Informative As a native Floridian, I've been to St. Augustine several times in my life, so this time wanted to do things I hadn't done before. The Conquistatour was one of them. I signed my husband and I up on the computer at home and paid online. I was a little worried about the weather, but brought an umbrella in case of too much rain or too much sun (as the website suggested). In the end, we had beautiful, if a little too hot, weather.We arrived early, parking in the parking garage next to the St. Augustine visitor center - $15 per car entrance to the garage. The lower level of the lot was not yet full, but getting there. We had time to kill, so used the restrooms and visited the visitor center gift shop and exhibits. Then, we went to the area between the parking garage and the visitor center and sat on a bench waiting for the tour time.Eventually, we saw the tour operator on another bench opposite and connected with him -- although still well before tour time. He let us know we were the only people who had signed up (and they don't seem to do walk-ins) so we could go ahead and get started. I was grateful to start early as it was only going to get hotter that day! It was great to have a private tour so that we could always be close enough to hear the guide.If the tour guide gave his name, I missed it. He started right off telling us some interesting facts about the art installations outside the visitor center. I think I would have appreciated a 5 minute introduction at the start to sort of set the overall history of St. Augustine -- I think he took for granted that we knew or had already heard much of the history. I had, but I need a lot of reminders to keep it straight! LOLThe guide escorted us down the street in front of the Castillo, past the lion's bridge, we stopped at the Plaza de la Constitution, went down St. George Street, entered the Hotel Alcazar and ended near Flagler College. (I may have the order slightly mixed up.) The most interesting part of the tour was in the hotel which the first floor had been flooded with water to create an olympic pool (where Johnny Weismuller / Tarzan once swam)...and it was air conditioned in there and that really helped at that time of day! The guide gave us lots of interesting tidbits that we wouldn't have otherwise known, so we thoroughly enjoyed our time. At the end, he helped us get back to the Plaza de la Constitution which is where we planned to have our picnic lunch. He was very helpful.
- 9/24/2021