice. We then hit more gift shops (very touristy). We then walked to Flagler college. They had a 2pm tour so we planned to do that the next day. We walked a couple of blocks over to St Augustine winery. They had a great free tour and samples. Then on to more gift shops. And tourist attractions. And tourist traps. One place we really liked was the oldest school in the US. We gladly paid the $10 and really enjoyed it. After that we had dinner at Mi Casa and had excellent mahi mahi. Then as evening fell we sore different side of St Augustine the pub started filling up and we hit the no name bar. They had a great patio and an excellent musician. The next day we went over and took the tour of Flagler college. We were surprised to learn that in this college there is a deaf school, a girls school, and the only Masters program for the deaf in the country. The tour was $12 and was excellent. We then went over to St Augustine distillery. We took their excellent free tour and samplings. We had three sample cocktails one of which Trish actually liked lol. In the eight plus years we were together Trish has liked 3 drinks: Pina coladas, a Moscow mule at glacier National park, and now they're ru with tropical tiki mixer. We were talking to the owner of The distillery and he said he had the best retirement job. And I shook his hand and said I feel like I have the best retirement job. And I guess that's the key to a happy life. We then walked the waterfronts and over to the Old Town district which was really nice. We then went to the colonial oak music Park and visited the St Augustine seafood company and we got a mahi mahi sandwich. Which wasn't all that great. We also got conch fritters which are tough too heavy and too greasy. From there we walked and listened to a few bands and came to the conclusion Savannah has history in an upbeat vibe St Augustine is shops and bars. St Augustine reminded us of the Jersey shore. We then visited our lady de la leche shrine would celebrate Mary breastfeeding baby jesus. It's the only statue we've ever seen that showed that. Places we didn't go to was the fountain of youth which was $18 per person, the old jail, the oldest house, and all of these things are connected to the trolley tour. Seems like they're very money driven regarding tourism.
The busiest restaurants we saw was pizza time which is touted as a second best in the US and the prohibition kitchen both of which had lines to get in. The next day we had a low key day planning more of this trip.
On January 13th we drove Westwood for two and a half hours to Trimble Park in Dora florida. We were here for two different reasons one the cost it was $17.50 a night and 40 minutes to Disney. We talked about staying at Fort wilderness campground but decided against it because each day we would have to move the RV from site to site and the cost was a little prohibitive. We decided we would save money and enjoy a nice calm ride to Walt Disney world as opposed to spending the extra money at Fort wilderness. It was just the two of us with no kids so we didn't need to get there when the park opened and stay all day till the Park closed which was really nice. We were hoping to find a boondockers welcome location near Walt Disney world but no such luck. But when we got to Trimble park we were really happy we chose this place. What a beautiful park. relaxrv.org/discounts. Our site was right on the lake. We set up the rig and walked the trails which were about 2 miles. Each side had two benches facing the water, a fire ring, picnic table and grill on a pad. This was the best campground we had ever stayed in. For the two days visiting Walt Disney world in Epcot center we set the alarm for 7:00 a.m. had breakfast drove to Walt Disney world. the 1st day we visited WDW and the 2nd day we visited Epcot. This is our first time coming here without children which was really nice. We were surprised how they updated a lot of the rides such as the pirates of the Caribbean and the whole presidents. And thank goodness they did not update the haunted Mansion and it's a small world. Space mountain was a little bit of a disappointment as an adult. Visiting it as a kid it was a state-of-the-art roller coaster and now not so much. Trish loves beauty and the beast so we visited Gaston's in Fantasyland. We had loaded the Walt Disney world app on the phone which had an interactive map which was great for navigating around the parks. One thing we were really surprised that was in Walt Disney world there's no place to buy glass of wine or beer unless you sit in the restaurant. Interested in the restaurant you need reservations. We made dinner reservations on the app but then decided we wanted to change the time and their policy was to charge $20 to cancel a dinner reservation. We ate at Tony's Town square and was pleasantly surprised to find the food and wine prices to be very reasonable. After dinner we went to main Street USA and watch the fireworks. Phenomenal. We positioned ourselves near the gate so once the fireworks were over we hurried to the ferry boat which was the fastest way to the parking lot. The other way over to the parking lot is the monorail. The next day we went over to Epcot. We were surprised to find that there was a big "Frozen" presence now. I wanted to write on the test track but as usual it was being worked on. We went over to spaceship earth which we really liked. We felt that Epcot was actually two separate parks. One area had all of the countries. And the other side was everything else like future world and all of that. We ate in France which was delicious. Then we visited Morocco and bought really reasonably priced spices. There was little stands in each country that serve beer and wine and cocktails from that region of the world. France had the cheapest wine it was a nice day, 85° in January. And in January there was short lines and not very crowded at all. The longest line was space mountain which was about 45 minutes. We strongly recommend visiting Walt Disney world in the offseason.
The next day we packed up and drove over to Avalon RV Park in Clearwater Florida. We had been reserved at a KOA campground near there which was almost $100 a night. About a week before we got to this area Trish found this park which was a passport of America relaxrv.org/discounts . And the cost was$22.50 a night. The pork is tight but it was fine. Mainly seasonals there. But very friendly. We were walking around and I met a woman named Connie who is the retiree from Sun Mount ddso in NY. Which is a sister agency I had worked at. You know it really is "a small world". They had a band playing in the clubhouse at night which was a lot of fun.
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