Sun Outdoors St. Augustine

I was debating on writing this review because several of the sites looked quite good. Ours was not.

Our site was broadside to the main road, which is unfortunate but not a deal breaker in itself but did mean that we had very little privacy and had a lot of noise. This site was the most unlevel site we have stayed in. Finally, the power at the pedestal would shut off and come back on randomly, becoming so bad during our final night that after it had done it about 30 times, we disconnected from shore power completely for the rest of our stay.

We were hesitant about staying at a Sun Outdoors due to past experiences. Greatly surprised. We stayed in the new section, sites have pavers and are level. Nice spacing between sites and appreciate that they were able to keep as many trees as possible. Roads are wide enough to navigate. Power, water and sewer very good. Just a few miles off I-95 and easy access to downtown. We would stay here again. We camped at Sun Outdoors St. Augustine in a Motorhome.

Arrival - Great pre-arrival communication. Registration lane was very long and very accommodating. Staff came out to rig on arrival to brief. George, our escort, was very nice and knowledgeable about the local area and what it has to offer.

Tips - Pay attention to that pre arrival email for the correct directions or you'll be doing some wonky u-turns in populated areas via your GPS. While we liked site #30, you might want to look at the sites further back in the park for a little more quiet and less traffic.

Favorites - Close proximity to St. Augustine, site quality and cleanliness, park amenities, hiking trails, flora and fauna, and the park staff.

Negatives - The noise and traffic right off the main drag at the entrance/exit to the park and FL-207; it was very quiet further back in the park by the pond. The price is steep even for Florida in the winter and during spring break/bike week; no price deductions (military or clubs) during this part of the high season. Perhaps that's by design.

We stayed 2 months, and liked it enough to book again next year. It's close to shopping, attractions, etc. Full hookups, a pool, multiple bath houses and laundry facilities on site. They have events and activities almost daily, and a food truck once a week. There were several upgrades underway while we were there. I take that to mean the mgt is in this for the long run, rather than just as a money mine.

The free wifi was spotty, though. There is a premium wifi service available, but I thought it was expensive. Use your phone for a Hotspot instead.

The price varies according to when you stay and how long. They have a good discount if you book for a calendar month. If you plan to leave a day or 2 short of a full month, check the cost of booking the whole time anyway, and leave a bit early.

We stayed at Sun Outdoors in St. Augustine for five days at the beginning of September. This park is clean, quiet, nice amenities, and has decent wifi. We stayed in the Oasis section and the sites are upgraded a bit with pavers rather than a gravel pad. Our only complaint is that the drainage at our site, #138, wasn't great. The entrance to our site always had standing water. This didn't seem to be a common issue across the park, but we did see several other sites that were experiencing the same large puddling problems.

Overall I'd say this park is ok, but it needs some work. There's a lot of potential if the right people were running it.

Pros: Very friendly staff, clean/level sites, nice pool, large laundry, onsite propane sales, nice dog park

Cons: Infrastructure needs some work. In our "loop" I've only found 2 showers, one of which is basically an open stall in the room with no locks and a cheep shower curtain for privacy. Free wifi is not usable and paid service isn't worth the $0.99 per day they charge. The wifi infrastructure is good (full bars) but the underlying service is pretty much worthless. There are two dumpsters on site at opposite ends of the park. If you're in the middle, you've got quite a walk to either of them. Nice laundry facilities but they're at the opposite end of the park from where we are staying so a bit of a hike (we ended up driving over). Also, it's close to a busy highway which could be bothersome for some.

Sites: Odd or quirky is the only word I can come up with to describe them. For example our site runs perpendicular to the road while our neighbor to our right is parallel to the road. We share a front yard and the front of our rig is within a few feet of the back of their rig. Some of the pull throughs run one direction while others run the other direction. I understand buddy sites but there are very few "normal" or non-buddy pull-through sites.

Cell Service: I have a NIMO antenna and a hotspot with Verizon which would only pull in 1-2 bars. Download speeds were decent at 10mps+ but upload speeds are about 1.0-1.5. This is very surprising to me considering how close we are to St. Augustine.

Overall, I guess I expected more. This is my first stay with Sun Outdoor Resorts. After seeing a lot of raving reviews of their properties I had some pretty high expectations. This one definitely didn't set a good first impression.

We stayed here for three nights visiting our grandchildren at the beach. The staff was very friendly and the park was clean. our site was one of the smaller ones with gravel and it was fairly level. It was not to close on one side and with woods on the off door side. The other sites were pretty close together. The bathhouse was clean and close. We did use the pool but it looked nice.

We stayed here as a splurge after visiting FL state parks for the last couple months. We stayed in the newer Oasis section that has level, well spaced paver brick sites. It is farthest from the road so very quiet but also a long walk to the pool, office and clubhouse. Nice laundry is close by though. I’m not convinced that the extra $200/mo for this section was worth it as the rest of the park had nice sites too. Workers keep the park extremely clean and everyone was friendly. WiFi would have cost extra. Lots of OTA and cable channels to pick from. About 15 min to St Augustine old town and stores and a bit longer to multiple beaches.

Compass RV Resort was easy to get to. We followed the campground instructions versus our GPS. Check in was a breeze as they came out to our rig and gave us a good rundown on the CG then escorted us to site 126 in the newer Oasis area. This site had FHUs that were smartly placed midway down along the stone paver pad. Back-in was a breeze. We were glad we paid the fee to reserve a specific site as this site was probably one of the very best and most spacious in the CG. Our site had more front area lawn plus bushes that separated us from the next site. We also had to pay $3 per night for our 2 pups. The pull through sites were quite close to each other where the back in sites provided more room, this was especially true near the front of the CG. This was a large CG that was fairly full throughout our 6 nights stay but surprisingly quiet. You could hear some road noise but it was not too bad. We were in the far back of the CG but if you were more towards the office/entry you would have a lot more road noise. Their cable worked well plus there were multiple OTA channels. Some people had their satellite dishes out too. Most sites in the Oasis area would support satellite, as well as the pull through sites near the middle of the park. The older sites near the entrance had many more trees. We were surprised that we only got 2 bars on Verizon. The CG WiFi worked OK and we had a repeater next to our site. You could upgrade to faster CG internet for a fee, but we did not use this service. The CG has ice, firewood, and propane for sale. There was a small fenced dog park next to the shower, laundry and exercise facility in the Oasis section. Near the entrance there was a larger fenced dog park (about an acre) with a smaller fenced area within the dog park. St. Augustine’s historic, shopping, and restaurant area is stupid busy Friday - Sunday. Parking is limited in general and tougher for a dually. Best time to visit is during the week.

We booked a 7 night stay at Compass RV Park during Thanksgiving week. The rate reflects 7 night discount, paver (premium) site, $30 fee to reserve specific site, and $5/day extra charge for our adult daughter who came with us.

Check in was easy. They called ahead to charge remaining balance on reservation. We were guided to the site and given a gate pass for entry during the rest of our stay.

The good: The paver site area is beautiful. Nice landscaping, a little dog park, a fitness center, and a feeling of being in a separate campground from the unrenovated sites. There are quite a few "buddy" sites which got heavy use which ended up being a negative.

In addition to the little dog park in the paver site area, there is a HUGE dog park near the front of the park. It had agility tunnels, shade, etc. Our dog LOVED it.

There was a heated pool, ping pong table, cornhole, playground, etc. In addition, the resort had a scavenger hunt for kids that was very well done and gave them a prize for completing it.

The location was only about 4.5 miles from Old Town St. Augustine, so very convenient. A Dollar General was near the entrance if you need milk, etc. A Publix was being built close by.

The bad: It felt like being in a giant tailgate party much of the time. A large number of people had outdoor TVs and radios playing loudly all day long and into the night. There didn't really seem to be a quiet hour. Many of the people stayed at the campsites all day and night drinking/smoking/being loud/etc. and the noise was multiplied due to the buddy sites. Many of the people we met said they were from close by, so maybe it was unique to it being Thanksgiving week and them just wanting to have a big party.

There were a number of RVs in the unimproved area with tarps on them and people camping in cargo trailers, etc. It was separate from the paver area, but for $85/night, seemed more unsightly than expected. The unimproved area was very tightly packed with RVs.

Verizon had a reasonable signal, but poor to fair bandwidth with a cell booster. Good enough for email, etc., but not for a video call most of the time.