Snow Bird Trip Report
St, Augustine and Kissimmee
February 2013

The Auto Train

Our Reservations:
Our trip started out by having AMTRAK change our reservations 3 times because of track work. They have no control over that; the tracks are owned by CSX.

First I received an e-mail saying that our reservations for February 2 to Florida had been canceled and that there were no options. I was just about to call our travel agent when she called to say that she had AMTRAK on the phone. She said that they could get us on a train on February 4. That meant that we would need to check in a couple of days late in St, Augustine Beach. That didn’t make us particularly happy, but we decided take that reservation.

When our travel agent sent us our confirmation, they had us in 2 different cars. (We reserve 2 adjacent roomettes so that we can each have a lower berth). She contacted AMTRAK and got us in the same car.

A few weeks later I was joking with one of our neighbors and said that I wondered what AMTRAK would do next. The phone rang at noon that same day. It was a recorded message saying our return trip had been cancelled—no options.

I called our travel agent, and she was able to schedule us a day later than the original return trip. I made sure that she had both my cell phone number and e-mail in case there were more fun and games with our reservations. I was glad that we were using our travel agent instead of having to deal with all these problems ourselves.

Apparently all of the trains were to be in Lorton on the day of our first reservation for our return trip.

At the beginning of January, we had another call from the travel agent this time saying that the repair schedule had been changed, and we could go on the original date of February 2. Would we like to do that? The answer was yes.

None of us noticed it until we checked-in in Lorton that we had been put in 2 different cars for our return trip. We were told because the train was full, she couldn’t do anything about it then. It was suggested that we get to the station in Sanford a little early and try to take care of it then.

When we arrived in Sanford, I went to the check-in counter and told the AMTRAK agent about the problem. Again because the train was full, She couldn’t do anything about it then, She did make a note of it on our return reservations. The AMTRAK agent made a point that they always try to put families together as a courtesy. I suspect the 2 different cars were a computer at work.

Our Auto Train Trip
Friday, February 1, 2013
We drove to Lorton a day early and checked into the Comfort Inn that was purpose build for AMTRAK. Because of an incident with the fire alarm last year we received a 20% discount in addition to the AMTRAK rate.

Saturday, February 2:
We got to the station only to find out that the train coming from Sanford would not be in until 1PM. The usual arrival time is 9:30 AM and the train is usually early.

The freight cars were ready, so the car loading started on time.

When the north bound trained arrived, they really hustled to get people to their cars as they always do, but a little more so this time.

While we were waiting to board, there were several people that were asked to bring their keys to the check in desk or to bring their cars from the parking lot so that they could be loaded. They called one number, “207” about every 15 minutes. Cars are assigned numbers in no particular order as they check-in. Multiple calls were made for other people to bring the keys so that the cars could be loaded.

At one point, they made an announcement that if you expected your car to be in Florida when you got there, they needed the keys to your car. If not, you were going to have an unwelcome surprise. They were still calling for “207.”

“207” finally did show up with keys. When we got to Sanford, 207 was one of the first cars unloaded. There was a lot of speculation that the delay in turning keys in so late was intentional so that the car would be an early off-load.

We boarded about an hour late. Our trip was uneventful. We had dinner with a couple that have been taking the Auto Train for 22 years. We choose to have breakfast in our roomette since we don’t think much of the breakfast served on the train.

Neither of us thought that we slept. However, I slept very soundly sitting up after breakfast. I must have slept some during the night because I was not my usual wiped out in the morning. I do remember checking our clock at 1:30. It is an atomic clock. The next time I looked it was a complete blank. So, around 1:30 AM or so, I was figuring out how to use my cell phone as an alarm clock. Then I couldn’t decide what to do with it because it kept falling out of my pocket. I ended up putting it under my pillow. We could have had a wake up call from the attendant, but thought we had a working clock. There was something in the train that wiped out the clock. When the batteries were taken out, and it was initialized, it came right back.

We arrived in Sanford about an hour late.

While we were waiting for our car I decided to go to the check-in desk and ask about getting us in the same car on our return trip. Again, I was told by the AMTRAK agent that the train was completely filled, so she couldn’t make a change, but would add a note to our reservation.

When we checked in on Monday, February 25, we had been moved to the same car. The AMTRAK agent said that a lot of people had been split up and he’d been making calls all morning to people that were traveling alone to see if they would change to another car. He said that so far no one had returned his calls. He went on to say that the train was completely full with not a single seat or sleeper available. I asked if the was unusual for a Monday. He said that it was unusual for any day.

This is not a train that you want to wait for at a railroad crossing. There were 27 special train cars for transporting vehicles, 19 passenger cars (I can’t remember how many sleepers and how many coaches), 2 lounge cars, 2 dining cars and 2 locomotives. That made the train a total of 52 cars long.

St. Augustine Beach
Sunday, February 3:
We had our car after only about a 45 minute wait and headed for St. Augustine Beach.

The drive from Sanford to St. Augustine took about 2 hours. We don’t like driving on 95 and check-in was not until 4PM. We took Route 46 to Route 415 (Tomoka Farm Road) to International Speedway Drive in Daytona and crossed the causeway to A1A. From there it was a straight shot up A1A. We made a stop for lunch in Ormond Beach.

Of course, we arrived at the resort early. Our unit was ready. That was welcome news.

After unloading the car and getting settled in, we headed for Publix. We didn’t find it. So we picked up a few things to eat at Winn Dixie. We watched the Super Bowl and headed for a good night’s sleep

The Beach Club at St. Augustine Beach is in a residential area and surrounded by some lovely large homes. It was a wonderful quiet location with very easy access to Historic St. Augustine.

We had a spacious one-bedroom unit except for the bathroom. The sink adjoined the bedroom. The shower and the toilet were closed off by a sliding door. Once the sliding door was closed that part of the bathroom made a standard cruise shop bathroom seem large.

Monday, February 4:
The resort had a breakfast this morning. We were assured that it was not a sales pitch for the resort. It was not. It was informational with a couple of vendors talking about their services. The breakfast was very nice with fresh squeezed orange juice, and a nice choice of continental breakfast items.

They had a drawing for some prizes. We won a Segway Tour of St. Augustine. Since we are both over the age limit, we declined and told them to give that to somebody else. We were given a free gift at Rita’s Water Ice. We never used it.

One of the employees offers carriage rides on Wednesdays and Saturdays and is a licensed tour guide for Historic St. Augustine. The carriage rides are $75. Her carriage holds 4 so the cost can be split by the passengers.

After lunch, we did our usual get the lay of the land drive and found a couple of restaurants we intended to try. We had a hard of time finding one of them even though I’d seen it when we came in on Sunday. It didn’t help that our GPS has been giving us some really strange directions.

This time we did find Publix and did our shopping for the most of the week.

We had dinner in.

Tuesday, February 5:
There is a free shuttle from the resort. However if you use the shuttle, you have to buy tickets for the Red Train. The Red Train is a good option for first time visitors. We had done that before and did not want to be tied to the train schedule.

We drove to St. Augustine and planned to park in the parking lot behind the Lightner Museum. The map that we had showed all of the one-way streets going in the wrong direction. The GPS took us on a tour of St. Augustine. Since I was the navigator, I finally go us on one of the streets that adjoined the parking lot.

We actually pulled into a public lot across the street from the museum, and didn’t find the lot behind the museum until later.

You pay at a kiosk then put the receipt on your dashboard. It costs $1 for 4 hours.

We spent the morning in the Lightner Museum. We enjoyed the playing of the “musical instrument collection” by one of the docents. This collection is music boxes, street organs and a several other things.

We had lunch in the Café Alcazar. The Lightner Museum was originally a hotel built by Henry Flagler. The café is in what was the swimming pool of the hotel. The pool was filled from a sulphur spring and is huge. We can’t even imagine how foul smelling that was. Today it is the café and an antiques mall. You can look down into it from balconies in the museum that were there when it was a hotel.

It is a delightful place for lunch with good food and good music. As it happened the guitarist that was playing the first time we were there was there again. I bought 2 more of his CDs and told him that we were hoping that he was there. He said he isn’t there very often, so our timing was good.
After lunch, we walked to the Dow Collection of Historic Homes. The docent told us that none of them had been moved, but all of them were where they had been built. That was not exactly correct because one had been moved. It was interesting as to why and how Dow (not of Dow Jones) acquired the homes.

On the way back to the car, we found the parking lot that we had been looking for in the morning.

The resort had given us a list of employee favorites for restaurants when we checked in. We were both tired so decided to go to the Oasis for dinner. Nothing fancy, but the food was good and it was right on the corner of A1A and our street so very handy.

Wednesday, February 6:
It rained in the morning, and I had not slept well the night before so I went back to bed after breakfast.

After lunch we paid a visit to the sculpture garden in the Veteran’s Memorial Park in St. Augustine Beach.

Dinner in.

Thursday, February 7:
We headed for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Our 1 year old, well-known brand GPS showed that the intersection we wanted was 17 miles away. We were, in fact, at the intersection at the time. I will be having a discussion with G *when we get home.

At first we were a little disappointed. It seemed the entire place was all about Bob Hope. Actually, the first floor presents the criteria and the process for being chosen as a member of the Hall of Fame. The rest of the first floor was dedicated to Bob Hope.

The second floor started with an interesting history of golf. There was docent walking around showing people several kinds of old-fashioned golf balls.

They had a mock-up of the way that greens were maintained during the early years of golf. Putters were provided so that you could try it. The grass was really long compared to today’s greens. There were displays of old golf clubs, and then displays relating to the members of the Hall of Fame. It was interesting and worth a one time trip.

We had lunch in the café. After lunch, we played the regulation 18 hole putting course that is included with your admission. We both played about 1 over par on some very challenging holes, not bad for 2 people who have not played golf in years.

You also get one shot on the Hall of Fame Challenge Hole. A hole in one wins you a trip to a major tournament. We passed on that one. The hole is surrounded by water. I know for sure where my ball would go. Paul might have made it. (Doubtful).

We had dinner at the Purple Olive in St. Augustine Beach. (I kept calling it the Purple Onion, oh well).

The food was wonderful, and they have a very extensive wine list. We started with the Soup de Jour. I had Diver Scallops with Meyer Lemon Hollandaise. (You have a long list of choices for sauces for grilled items). Paul had Pork Gorgonzola . We shared the Gateau for dessert. It was huge and would have been way too much for one person. It was also scrumptious. Our waiter said that his wife calls about once a month to tell him to bring some home. Our dinner total including drinks, tax and gratuities was $79.84

Friday, February 8:
We headed back to St. Augustine. This time we parked in the Visitors Center garage. It is $10.00 for the day.

There was a special Picasso Exhibit at the Visitors Center as part of St. Augustine’s 450th Anniversary in 2015. Apparently some of the work had never been out of Spain before. We are not Picasso fans, but decided we should see the exhibit. The entire thing with the exception of a few pieces of pottery and some facts about Picasso consisted of drawings of bulls and bull fights. I found it humorous that our receipt for the exhibit showed Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

After seeing the exhibit we took a stroll down St. George Street and did a little shopping. We had lunch at the Florida Cracker Café. The place was jammed, and with good reason. They have good food with a lot of variety and very good service.

After lunch we continued about half way down St. George Street. The Spanish Village and the Oldest School House are being renovated for the 450th Anniversary and are closed.

On the way back to the unit we stopped at the Marble Slab for ice cream, picked up a few things at Publix and then walked to Peterbrooke Chocolatier.

After that it was back to the resort and dinner in.

Saturday, February 9:
We spent another day in St. Augustine. This time we knew how to get to the lot behind the Lightner Museum. We pulled into a place, and I walked to the kiosk to get our receipt to put in the windshield. On the way back to the car I noticed signs saying, “Parking by Permit Only.” That part of the lot was full except for the space we were in. We were able to go up the street a little. That took us into the lot we wanted. There was plenty of parking there.

Our first stop was the Villa Zorayda. After 8 years of extensive renovations it was re-opened to visitors February of 2010.

It is built to 1/10th the scale of a section of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.

Villa Zorayda was built by Franklin Smith utilizing his method of construction for poured concrete and crushed coquina shell. This method of building was widely used in St. Augustine by Henry Flagler.

There are many interesting objects on display including an Egyptian cat hair rug. There are copies of the scrollwork at the Alhambra and some actual tiles from the palace.

The tour is interesting and done with an audio device that is very simple to use.

After our tour, we walked from the opposite end of St. George Street to about the middle. We stopped for lunch at the Bunnery. It seemed to be a very popular place.

After lunch we went to Potters Wax Museum. Madame Tussaud’s it is not. But, it was interesting to stroll through. Some characters were identified, and some were not. Sometimes you could figure out who they were, and sometimes you could not.

After resting a while in our unit, we set out for dinner. We had reservations for 7:00 at the Wild Flower Café in St. Augustine Beach. It was a very strange experience.

When we arrived every table was full. It is a very small restaurant. The outside is deceptive making it look much larger than it is.

The hostess said that they would have a table for us “in a few minutes.” We had about a 20 minute wait. Several people came in while we were waiting, some with reservations, and left again. What neither of us realized was that the restaurant closed at 8:00. We would have made an earlier reservation if we’d known that.

After we were seated and ordered our drinks. Our waitress said, “ I hope you didn’t come for prime rib because we ran out.” Apparently, Saturday night is prime rib night here. We didn’t know that.

We said no we really hadn’t planned to do that. We placed our order. A few minutes later the waitress came back to say that my salad would be slightly delayed because they ran out of lettuce and were in the process of getting some. She was very apologetic. I simply commented that it was okay, and it looked like she was having a stressful evening. Paul had the Seafood Chowder.

While we were waiting for our main course, the waitress went to the 2 tables behind us and told them that they were out of whatever it was they had ordered; would they like to order something else. One table did, the other paid for their drinks and left.

Our dinner was served with no further problems. I had the Old City Chicken and Paul had the Pork Snitchzel. The food was excellent. We did have dessert that was also excellent, but neither of us can remember what we had

There never was any attempt to rush us out of the restaurant even though it was around 8:30.

By then only the two of us and one other couple sitting behind me were left in the restaurant.

We had to laugh when he proclaimed that no way was he sharing his Crème Brulee with his wife. Sounded like some conversations we’ve had about dessert.

When I asked the waitress if it was always that crazy on Saturday, she said yes but this one had been particularly crazy because they had an unusually high number of walk-ins. They recommend reservations, but don’t require them. The walk-ins had to be seated.

Despite the craziness of the situation, we would go back again as the food was worth a return trip. The total for our dinner including drinks and gratuity was $56.44

Kissimmee
Sunday, February 10-Monday, February 25:
It was time to check out and head for our 2 weeks + 1day in Kissimmee.

We had lunch at Smoky Bones and headed for the resort. Our unit was ready so we had no wait at all.

Since we mostly just live here for 2 weeks, just a few things will be noted.

Sunday, February 17:
The only “tourist thing” that we did was to go to the The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park. We had a very difficult time finding it primarily because the street sign that we needed was hidden behind a huge palm tree from coming from our direction. We found the museum when we had given up and were backtracking to return to Kissimmee. In the process of getting lost, we found the Orlando Museum of Art and signs for the Leu Gardens. We will visit them on another trip.

The Morse Museum was worth finding. They have the most comprehensive display of Tiffany in the world. It is a stunning collection of all of the things that Tiffany made, not just stained glass. Many of the items that are on display were donated to the museum after Tiffany’s home in Long Island burned down. Senior Admission was a grand total of $8.

Eating In:
On the nights we ate in, we made good use of Publix prepared entrees. They have different selections every day. It is an expensive way to eat in but made life easy. So even when we ate in, I really wasn’t doing any serious cooking.

Restaurants:
Everything else is about restaurants. As far as restaurants there is nothing new or notable. We eat at several chains that we like (Smokey Bones, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, and Red Lobster). We also ate at few independent restaurants. However, the Kissimmee/ Orlando area seems to be mostly large chains and about eating huge amounts of food.

Tuesday, February 12:
We ate at Frankie Farrells Irish Pub and Grill next to the Lake Buena Vista Outlet Mall. Paul had Shepherds Pie and I had the Guinness Stew. Paul had “Apple Pie” for dessert. It was more like what we would call an apple crisp. This restaurant caters to the Irish/British crowd. I think we were the only ones in there that didn’t sound like they were from some place in Great Britain. As a result gratuities are handled in the same way they are in most European countries. A 15% gratuity is added to your bill. With drinks and a small amount added to the gratuity as is done in Europe for good service our dinner totaled $62.83

Thursday, February 14:
Since this was Valentines Day, restaurants would be crowded. We ordered take-out from our favorite Chinese restaurant that is simply called China. There are no good Chinese restaurants near us at home so good Chinese food is always a treat.

Saturday, February 16:
We decided to go to Downtown Disney. While we were walking around Downtown Disney, we happened on a group middle school kids from the Chicago area in a Chamber orchestra. They were so good that we went back later to see the show choir from the same school. Another group from their school had performed earlier.

We had an early dinner at Capn’ Jack’s in Downtown Disney. Neither one of us could remember the name. I thought it was Capn’ Jim’s and Paul thought it was Capn’ Bill’s. We figured out we were talking about the same place when we agreed about where it is in Downtown Disney.

We both had the crab cakes and shared the chocolate cake for dessert. The total including drinks, and gratuity was $93.58

Monday, February 18:
Red Lobster was having their “Lobster Fest,” so we decided we would go there for dinner. Our experience at the Red Lobster close to Old Town was certainly was unique.

After we were seated, we waited for about ½ hour for the waitress to show up. It was really annoying after another waitress walked by at least 5 times looked at our table and kept going. It seems that she could have at least asked if anyone had served us. She was wearing a headset so was not just a waitress. No other waitresses were wearing headsets.

The woman that should have been taking care of us was serving people across the room and her back was always to us. She never looked to see if anyone else had been seated.

We were literally leaving when she managed to show up 30 minutes after we were seated. (This was no young kid).

She brought our drinks and the basket of cheddar biscuits. We placed our order. People all around us who had come in after we did, were being served. After almost an hour went by and no food, it was time to talk to a manager. We did discuss just leaving, something we ordinarily would never do.

The manager was appalled and said that waiting 30 minutes without even being greeted was unacceptable. He asked to be shown where we were sitting so that he could take care of the problem. As we were talking to him, other people that had come in after us were being served which we pointed out.

He said that he would make sure that we had our dinner at no charge. My reply to that was or we could pay for our drinks and leave and never come back. Of course, he really didn’t want that. He went on to say that his objective was to make us want to come back.

After the manager left our table, the couple behind Paul stopped him. I heard the manager say that he hoped that the solution to whatever their problem was satisfactory.

Between dinner and dessert, the waitress that was supposed to serve our table and had taken our order asked if we wanted any cheddar biscuits to take home. Then went on to say that the delay was inexcusable. She was standing behind my side of the booth which backed up to the doorway for another room...The manager could not see her. Paul said nothing, I said, “Yes, it was.” In a way that she knew that conversation had ended. She never apologized.

At the end of the meal, a bill was brought to our table. The manager saw it and got very upset. He told us we never should have gotten that. We assured him that it showed a balance of 0.

In the end, we had a free dinner and drinks and an apologetic manager that said he hoped we would consider coming back. Not gonna happen!

[b]Wednesday, February 20:[/b]
The Olive Garden that we go to is within easy walking distance of our resort. They were not as busy as they have been in the past. Darden, the company that owns Olive Garden and the other chains we went to, is making changes to address that.

We’ve always found this to be a relatively inexpensive meal. They are now offering a 3-course meal for $12.99 with some decent choices. Paul ordered from that. I ordered from the regular selections. Our total with drinks, entrees, dessert, espresso for me and gratuity totaled $60.99

Friday, February 22:
The Bahama Breeze in the Lake Buena Vista area is very difficult to get in and out of at night. The one on International Drive is much easier, but we didn’t feel like driving into Orlando.

Lunch became our main meal of the day. Paul started out with a Rum Punch which he said wasn’t very strong. I had iced tea. We both had a cup of seafood chowder, and the coconut shrimp with broccoli and yellow rice.
For dessert Paul had bread pudding. Even though I hate bread pudding, he always wants me to taste his. It was actually good for bread pudding. He didn’t care for it because it was not traditional enough and had too much coconut in it. I had the key lime pie. The slice was huge. I cut it in half and took half with me. The total for our meal including gratuity was $68.49

Sunday, February 24:
We always save our favorite, the Columbia Restaurant in Celebration, for last. This year instead of the main dining room, we decided to try the Tapas Bar. They actually serve the full menu in there as well as the tapas. Just for something different we did order tapas.

The food as always was delicious. Service was excruciatingly slow. However, the waiter was as attentive as possible since he was also the bartender and the only waiter in the Tapas Bar.

Paul started with a 1905 Martini and had a glass of wine with dinner. I stuck to my one glass of wine. A small hot loaf of Cuban bread is given to the each person at the table. I have to be careful not to fill up on bread so I can eat my dinner.

We ordered Empanadas de Picadillo, Tortilla Espanola (an omelet), and Scallops Casimiro. The omelet was larger than we expected. The waiter left the menu with us “just in case” we decided we needed more food. We didn’t.

I had to ask Paul for a piece (or 2) of bread because I’d told the waiter I was done with mine. The buttery sauce left in the bottom of the scallop dish was way too good to leave.

For dessert, Paul had the white chocolate bread pudding that they all rave about. Yuck! It tastes like the kind I hate.

I usually have the Churros for dessert. This time I decided to try the Guava Turnover. It was delicious. The top reminded me of the sweet gallette that we had in France.

The total for our meal including gratuity was $90.95.

Monday, February 25:
Time to check out and head for the Auto Train for the trip home.

Tuesday, February 26:
We arrived in Lorton at 10AM about half an hour late. We didn’t get our car until almost noon. We stopped at a Burger King in Lorton for lunch so that we wouldn’t have to find a place to eat once on the road.

We had heavy rain almost all of the way home. We arrived home around 5 PM.

Sue