In St. Augustine for the Christmas Holiday and my family and I were exploring the area. It was a nice place to go a couple hours. Some interesting exhibits and it was a lovely day. HOWEVER, during the canon exhibit the re-enactor made a sexist remark about women knowing the weight of flour?! Not even sure how this is relevant to anything. It made absolutely no sense and was insulting. But other than that it was a nice and interesting ace to go.
Very cute historic place with a variety of activities and things to see. I was glad it was much more than the fountain which isn't the original fountain. Nicely set up for anyone able to walk around the park. Probably a little difficult for wheelchair access around the grounds. Beautiful property.
This is a really nice place to visit. Children and dogs are always welcome. They have dog watering stations throughout the park. The loud cannon demos may scare some pups and small children. The firing of the cannons is on a schedule so you can go to other areas of the park if you need to avoid the loud booms. All personal was incredible and love to talk about all the history at the park.
Highly recommend visiting.
Place is great when visiting St.Augustine. they have several tours available. (I highly recommend the blacksmith and Canon ball tours.) The staff are very friendly and are very knowledgeable about the history and discover of the city and of the journey of Ponce de leon. The peacocks are beautiful and luckily you can feed them since they have peanut dispensers near the gift shop for 25 cents. Highly recommend for all ages.
Living somewhat locally for years I always considered this place a bit of a tourist trap and had never entered. My mistake. Lovely grounds with historical exhibits, demonstrations, and peacocks. Was absolutely worth the time and money (not much money!). The gun demonstrations were particularly enlightening. Try and be sure to catch the cannon firing.
I didn't thinking was going to be all that good. But definitely go inside and do the tour. We spent 4 hours there and soaked up all the awesome information. Great place to bring the kids so they can run around and ask all sorts of questions. There are historians all over the park and are soooo nice. It's a LOT of walking though so bring some comfy shoes and mosquito repellent.
There was a lot more than I thought there was here, so we didn't have enough time to see everything. The grounds are beautiful, and there were plenty of live demonstrations of things (we saw the blacksmith, canon firing, and gun firing over the course of about an hour, so the events are well scheduled).
It was a very interesting park (and yes, you can drink from the fountain for free with admission).
Definitely more tourist attraction than park but we had a great time. Staff was friendly and informative and there were many shows and demonstrations to see. My little one loved the peacocks around the park.
They've done a great job building up this historical site since the last time I visited it in 2002. The theaters showing educational videos and the Globe were very well done. Beautiful Peacocks surrounding the property.
Really cool historical site to visit. Yes it is touristy but the staff are able to provide some very interesting information on the tribe and the Spanish settlers. Very educational overall and the grounds are beautiful. Peacocks, lovely landscapes and historical buildings dot the landscape. Head down the boardwalk and then look towards the settlement and you can almost imagine what the Spanish felt when they first arrived.
Pretty fun place. It was kind of small, but interesting. The one show I went to (don't know the name, sorry!) that taught about how they used the stars as navigation was pretty cool. The peacocks are beautiful, and fun to feed, but make sure to be careful, the Pigeons will "attack" you if you have your hand open and it's full of food. The Fountain itself had really gross smelling water, and it tasted disgusting, don't know how I swallowed it lol
Please don't drink the water. It made me sick. But love this place. So glad we stopped.
We used the Fountain of Youth for our wedding ceremony venue. We picked a spot by the water but it happened to be low tide so the background looked like a mud flat. That didn't really bother us though it was still pretty and nobody was paying attention to that. The only thing that really upset me was if you rent the bridal room they don't give you a key. You have to hunt someone down to have them lock and unlock the room and you don't want to leave the room unlocked with all of your stuff in there (dress/rings/boquets/etc.) while you're out decorating, trust me. While we were decorating by the water some park visitor decided to go in there and use it as a changing room for their baby and got baby s**t on the couch. I'm glad my mom noticed it before I sat down in my white dress!
This is a great place if you would like to learn a bit of the history of the area. The entry fee was a bit steep at $15 per adult. The cannon and blacksmithing demonstrations were really interesting.
Super interesting place! You could spend half a day here learning all about the interesting places and events that happened around St. Augustine. Be sure to try the water from the fountain of youth. Great place!